If You have read the blogpost of our First Family Vacation in Cabo you know I wanted to share more about our travel experience with Ezrah.
With the right mindset and the right amount of prep, our first trip with him went smoothly. I’m proud to say that we were able to make the best of it and Ezrah did very well.
One of the things I wanted to focus on before the trip was sleep training. He was six months old at the time so I made sure to start sleep training prior to the trip. That was already in the plans for us but I wanted to make sure we (us and him) could enjoy full night sleep after long days of traveling and vacation activities. After checking with his pediatrician, I chose to go with the Ferber method. He figured it out by night 6 or 7 I think.
With Sleep training, he was a much better eater, which helped put him on a feeding schedule. Having baby sleep trained and on a feeding schedule I was feeling more prepared for the trip.
Transportation
I know I wanted options when it came to moving around with him. So I got both a carrier and a travel stroller. For the carrier I went with the Infantino carrier and a travel stroller I found from Amazon.
The travel stroller we got was very much comparable to the Baby zen yoyo 2 which was at a much higher price point. It was the one I wanted to get initially as our travel/more portable stroller, but when we unboxed it, we immediately had high hopes for it and it did not disappoint. It was easy to open and close, fairly light to carry. When we were not using the stroller and he was in the carrier. We were able to put the stroller on top of our carry-ons and push it around seamlessly. Oh and did I mention how easy it was to push it around, we loved it! For a sleek, stylish looking and amazingly performing stroller, I highly recommend it!!
Feeding
For feeding, I brought 2 sets of bottles because I know I didn’t want wash the bottles every night so bottle washing was done every other night
He also started solids, and usually have purees homemade but to save packing space and easiness to feed him so I bought pouched purees from Plum Organics. A huge plus for me was the fact that they have simple ingredients in their baby food. Organic fruits and vegetables and that is it. Getting pre-made baby food in pouches was very helpful and easy. He could even hold the pouches and feed himself. We still feed them.
Items I bought that were essential to us
–Disposable microwave sterilizer bags may be the best baby invention yet! Talk about saving on luggage space! As most sterilizers are big and bulky, I thought I was going to have to sterilize his bottles by using boiled water or something. I was so happy to snag these. Easily foldable, and to use.
–Portable sound machine. This one was very compact instead of me bringing his Hatch and the battery life is long. We still haven’t changed the batteries from our trip and we still use it from time to time when he’s not sleeping in his room.
–Shaded floatie. We absolutely loved this one for pool days, it’s a shame we couldn’t use it more often. He could enjoy floating in the water with me worrying about him getting too much sun exposure, plus it was super cute!
– Extra bibs, he drools a lot so we go through plenty of bibs during the day. My sister-in-law recommended these and I love them as well. They are very absorbent.
–Inflatable mini bathtub. That was essential for us to bathe him.
–Packing cubes for keeping baby’s clothes organized.
–Portable stroller fan for when we were outside.
–Travel size drying and rack and brush for the bottles. Very compact perfect for travel
–Travel size baby dish soap. Those come in cute small bottles and only a dollar at Buybuy Baby. They were the only store that had stock in store.
–Pacifier wipes. I used them constantly.
-Formula holder. Option 1, Option 2.
–Sanitizing wipes from Honest. Used those constantly as well. As soon as we got on the plane, I wiped everything around me, he got his hands everywhere and put it right into his mouth lol!
What to know and what I would do differently
-I thought filling up all the bottles would be a good idea, but turns out it was a waste of time. Although the TSA allows you to carry a certain amount of water, what I didn’t know is that they open and check the content of every container. It took forever for them to open each bottle and check them. So in the future I will just bring the extra bottle empty and get baby water or Evian .
And to save on luggage space, if the destination is more local, I would only pack diapers and formula needed for the day and purchase the bulk of it when I arrive at the destination.
I would also buy a bigger travel diaper bag. Our regular diaper bag wasn’t too bad but it was filled to the brim and felt bulky, plus I had to carry some of his things in my bag. And let me tell you, something that you don’t want to do while traveling with a baby is fumble through a bag trying to get what you need. So having a bigger one would help keeping everything of his in one place. This is the one I bought but returned thinking I wasn’t going to need it. I love how it has extra pockets for bottles.
Finally, after doing all the prepping I had to remind myself that although exciting, this experience would be completely new for us. So giving us plenty of grace and patience was key in keeping us sane, because at times it was challenging but not impossible.
I’m definitely looking forward to our next trip with Ezrah. Travelling with our children has been something I looked forward to and now that we are here, I’m ready to take on every opportunity to create many more adventurous memories with our son.
Let me know, have you travelled with your babies/children? What was your experience? Do you have any future travel plans?
Thanks for reading and happy travels!
