A couple weeks ago I asked my mum if she could babysit her beloved grandson on the first Saturday of December so I could have a date with my husband. “Sorry,” she said “your father and I are going on a cruise that week”. So then I turned to my brother, “can you babysit?” “Sorry,” he said, “I’m going on the cruise too.” What?! “Your aunt and uncle are going too, by the way”, my mum informed me. WHAT?! Why did no one invite me?! Wanting to feel included, so I joked that I was going too.

Two days later, I had purchased two cruise fares and two airline tickets.

Baby and I are going on vacation!

The very idea of traveling with a baby makes some people nervous. Parents fear the inconvenience of having to plan around a young child’s schedule or the unknowns of how a child will react on the road and in new surroundings. Here’s the thing: travelling with a baby does require more effort and planning than travelling with adults, but memories created are worth the effort.

When we had our baby, Daniel and I decided to continue to make travel a priority in our lives. We wanted to expose our child to traveling and instill in him a love for it as early as possible. Before our little turned one year old, he had been to two different countries and at least a half a dozen of international cities. In the spring, we took him on a month long vacation to France; he was only 10 months old at the time and won’t remember a moment of the trip, but we do, and we had the most wonderful time seeing baby in a new environment.

For all you who are planning a trip with a little one, I thought I’d share few things I’ve learned.

Tips for Travelling with a Baby

1. Pace yourself

When it was just Daniel and I, we would jam pack a ton of activities into each day but with  a baby’s more restrictive schedule and shorter attention spans, it is important to travel at a leisurely pace. When we were planning for our trip to France I had to constantly reevaluate our itinerary and make sure I wasn’t packing too much in. Instead, I had to plan downtime for both baby and parents ease into time zone changes and new surroundings. A leisurely itinerary helped us relax.

2. Be Flexible

Baby is on a strict schedule at home. He eats and sleeps at the same time every day, but when travelling, we let baby nap wherever and whenever. This meant that there were times where we would have to sit in a car and wait for him to finish his nap because he had fallen asleep between destinations. We would feed baby lunch and sometimes even dinner on the go, which meant eating in his stroller, on the grass, in a restaurant, cruising on park benches; anywhere and everywhere.

3. Let things go

Baby didn’t always eat and sleep well on the road. There were days where he would only take short cat naps or wake up multiple times a night. There was one time where he refused to eat anything but bread; his entire daily intake consisted of milk and baguettes. Each time out of norm, I would worry and stress over it. While Daniel constantly tried to remind me that baby was in good spirits and the sleep/eat fast would pass, I chose to fret and spent all my energy trying to fix something that wasn’t broken. It would have been a lot easier on everyone if I had just let things go.

4. Pack Light

We traveled with a reasonable amount of luggage but I did pack about 12-14 outfits for baby for a four week vacation based on a recommendation of two outfits per day from a travel website. That was a mistake. We could have gotten away with half the amount of clothes, even with all the spills and spit-ups; our accommodations had washer/dryer options which allowed for us to do laundry on a regular basis. To further minimize our luggage, we purchased diapers, wipes and baby food locally as needed.

5. Find a place to call home

As flexible as we were, we decided to adhere to baby’s early bedtime (7:30PM) as much as possible which meant staying in for the evenings. We chose accommodations that were comfortable and spacious to hang out after baby went to bed. It was also important that there was space for baby to bounce around and play before we headed out for the day (especially since he woke up dawn and nothing opened ‘til late morning).

Travelling with a baby isn’t as hard as it seems so long as you’re willing to be flexible and adapt to changing circumstances. The cost and convenience barriers preventing most from travelling are not insurmountable. In terms of convenience, we’ve always thought that our little one will become accustomed to whatever we exposed him to. The small inconveniences are worth the effort and the memories gained far outweigh the trouble. Baby had his first ice cream by the sailboats at the Jardin du Luxembourg- that’s a memory we won’t soon forget.

As for the cost of travelling with a little one, it’s not as bad as you think. We’ll take a look at that later this week. Stay tuned!

 (In case you were wondering why Daniel isn’t going, it is because he does not have enough vacation days to take a week-long trip this year. Sweet Daniel, of course, encouraged me to take a vacation with my family. He said I needed a break from working long hours the last couple of months. Plus, the cruise ship was offering a sweet promotion, baby flies free, and my mum will be there to babysit. SOLD. )