How to Travel with a Baby

So you love to travel. You started off as a solo traveler. Then a few months or years later, you meet someone who also loves to travel, and decide to travel with them. Soon enough, you’re now a couples traveler and oh yay, it’s more fun with a partner.

You then tick off cities, towns, new countries and territories on your where we’ve been list. But #adulting happens: you get engaged, get married, buy a house to put down roots, and then there’s going to be a baby joining your traveling team. Here’s a guide on how to travel with a baby.

The Traveling Life (before the baby)

Before having the baby, you can just leave whenever you want, as long as you have the time and the money. If you have full-time jobs like we do, well, time is limited. We each get around 22 vacation days per year, so every single trip has to be planned meticulously. There are a few spontaneous trips but it can’t be long term trips. Heck, even weekends are vacation days for us.

Kudos if you’re a digital nomad or have your own business that can run without you, or if you’re officially retired. Your time is yours, you can do whatever you want with your time, and see the world as often as you can.

Money may be tight so you also start looking for deals or you travel hack. Research on getting the best deals for hotels, accommodation, activities, and airlines are high on your list. You spend hours poring through the information and they make you giddy and excited for your trip.

Even reading guidebooks make you giddy, happy, and excited. You even have a travel blog sharing information to the world! That’s how much you are passionate about travel. But wait, there’s something different…

The extra stuff one has to pack when traveling with a baby

Traveling with a baby is tough. If you only traveled with a backpack before, its impossible to do so now. With a baby, one has to bring diapers, wipes, bibs, a lot of clothes, baby food, formula, toys, a stroller, crib, and a car seat.

That is a lot of extra equipment and stuff that will need an extra bag. Not to mention toting the baby around can be tough, so a stroller or a carrier is essential. Say goodbye to flying with just a carry-on. If you’re planning a road trip, your trunk will definitely be full.

TIPS FOR PACKING FOR YOUR BABY’S TRAVEL:

• Create a list with things that you need for the baby. It will help keep you sane and you can tick stuff off as soon as you pack it.
• Put diapers, food, snacks, toys, wipes, and an extra pair of clothes in your bag that you can pick up easily. Put the bag beside you in the car or in front of you on the airplane. Pretty much something you can grab easily. And yes, you will definitely need a bigger bag.
• Packing cubes are life. You’ll need them. Have packing cubes for every member of your family so it’s easier to find clothes.

Traveling around baby’s nap time

Aside from the extra equipment, parents traveling with a baby need to take note of their baby’s nap time. If you’re used to going around site to site from morning until evening, then that’s not going to happen as much anymore.

Once a baby naps, you can opt to leave them in the stroller as you sightsee, but one has to be careful not to go to any crazy, loud places that may startle your baby from their sleep.

On the other end of the spectrum, if baby naps in the car seat or stroller for a few hours and then wakes up, they will be quiet for a few minutes as they process where they are. After a few minutes, they could start crying as they realize they have been strapped in for a while and need a break from their position.

That’s when you need to take them out from their stroller or car seat and carry them around. They’ll probably want to see what’s outside, and to see the world with their own eyes.

TIPS FOR TRAVELING AROUND BABY’S NAPTIME:

• Try to schedule your driving or flying around the baby’s nap time.
• Try to do your sightseeing when the baby is up. That way you can just put them in the stroller or carrier and let them see and experience what you’re experiencing too.

How to deal with your baby when they cry as you travel

You survived the nap times, great! Now it’s time to survive baby’s crying. Babies can’t talk yet, so they smile or laugh when they’re pleased or happy, and they cry or frown when they’re unhappy.

Sometimes babies can just cry out of nowhere, and they could be inconsolable even after you’ve changed their diapers, made sure they’re full, or tried to make them go to sleep.

So what do you do in this situation? Well, we prepare a lot in advance.

We write down a list of potential places where we can stop. These include the following:

• Tourist Sites – so the whole family can stretch their legs, enjoy the hours out, and tick off a new place visited in the list. These places usually have toilets to change the baby in and which parents can use too.
• Target or Shopping Malls – again, these are good places to walk around in and change the baby if needed. Some shopping malls also qualify as tourist sites. We personally prefer to go to Target because we like its feel and we could pick up groceries and stuff.
• Quick Serve Restaurants – Our family does not usually prefer sit-down restaurants since it’s harder to sit down with a baby for a long period of time. Instead, we look at Chipotle, Moe’s, or the like where we can grab a bite to eat, use the restroom to change the baby, eat quickly, then go.
• Gas stations – A chance to fuel up and change the baby.
• Rest areas – Free areas just off the interstate. Usually have big, open spaces to walk or toddle around in. Restrooms available and vending machines too.

Babies cry, there’s no stopping it. Try to figure out a reason why the baby is crying while sitting next to them in the back seat. It could be that the baby is hungry, is just tired of being strapped down, needs a diaper change, or just needs to be picked up. Stop for a few minutes to calm the baby down and be on your merry way.

Worst case, you might end up with a screaming, crying baby in the back for a few hours. In that case, headphones with audiobooks may help. Or blast up your music. You’ll get where you need to go… eventually.

Changing baby’s diapers while traveling

Rule number one: Always bring a portable changing pad when traveling. You can get this from Amazon or wait for someone to give it to you as a baby shower present by adding it to your wishlist.

Rule number two: Always bring spare plastic bags when you travel. You’ll get this for free from your grocery store runs if you live in the US. In Europe, you can buy small disposable garbage bags. You can even use brown paper bags if need be. You’ll need this to wrap the soiled diaper.

We ourselves have managed to change our baby pretty much everywhere. In the car, in the family restroom, a tourist site’s restroom, on a park bench, a hotel. The only place we have not changed the baby is on an airplane bathroom since he has not been on a plane yet.

Yes, it an be annoying to change a diaper, but it has to be done. We wrap up the soiled diaper in a spare plastic bag and just dump in the nearest wastebasket.

I forgot some items on my trip with the baby. What do I do?

First off, don’t panic. If traveling locally, then there should be a Wal-Mart, a Target, or any other grocery store nearby where you can easily pick up supplies within the US. Diapers? Wipes? Baby food? Check, check, and check. Not to mention Amazon can deliver pretty much anything within a day or two.

You can get deliveries straight to your hotel, just mention to the front desk that you’re expecting packages. The only time that forgetting something may be a problem is if a baby needs specific medication or milk that is not that readily available in stores.

It may be a bit more expensive buying stuff on the fly as compared to couponing or stocking up in advance, but remember that everything can be easily replaceable and you can buy something at your destination.

Consider the extra costs of traveling with a baby

Traveling with a baby can cost a fair bit of money. If you’re flying domestically within the US and the baby is below 2 years old, then you may be able to fly the baby for free.

If, however, you are flying abroad, you may have to pay 10% of the adult fare to fly your infant with you, even if you pay with airline points. A lot of tourist sites (at least in the US), don’t require you to pay extra for the infant to enter, so it could be a good time to enjoy a trip with the baby.

Of course, this doesn’t include all the stuff we mentioned in the section above, but there are ways to get baby stuff for cheap or for free.

Traveling with a baby is very doable

Despite the challenges and the extra baggage that traveling with a baby can pose, it is definitely very doable. Instead of the usual pack and go attitude you may have had pre-baby, you will need to plan a little bit more logistically in order to succeed on your trip.

Who said that your traveling life has to change dramatically since introducing a little one in your lives? There’s plenty of traveling families all over, and you’re just joining that demographic.

Warning: it is pretty hard, with a lot of patience and time required to travel with a baby, but it definitely is worth it as you spend time and create memories with your family.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to travel with a baby and you have relatives to lean on who live close by, you can always leave the baby with grandma and grandpa or other relatives for a few days and see the world!

Do you have any other tips for traveling with a baby? Feel free to leave them in the comments below!