Setting up for traveling with a baby

In 2016, we first considered the idea of taking a 6 month sabbatical and traveling the world. For a number of reasons that didn’t materialize, but now here we are with 5 months of maternity leave and a perfect excuse for Ajay to take time off from work. Of course we now had Nadiya and her well being to consider (and all of the paperwork that came with her – passport, visas, vaccinations etc) but she didn’t seem to mind! Almost like she knew what she was signing up for 🙂

In terms of prep (we need some prep as we are Indian passport holders who can’t just show up at most countries) we applied for US, Schengen and Australia visas for Nadiya. A combination of these 3 visas and an Indian passport made most countries accessible to us. We also decided that our travel strategy would be as follows –

1. Book flights/hotels no more than a week in advance thereby giving us an out in case Nadiya got sick or we got tired
2. Start with short flights and gradually build up to longer ones as we got more confident about handling a baby on the go
3. Any flight we took would have to be either west or north from our current location in the hope of circumventing the globe
4. Start with road trips while we got comfortable handling Nadiya. Having a car meant that we had a place to change her, feed her and generally set our own pace.

5. Account for differences in timezone while picking our destinations – to make the transition easier for all of us.

In terms of packing, we decided on 2 large bags (one for Nadiya and the other for Nisha/Ajay), 2 back packs (one diaper bag and the other a general backpack), a travel stroller (the yoyo plus by baby Zen which can be taken on board flights) and a baby carrier (ergo baby omni 360)

Nadiya’s Bag

One of the large bags was dedicated to all things Nadiya related. Since we were expecting different weather conditions on the trip, we made sure to pack everything ranging from short sleeved onesies to an outdoor jacket with hoodie. We took 10 sets each of the following (each individually packed into zip locked bags):
– half sleeved onesies
– full sleeved onesies
– pants
– pyjamas
– socks, mittens, hats
– burp cloths
– swaddle blankets (which we  re-purposed for everything from ‘layer on stroller’ to ‘sun protector’)
– warm fleece wear from Uniqlo
– and one winter jacket also from Uniqlo.

Her bag also included a 2 week supply of diapers (Pampers Premium) along with rolls of cotton and wipes. We expected to stock up on diapers along the way. We also carried the breast pump (Medela free style) along with 4 bottles although we expected to feed her directly from the breast most times. We brought along sterilization tablets (made by Pigeon) and a travel bath tub (Stokke).

The second large bag had clothes for both of us. Nisha packed about 10 nursing tops (all from Bove by spring) along with 3 pairs of pants, 2 pairs of shorts ,10 pairs of underwear and 5 pairs of socks. Ajay packed 10 t-shirts, 2 pairs of pants, 2 pairs of shorts, 10 pairs of underwear and 10 pairs of socks. We each brought one pair of walking shoes and one pair of sandals, one pair each of walking shoes and sandals. All our cosmetics/toileteries were travel sized.

The first back pack served as Nadiya’s diaper bag (from skiphop) It had a set of diapers, wipes (from pigeon), diaper balm (from earth mama), a changing pad (from skiphop), hand sanitizer, diaper disposable bags, burp cloth, swaddle blanket and a couple of toys for her to play with.

The second back pack had all of our electronics (laptop, chargers, portable bose speaker), our travel documents and our wallet. We had 2 credit cards which we expected to use for most of our expenses. We carried about 1500 USD in cash for emergencies.

We also bought some standard medicines for cold/flu/stomach upset. For Nadiya we packed a nasal spray and medication that her pediatrician prescribed in case she got a fever. Nadiya is currently exclusively breastfed so out PD advised us that the risk of her falling ill was relatively low.

With all of this prep done, we now had to work out exactly where to go! The first country that met all of our travel conditions was Sri Lanka. More about that in the next post 🙂