HOW TO TRAVEL WITH A BABY | Everything You *NEED* To Know!

Hey everyone, welcome back to my channel. My name is Nikole, and if you guys are new here, I am a mommy of a now almost nine month old. Her name is Sage. And recently, in the last couple of months, we went on our first family trip, which I vlogged the whole thing, so you guys can check that out. I'll have a little playlist down below. We went to Florida for almost three weeks. It was an amazing trip. Honestly, I feel like it was meant to be. And yes, I was a little nervous at first, traveling with a baby for the first time in a new world where just traveling in general is just not as common of a thing as it once was. And there's just so many rules and new things to keep in mind when traveling. And I know a lot of people still aren't comfortable with traveling, but I wanted to do a video on how to travel with a baby under one, because I know I get so many DMs and questions from you guys on Instagram asking for tips and stuff on just traveling with your little ones. So whether you feel comfortable or not to be traveling right now, I just wanted to share this video, share my hacks and my tips that you can use, whether traveling locally or overseas or to another country. I hope you find this video helpful. So before we hop in, make sure you are subscribed to this channel. Give this video a thumbs up, ring that bell so you don't miss a future video. I post here every single week. Mommy content, food, vlogs, health, wellness, fitness, all the things. Let's hop right in. So during our trip, I actually made notes in my phone of just things to remember, like, oh yeah, this worked really well. I should share this. And I wanted just to combine it all into a video to help you guys out. I'm also gonna have a full blog post. I'll link that down below where you guys can find all of this information and any products and links that I'm referring to will be in there as well for you guys to easily shop. If you hear Sage screaming in the background, she is giving daddy a hard time right now eating lunch. So that's what that is. All right, so my number one, actually, it's a perfect segue. And this is not in an order, it's just my first tip. So eating on the go. Now, if your baby is at the eating stage, eating solids outside of just like formula or breast milk, then it's like a whole new thing to navigate. I would probably say that like traveling around like the four to six month mark is probably easier because they're not as mobile, they're not eating solids yet. And once they start eating, it's like a whole other thing to think about, especially when it comes to traveling. Now, one of my tips is to, when you're eating at a restaurant, ask for sides like banana, avocado, that you can just mash up on the spot with a fork and just serve to your baby. We did this a ton and it worked so well. And honestly, a lot of times they'll just charge you a little bit for just a side. And especially if you're traveling in a warmer climate, they definitely have bananas and avocados that are nice and ripe. So that was really helpful. And we would just like throw on a bib, have a little spoon for her and just feed her right at the table. And she was so happy. The other thing is to mix it up with homemade food and pouches. So as of right now, I'm making all of Sage's food from scratch. It's actually really easy. And I have a whole video on my baby food meal prep, menu and style and how I make her food with basically I make it all in like two hours that lasts a whole month. Now, when you're traveling, it changes things because you may not just have access to a fridge or kitchen at all times. So I did a mixture of homemade food that I would make at the Airbnb, which I'll talk about in another tip. But I also mixed it up with like store-bought pouches, which came in really handy. I'm not the biggest fan of just like feeding Sage all of store-bought food. I know some people do, no judgment. I just like, I'm a chef. I feel like I show my love with food and I definitely love making food for Sage and just seeing her enjoy it. And to be honest, she's not the biggest fan of pouched like pre-made store-bought food and probably just because she doesn't eat it that often, but it came in handy when traveling. So at least one meal a day would be a store-bought like packaged food. And it was great. You could just bring it with you and then you could either do like the squeezable packs or the glass jars and we would feed her at the restaurant or just on the go. And it was the perfect convenient food. And there's lots of ones that you can get organic, no sugar added, just look at the ingredients and just, you know, pick your favorite and ingredients that you know your baby will love. Oh, and then the other thing for food, bring, if they're ready for it, bring some of those baby crackers. I think the ones I use are called Mumyums or Mummums. I don't know. But if she was being fussy or just feeling like peckish, I would just give her those crackers and they were a lifesaver. They're like baby cookies, they're sweet. And they're the best. I'll put a little photo of what they look like. And having those in the diaper bag at all times is great just for like passing the time if you're in a line for something or your baby's being fussy. I don't know, snacks make babies happy. So always have snacks. The other thing is music. So Sage is too young for like screen time and playing on a phone or an iPad. And like I, even if she was old enough, I would want to definitely restrict it and limit it even on vacation. You know, there's a time and place for it. You know, on a long flight might come, you know, in handy. But one thing I definitely had on hand on both the iPad and on my phone on Spotify was Coco Melon. And if you don't know what Coco Melon is, you need to. It is like, I swear, I put that on, even if it's just on my phone and she can hear it, she's instantly happy. She's calm. And the songs are catchy. I know a lot of them off by heart now. And it's just like a good go-to if I just need something to play in the background. And it's nice because she doesn't even have to be looking at the screen. We had the Coco Melon on the iPad. We pre-downloaded some episodes off of Netflix. And it was great because we had it for the plane ride to Florida. But yeah, just on the go, I'll just have it on Spotify. Even today, we went for a family walk this morning. And on the way back, she was being really fussy because she was tired. I put on Coco Melon on Spotify and she just chilled out and wasn't screaming down the sidewalk. So it's helpful. Like Sage loves music. So it's either me singing or Coco Melon singing and it just makes everything a much happier time. My next tip is the power of distraction. So you probably have figured this out already that babies, like they almost reset when you change up where they are, what they're looking at, what they're doing. If they're getting fussy or impatient and they're just like, they want to get out of where they are, just changing up the scenery or scenario can go a long way. So say, you know, Matt's holding her and she's getting fussy, I'll hold her for a bit. Or I have here, you know, new songs, new toys, new sites, even just giving, I honestly find that if you give a baby anything that's not a baby toy, they will love it. Like I have this theory that I'll just pick up like a random object, like something safe for her, but like this card, I will give this to her and she would have fun for like 10 minutes. And that could be an empty water bottle on the plane or in the car, the crinkling noise and stuff, they love it. So I just found that really helpful. And also just make sure you bring yourself like some kind of blanket or mat that you can just roll out if you guys are at a park or on a road trip and you can stop at a park or like a patch of grass for them to stretch their legs out and stuff. I just find it's really great to switch things up. So we flew to Florida, but drove back. So on the way back, we did a lot of pit stops every two to three hours and we would just lay out a mat, have Sage stretch her legs out and just kind of reset the clock for when she went back into the car, she'd be calm again and happy because she got to like do that playtime. Okay, this next one worked so well and it is to have an early dinner time. Being from a European family, I don't know, we just ate dinner really late and I've talked to other friends who are also European and I think it's just a thing. Like we'd eat so late that I would eat at a friend's house at like 5.30 and then come home and eat a second dinner because like there's just no way I could make it to bedtime without eating dinner again. Okay, so why this works especially good on vacation is because if you wanna get a reservation at like a really cool restaurant or just be able to enjoy dinner, book a reservation at like 4.30. I know that seems so early. By the time you get there and you order your drinks and you order your food, you now have from like 4.30 to 6.30 that like two, you actually have like two hours that you might be able to stay at that restaurant without your baby freaking out, depending on what time they go to bed. So Sage has an earlier bedtime. Well, I'd say average, she goes to bed at like 6.30. So we know if we book dinner at 6.30, we're gonna get maybe an hour before she starts freaking out and she's overtired. So the best dinner experience we had was at this really cool famous Cuban restaurant called Columbia. It was in Clearwater, Florida and they're booked solid all the time and they had a reservation at 4.30. We thought it was way too early. We took it and it was the best dinner we had on the trip. We were on the water, Sage was happy. We fed her there and we were there for two hours and it was just a really good experience. And so that was just something that we kept with us throughout the rest of the trip. So yeah, eat dinner early and you'll be able to get those really good early reservation spots. It's a little bit quieter. So even if your baby is a little fussy or not disturbing, like the dinner, the date night dinner time and it's just more of a chill vibe. Okay, this next one may seem obvious, but bring extra wipes and bring like those all-purpose like disinfectant wipes. They are handy for like anything where it comes to going to a restaurant, disinfecting the high chair, if you are on the plane, if you are at the Airbnb and just helping to clean up spills and messes and sticky stuff. We use them all the time. And like, even for just diaper wipes, I feel like I use them way more than at home. It just seems like there are more messes when you're traveling and you don't always just have like a sink right there to clean yourself or your baby. So having extra wipes is really important. This next one is another one of my favorites and it is to try and book an Airbnb over a hotel. A couple of reasons. Number one is you're gonna have a kitchen. You're gonna be able to, if you're pumping, you can store breast milk in the fridge. If you are making food, you can easily prepare stuff in the kitchen. There's like a stove and an oven, usually a microwave if you need one. And then the other thing is you have multiple bedrooms. Ideally, some, you know, hopefully at least one extra bedroom that baby can sleep in because the hardest thing I found is with hotels, you're usually just in one room and then it's like, okay, where does the baby sleep? So I'm gonna get to that in another point, but I just think Airbnbs are so much easier to deal with. And you have a laundry on site, usually. I mean, every place is different. So make sure they have these if that's what you're looking for. Having laundry on site is so amazing for just washing baby clothes since they get messy really quick, especially if your baby is eating solids. We usually just have her eat in just a diaper just to reduce the mess, but it was just nice to be able to wash things like her sleep sack and stuff. So we only had to bring one and then even towels and stuff, you could just reuse the same ones. Next, be flexible. This is so important when you're traveling. It's easy just to be stuck in your routine. For us, before going to Florida, we hadn't really taken Sage anywhere. At the most, maybe one grocery store. We were just always home, we were in our routine, we were comfortable with it, and that is all we knew. So when we left, it was definitely a learning curve to kind of navigate not being home for nap time all the time and having to just figure out when she's gonna eat, what she's gonna eat. So definitely be flexible, especially with nap time. If you have to push nap time an hour or move it up an hour, that's okay. When they get back home, you can go back to what you're doing. It's not gonna ruin their nap time forever. At least it didn't for us. And even for us, if we did wanna go out for dinner or go somewhere that was a little bit later, we would just stretch her second nap time so it was a little bit later in the day, and then we could stay up with her. And there was one day that she probably didn't go to bed until 10 o'clock at night, which seems so late. And actually we did that the other day too. We were at a friend's house in the city and she went to bed a little bit late. She had a little snooze on the car ride home. I fed her, we changed her, she went back to bed. Everything was fine. She still slept. And that way you can still live your life. They still get sleep. They won't remember those two hours of sleep that they lost that one night. It's gonna be fine. The other thing is like, if you are at a restaurant or you have certain plans and your baby is just not having it, be flexible. If it means you have to ask the waiter just to pack up your food, cause you gotta go. We actually had to do that at one of the restaurants we went to, and it was fine. We just took everything to go, ate it, got to enjoy it back at our place while Sage was peacefully sleeping in her bed. And I would rather try doing something and enjoying our trip than just be like, nope, nope. We can't do it. She's gonna freak out. It's not gonna work. You know, I think we set these, our own limitations when it comes to our babies. And we were so surprised with how well Sage did outside of her regular routine, traveling, on the go. And now we know we can do more with her than we thought originally. Okay, you're gonna laugh, but this next one is be creative. And I got a couple of people judging me on my video where I shared this. But if you are a parent and you've traveled with a baby, then you totally get this. And if not, I understand why you would think it's weird. Like I definitely would have if I hadn't gone through this situation. So although I recommend getting an Airbnb when possible, it's not always possible. And there was definitely a couple of times where we were in a hotel room for our stay. And with a hotel room, you have usually just the main room and a bathroom. And what we ended up doing is having Sage sleep in the bathroom. And I know this sounds so weird and maybe you're just like, what? Like how, why would you put a baby in a bathroom? And the reason is, is because if your baby is used to sleep, most babies like darkness when they sleep. It just helps distinguish between daytime and nighttime. And when you're in a hotel room, and yeah, a lot of times they have the dark, like the blackout curtains, but you're in the room with them. So that means you have to go to bed at 6.30 or be super, super quiet, not watch any TV or anything in fear of waking up the baby. So instead you can put them in the bathroom. She would be in her pack and play. She wouldn't be like sleeping on the bathroom floor. And ideally you are staying in a place that is cleaned. And if you wanted to, you could wipe things down, but we would put her in the bathroom. So we would use the washroom, get ready for bed. Before she would go in there, we would hang out in the main room. And then what I would actually do is go in there, dream feed her. We'd use the washroom again before bed and then move her into the main room. And because I would just dream feed her, she wouldn't even wake up. I would dream feed her, like breastfeed her. We'd move the pack and play into the main room, like next to our bed. She would sleep there. If one of us had to do like a late night pee, we would do that and everyone would sleep great. We even did this at our Airbnb because the second bedroom had sheer curtains. So there's no way she would have been able to sleep in there. We could have like taped a garbage bag to the window or there are things called like the slumber pod, which is like a tent thing that you buy that your baby sleeps in that just makes it really dark. But we just ended up putting her in the second bathroom, which was huge. It had a vent as well, ventilated and all that. And she slept so good. We just set up the monitor in there. We could still see her. Judge me all you want, but I know so many parents reach out to me and they're like, that is the best hack. Yes, I do that all the time. It's a bit of a weird concept at first, but it works and you walk up because everyone will get sleep, I promise. All right, next we have, if you are pumping, I just would suggest not even worrying about storing milk and stuff. I would just pump the day before and use that milk the next day. So you're not like actually storing milk. You don't need containers and stuff. You don't have to worry about freezing things and thawing things. I would just pump and that was the milk that we used the next day. And then I had the storage still at home, but it wasn't, even though we were going for like two and a half, three weeks, it wasn't like the milk I had at home was gonna go bad or anything during that time. So I was fine just to kind of pump and use what I was pumping fresh the next day and not even worrying about storing or freezing. All right, pack light. Now I got a lot of comments saying that people think we over-packed. I really consider myself a great packer. I have lived in another country for like two years. We have backpacked, we've traveled a lot and I really feel like I've learned a lot when it comes to packing. Usually we just bring carry-ons. When you have a baby, there are things you have to bring. You have to bring a pump if you are pumping. You have to bring food stuff. You have to bring a place for them to sleep. You have to bring outfits, toys, there's just books. Like we brought one book. Like there's just things that you need to bring in order, whether you're staying for one night or three weeks, there are things that a baby needs in a 24-hour period. So we ended up bringing two checked-in luggages, two carry-ons, and then we also brought a travel stroller. So things I would mention with packing light is do not bring your big stroller. I'm so happy we ended up investing in a travel stroller. There are cheaper ones than what we got. Just the one we got was awesome because you could just pack, like fold it up basically with one hand and carry it on your shoulder straight onto the plane and it would fit in the overhead luggage compartment. That was really handy, but a lot of ones, you can even just check at the gate. And then the other thing we did is we just rented a car seat on location. So we got a car rental and then we got, it was super cheap. It was like $30 for like our stay. We got a car seat rental and it just made things super easy. And then the other thing we brought was a travel pack-and-play, but a lot of hotels and Airbnbs will actually have these available if you ask them. And then it's just one less thing that you have to bring. And then diapers, just bring enough for like the first few days and then buy diapers on location because they're super bulky and you can get diapers anywhere. Next, recreate your home routine. So if your baby is used to certain things before bedtime, try to recreate that when you are away. So there's things like we brought the exact same sleep sack. We brought one of her storybooks. I even brought a nursing cover to nurse her on the plane that created some darkness. So she ended up actually falling asleep on the plane, which was awesome. And even just like little things that they're used to that you can, like whether it's a sound machine, anything that you can bring, like we have a travel sound machine and just a regular one. So we brought the smaller one. Anything you can do to recreate that experience away from home is gonna give them a sense of comfort and routine. And I think just make the transition a lot easier. This next one is to shower with your baby instead of doing a bath. This was so much easier. We didn't have to worry about like running a bath, checking the temperature, worrying if the bathtub was sanitary enough, just cause I feel like a bathtub harbors so much bacteria. You're, you know, everyone's taking a shower in it. All the dirt is going to the bottom. I just don't feel as comfortable taking a bath in other people's like homes. And even if I did, I don't know if I wanna put Sage in the bathtub. So unless I like wash it myself, I just don't feel that comfortable with it. So showers were so much easier. Sage actually really likes a shower. So we would have family showers or I would just do a quick shower with Sage and it was awesome cause I could just easily wash her. And I think she really liked it. Like I felt like it was a little massage on the back and we could really quickly rinse her after the pool time or before bed. And it worked out really well and we didn't have to bring any extra things for bath time, which was awesome. There you have it. Those are all of my tricks and tips for traveling with a baby under one. I hope you guys enjoyed this video. If you have any of your own tips and advice, leave them down below. I'm sure a lot of people will find them helpful. I'm sure I will also learn. I definitely don't know all of the tricks. These are just things that really worked for us when we were on our first trip. So thank you so much for watching. Be sure to give this video a thumbs up if you liked it, subscribe, ring that bell and I will see you guys in my next video. And like I said, I'm gonna have a full Florida playlist down below for you guys to check out and a blog post as well with any links that I mentioned in this video. Thank you so much for watching. Have a fabulous day and good luck with any of your future travel plans. Bye guys.