I am happy to say we survived our first family vacation with LO and it was actually easier than I anticipated! My husband had a work engagement in Thailand so we tagged along since I?m still on maternity leave and we have good friends there. It?s about a 14 hour trip from where we currently live in Ukraine and a 5 hour time difference. LO slept during both long flights and didn?t even notice the time difference. We followed her normal bedtime routine and she slept through the night every night we were there! She didn?t seem to mind the hot weather (she just ate a lot more to stay hydrated) and loved the water. Our only hiccup was that she seemed to be having some tummy trouble which I suspect may have been caused from me switching my diet from bland Ukrainian food to spicy Thai. That and I couldn't find pampers or huggies so we struggled a bit to find the local diapers that were the right size/style. But now that we?re home she?s being a bit of a crabby pants. I guess she still wants to be at the beach too!
A few lessons I learned for future trips:
I packed too few outfits for LO. I packed an outfit for each day and planned to just do wash in the sink. I quickly learned that post blow-out clothes can?t really be washed in the sink. Luckily we had our friends washing machine at our disposal.
I packed too few breast pads. With the time difference and not doing my regular pumping for the freezer my boobs were a little extra leaky. I couldn?t find any there, but found big square cotton pads that worked in a pinch J
I wouldn?t bring the boppy again. It?s wider than a plane seat so it?s a bit awkward to use and it?s a pain to carry. We also almost forgot it at hotels/the airport/plane at least three times.
My ergo was a life saver. Like Ukraine, Thailand isn?t very stroller friendly. You need to walk up 100 stairs to get to the metro and the streets are crowded. Glad I had the stroller for when we went to dinner and wanted a place to put her, but for exploring town, walking on the beach, etc the ergo was great. The only small issue was that since the culture places less of an emphasis on personal space people would often come over and touch her foot or leg. She seemed to like all the baby lovin though, so we just went with it.
Get the bulkhead seat with the bassinet. It?s awesome.
Book a babysitter for the day you get back! With the time difference we arrived back in Kiev at 10:30am. Vivian slept a lot more on the plane that we did, so she was ready to play and all we wanted to do was nap! It would have been great to have someone there to watch her while we slept and unpacked.
So all and all I am SO glad we did this. It was so nice to have family time and some warm weather after a crazy cold winter here!
Re: 1st family vacation = success!
Jill
Jamaica sounds fabulous. Enjoy and good luck!
We did not get a bassinet on the plane...oh, well. ::mobile smiley::