travelling advice please!!

K

kellyst

Registered User
We will be taking our 1 y.o. on our first short trip to bangkok, 3 nights, 4 days. I have two weeks to go and am starting to get paranoid.

1, I’ve heard it’s very easy for babies to get diarrhea from drinking ‘foreign water’, I’m considering ‘bringing’ water from HK :p for milk and everything. Of course, hubby is not so hot on the idea. I’m a bit worried tho… coz we’d be sooo stuck if she really has a reaction, I will just be stuck with giving her water that makes her sick… any experiences on this?

2, My baby moves around non-stop… I’m less worried about the plane ride but more about how to keep her still when we can’t move around on take-off and landing. any entertainment ideas for the plane ride? especially at times when DVD player can't be turned on.

3, sterilizing bottles. We still sterilize at home, do I still need to do it with baby at 1y.o.?

4, baby food. we've been feeding her jsut pureed veges, meat etc. for the trip, don't know how i'm going to handle it. i'm starting her on some bottled Gerber baby foods, to try out taste, and thinking of bringing some just in case. how do you handle baby's eating while travelling?

any other tips or things that I might likely to forget for the trip? Pls, any tips welcome. At this point, I think I’ll end up bringing my whole house there :p
 
Travelling with a 1 year old is not easy. We just took our 14 mths old to Italy - it was hard. We had 3 adults taking care of her. But again, that was a long trip and I can offer the following suggestions based on my experience.

1) Water - get bottled water for sure. Even adults can get stomach upset. If you take let say 4-5 bottles of water, it should be more than enough for her need during the 4 days. You can also get some baby diluted juice. they come in small bottles.

2) Take off - assuming she is on your lap, you will need to buckle her up with infant seatbelt. Perhaps talk to her during the take off time, give her a toy or a teething biscuit. If you have window seat, let her look out. You might be surprised how still she will be given the new experience.

3) sterilizing bottles - we don't use bottles anymore. but I guess you can sterilize them with hot water from the hotel.

4) baby food - Feeding is a difficult part. Definitely bring enough baby food for the trip. Since my daughter didn't like bb food too much, I brought some homemade congee with me to cover the first couple meals. Before the trip, heat up the food and store it in a Thermo Bottle. When it is her meal time, take out the appropriate portion to feed her. The remaining portion can be kept warm for the next meal. The thermo bottle was my SAVIOR for the trip since we were able to make some food for her during the trip. When it's time to eat, she can have WARM food right away as opposed to baby food.

Have fun, and don't worry too much!
 
We did Bangkok when D was around 13 months. The flight is fairly easy as its less than 3 hrs. I took lots of toys for D on the flight. He watched the inflight Disney movie, played a bit and then napped.

1. We used the bottled water for formula. I can't remember which brand but we didn't have any problems.

2. Games, any kind of singing games. I remember we came back during a typhoon and were seated for a long of period time. I entertained D with a water bottle, which he was determined to twist open and close by himself.

3. Most hotels rooms have an electric kettle. I would just pour hot water over all the washed sippy cups and leave them out to dry.

4. Food was definitely the hardest in BKK. We took D's favorite cereal (Weetabix), and there were always bananas and milk at the breakfast buffet. I'd also bring back extra fruit and yoghurt back to the room for later. Lunch and dinner were hard as everything was too spicy. D was eating fried rice and some noodles before we left HK but I couldn't get him to touch it in BKK. We survived on Heinz jars, yoghurt, fresh fruit, and some extra milk at night if needed.

Don't forget sunblock, a good hat, + mossie spray.

Best not to stress. Its a short trip and before you know it, its time to head home.

Rani
 
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we were in bkk twice w/ bub. once when she was 12 mths, once last mth when she was 18mths.

1. flight, bring some new toys, so that baby is happy playing w/ new toy, books, etc. as for take off & landing, get baby's schedule to be able to drink from a bottle or sippy cup (so i sort of didn't feed her 1 hour before take off), so baby will be sucking to pop the ears cos of the change of pressure. take off & landing only last about 45mins when baby cannot move around. they can usually be entertained with new toys or a favorite toy.

2. water, i started letting baby drink bottled water evian or other brands when she was 8mths, so as to get her system ready for bottled water anywhere. she's fine so far. i don't know how adaptable is your baby's system, but i think regular bottled water should be fine?

3. sterilising bottle - i brought a small bottle of natural dish detergent from home (which i've been using to wash her dishes & bottles since she was 8mths) and new sponge. wash the bottles & eating utensils with those in the hotel room, and rinse with boiled bottled water in the kettle provided at the hotel room. i also brought & used my own towels on her eating utensils & bottles.

4. baby food - the first time (when she was 12mths) i made frozen pureed food at home (pureed vegis, cooked meat, cooked rice), put them in ice cube trays. when they're frozen packed them in individual ziplocs by the meal (hence 2 veg blocks, 1 meat bloc, 2 rice block in each ziploc). made enough supply for my trip (for you 4 days?) put them all in an ice box, buy 3M ice packs, and hand carried the ice box on the plane. ask the air service to refrigerate for me. should last until you reach the hotel in bkk. refrigerate right away. everyday, i'd put a meal in a avent diaposable cup & ask hotel room service to microwave for me. transfer to thermos bottle. and voila! as for breakfast, bring weetabix & buy fresh milk. weetabix can be purchased at the supermarket in Paragon Siam (the shopping mall in bkk). as for my second trip to bkk in august, my hubby booked the lebua hotel at state tower cos there's a kitchenette. so after check in, we just take a trip to paragon siam to go to the supermarket, buy organic fruits & vegis & chicken and cook every meal for baby.

i hope this helps. & bon voyage!!
 
Travel with Baby

We took our son to Phuket when he was 6 months old and to China when he was 14 months old. For the Phuket trip, he hasn't started solids yet and we gave him breastmilk and Watson's distilled water (brought from HK). But when he was 14 months old, we gave him boxed cow's milk (from HK) and some distilled water from HK and some distilled water from the local supermarket.

For take-off and landing, give the baby a bottle or pacifier to suck on to avoid the discomfort from the change pressure. Give him a new toy or look at/read his favourite book together.

You can get sterilizing liquid from Mannings or Watson's for the bottles, etc. Just add a few drops in water and soak the bottles in the solution, then rinse. Before use rinse the bottles again with distilled water.

Has your baby tried egg yolks yet? At breakfast, you can ask the hotel's restaurant to give you a couple of hard boiled eggs and you can put the yolk in congee and give it to your baby later.

Here is a lazy-person's way of making congee - I did this even when I was at home. Put one tablespoon of rice (uncooked) in a THERMOS mug and wash the rice with boiling water and drain. Add boiling water in the mug so that the mug is 1/2 to 3/4 full. Close the mug immediately. The congee should be ready in about 1 hr. Try this at home before you go on your trip, you might have to adjust the proportion of rice and water depending on how watery you want the congee.

For our China trip, I brought along an electrical travel pot. I bought broccolis/cauliflowers at the local supermarket and boiled the florets in our hotel room and brought them along when we eat out. You can add those to the congee as well.

I also brought along some of my baby's favourite finger food, eg. Cherrios or cornflakes (you can get the small boxes to bring to your trip).

There are some really good supermarkets in Bangkok, which stock many imported brand name foods. You could also get imported mozzarella cheese and yoghurt for your baby if he's been introduced to these foods.

Don't worry too much and enjoy your trip! :bighug
 
oh this is GREAT! thanks for all the advice!!

Joannek, we are staying at the lebua too, also for the kitchenette! more comments? stuff to watch out for? how's the baby crib? did you use it?

DTHY, the tip to making congee is excellent, will definitely try it :)

thanks to everyone again, really appreciate all the tips. makes me feel like maybe i can actually do this without having a nervous breakdown :)
 
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we brought our own travel cot, so i don't know about theone provided by the hotel.

the kitchenette is fully equipped, but my hubby specifically told them we need to use it. cos our friends who were staying at the same time had nothing in the kitchenette. so remember to ask the hotel to provide everything. but you have to get your own dish washing sponge, detergent. the fridge was full size, w/ a big freezer. so you can make a trip to the supermarket in Siam Paragon & stock up if you wanna cook there. there is thai restaurant on the ground floor (doen't belong to hotel, so not expensive) where we order rice, put in the fridge & reheat for baby everyday.

i let baby sleep in the separate living room & we slept in the bedroom. it was nice & dark & quiet in the living room (but we had to move the furnitures around to accomodate the cot comfortably.) (but you might want to consider bringing the baby monitor w/ you.) it's actually quite a nice hotel. the breakfast buffet is very good!!
 
i'm taking my 7 month old to phuket in a few week for 5 days, was planning to take enough jars for the trip and a box of ready brek/weetabix. Some milton tablets for sterilizing the bottles and possbily my hand blender for fruit i can puree in the hotel room. Can you buy evain water in Phuket?
 
there is only one tesco supermarket in phuket where they sell evian, it's like 30mins by car from that big beach (i forgot the name)
 
joannek,

one more question. which travel cot did you use? i'm trying to find one, but all of them seem sooo huge??
 
kellyst, the one i bought is quite big (cos i wanted to be able to use it until baby is 3). it's from mamas & papas from b2b. it weighs 14 kgs. so it's pretty big.

normally 4-5 stars hotel provide baby cot for free. i had to buy the cot cos we travel to places where we stay w/ friends/ family a lot, where they don't have baby cots. if you're going to stay in hotels, don't bother lugging the 10+kgs thing on board.
 
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