Comments on: Traveling internationally is better with a baby

By: How we got our baby to stop standing up in the crib

How we got our baby to stop standing up in the crib — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:49:19 +0000

[...] love Karen and her rookie mom stories about Laz. We have more of them if you want to read them: their international baby travels, their nice stuff, their cute monthly [...]

By: Does having kids mean you can’t have nice things?

Does having kids mean you can’t have nice things? — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 18:42:52 +0000

[...] good friend, Karen, always has the best taste in food, furnishings, and fun trips. We have been watching her rookie year of motherhood with great curiosity and interest. She agreed [...]

By: RookieMom Heather

RookieMom Heather — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 21:24:47 +0000

Thanks @Al. We have a few more ideas, at least half of which involve waiting until Karen and Laz return from another trip.

By: al

al — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 19:25:31 +0000

love love love the travel series! Please keep it going!

By: Julia

Julia — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 22:39:52 +0000

A mother’s life shouldn’t end because she has a baby. Making your baby a part of your life is absolutely necessary to building a strong relationship! I bet your son is going to love hearing about all the travels you took him on when he was young.

By: Karen

Karen — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 19:02:49 +0000

@Jessica – so… I will have to update this with a new article once my son can walk (which looks to be any day now.) I think traveling with him then will be a lot different! And let’s not even think about when I have more than one kid! ;D Although, I’m looking forward to him being at an age where he can sit and watch TV or play with an iPad or something. We are looking at possibilities for the summer, when he will be about 16 months old, that include Kenya, Indonesia, Burma, and Israel/Jordan. Hopefully I don’t live to eat my words

By: Jessica

Jessica — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 03:51:33 +0000

OMG!!! This series couldn’t have started at a better time! We have only taken our 16 month old on domestic trips so far and he has done wonderfully but thinking of an international trip with our son for our 5 year anniversary next year and wondered about jet lag and everything…will totally show this to my hubby and maybe we will do an overseas trip in lieu of a Canada trip. Can’t wait to see stories of those traveling with toddlers and how they fared…babies are much easier to travel with than my little runner now lol!

By: RookieMom Heather

RookieMom Heather — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 22:41:35 +0000

@Cara, I don’t know why but your pre-planning jetlag plan sounds so much like me that it makes me giggle. My preschool-aged sons woke up in the middle of the night for the first few nights we were in Denmark and it drove me crazy at the time. Now, I’m just so glad we went. On our return, we were first in line at my favorite breakfast joint, which opens at 6:30am.

By: Cara

Cara — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 23:36:43 +0000

With a slightly older child, you can do some jetlag adjusting on the front end…which ended up not working for us at all anyway;)
With our two year old we moved her bedtime earlier and earlier gradually in the week or two leading up to our Italy trip — of course, the excitement of the trip and the fact that a movie was playing on the flight at “bedtime” led to her sitting there awake saying “I’m never ever going to go to sleep!” while her daddy and I were exhausted since we had adjusted our sleep schedule ahead of time too;)
No biggie — we pushed through until we could take a very short nap upon arrival (don’t sleep too long or you’ll really be messed up:) and all was well for the rest of our 2 weeks over there.
Coming this direction we had no issue whatsoever — somehow the naps she took on the plane maybe resolved it? I’m not sure, but it was seriously smooth sailing coming home with no jetlag in the weeks that followed.

By: Karen

Karen — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 17:09:22 +0000

@Catharine: I realized I didn’t mention the car seat in my answer to you. So, we have the stroller thing where the car seat fits into it. We gate check the car seat and stroller base on the plane. Then we have a car seat to strap into vehicles wherever we are. Of course, in some places/situations like a short taxi ride in slow city traffic, in a country that doesn’t really “do” car seats… we may just hold him on our lap. Longer trips or anytime a highway is involved, we will strap the seat in.

@Andrea: yes- the jetlag can be pretty bad, so that’s something to consider for sure. Overall when we got home, we had about 3 OK-but-not-great days, then a week of hell, then about 3 more not-so-good days, and then it was back to normal. For me, even knowing I would have to go through that again wouldn’t outweigh the benefits.

By: Karen

Karen — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 05:30:49 +0000

So many great questions!

@Catharine: we asked for cribs in the hotels and they provided one everywhere we stayed. Usually a pack and play. So that was no problem for nighttime sleeping!

@Elyse: we did get the MMR for him as our pediatrician recommended it for Thailand and Bhutan.

@Jessica: we did the Christmas markets in Germany when I was about 7 months pregnant – sounds super fun with baby!

@Cara: good points about MMR, especially the part about having to get it again. That also means our insurance didn’t cover the early MMR… so that’s another aspect to consider.

By: Cara

Cara — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 04:40:36 +0000

Another option for the vaccine is to find out if your doctor has any measles-only vaccines, rather than full-blown MMR — single dose measles vaccine is actually what is recommended for kids 6-11 months for international travel.
And then remember that they will still need the normal 2 doses after age 1 — getting it before age 1 still leaves them vulnerable later.