As stated before, I returned to work early so I could save some time to travel to Taiwan with the baby to visit family. We just returned from the trip! It was a very fun experience, even though it was a ton of work - I would call it a real “baby bonding leave” compared to my previous maternity leave.
It was an ambitious trip, since we were in Taiwan for over 3 weeks, we decided that instead of spending the entire time at my parents' house, we would take a trip to the east coast of Taiwan by train, and spend a week touring around. Traveling with a 6-month old in public transit was something we had never done before, and we encountered many unexpected situations like my husband’s stomache flu, and the baby’s first time getting a cold while we were on the trip, etc. Traveling with a baby was very different from being at home with him, but spending time traveling with the baby and dealing with all sorts of situations was definitely a journey with memories we will cherish. We definitely learned a lot from it.
Some things I learned:
BRING THE STROLLER. Really!
We normally don’t use the stroller that much at home. Our nanny brings the baby out a lot and she uses the stroller a lot more than we do. We usually just use the carseat and then use a baby carrier and walk around with him. Our everyday stroller is a travel system that includes the carseat and it’s super heavy, and we hate using it. Therefore, when we were planning for the trip, we thought we wouldn’t bring the stroller, and would just use the carrier. Then just a few days before departure, my friend Stacy told me that is the craziest thing she’s heard, and told me to get a travel stroller. She said: just get a used cheap one, get rid of it there if you end up not needing it.
So I did, two days before the trip, I found a used travel stroller on Craigslist for $50, and it was the best thing in the whole trip. We ended up using it from the very start of the trip - he fell asleep in the stroller when we were waiting in the lounge before departure and that gave us the opportunity to rest and get food. The same thing throughout the trip - we would bring the stroller even in places where it’s not very flat, just so we can have some space for him to rest while we eat at a restaurant.
Also, we were traveling for close to a month, and a baby can grow so much in a month. He definitely became heavy and my arms get tired from holding him for more than 10 minutes. Having a stroller was very wonderful.
Plan well. Research on what you need to bring. Don’t over-pack, and don’t worry if you forgot to pack something. Also don’t worry about overpacking.
We ended up packing more clothes than we needed for ourselves, and less clothes than we needed for the baby - but just because he out-grew most of his clothes. We ended up asking friends and family if they had any used baby clothes for us to use, and, guess what, EVERYONE who has a baby has a lot of clothes to get rid of, so we ended up with some good batch of clothes, and left some of our old clothes to a cousin who just had a baby.
I was thankful that we packed some things that I thought were unnecessary but turned out to be super useful: the nose frida (our baby got a cold and we had to use this multiple times a day), a baby nail clipper, a blanket that he likes to sleep with, stuffed animals, a book.
During our one week train trip, we were able to go very barebone and travel only with two backpacks (around 20L each) and one suitcase. And of course the travel stroller. It was a good setup. One of us would push the stroller with baby in it, and the other one handles the suitcase. And we would each carry a backpack. We felt like we had everything we needed, but had to do a bit of laundry (either by hand or with machine).
Flying with a baby is stressful, but it’s not too bad! It’s the jetlag that sucked.
I researched how to fly with a 6 month old and found a bunch of packing lists. I wasn’t very nervous about the flight, but was definitely concerned that the crying could be very bothersome for others. Fortunately, all the fellow passengers were all very friendly and all super understanding. I thought the baby did OK, and he even got quite some compliments from fellow passengers that he “got full remark for his first flight”. We did do the “suck on bottle/pacifier while takeoff and landing for ear pressure” thing, and fortunately the timing worked well.
However, after a great flight, the real challenge was to deal with jetlag for the baby. He was already sleep trained, sleeping through the night since he was 3 months old, and this was the first time that we were back in the newborn days of constantly getting up and tending to a crying baby. It didn’t help that we were at my parents' house where everything was new for the baby - new crib, a pushy grandma that insisted on holding him (she had been taking care of him since born, but he probably forgot about her after a few months), a new house, etc. It took only about 2 days for him to get adjusted, but that was very long and exhausting for us.
Putting the baby in a changing environment is beneficial.
The baby was very upset about the new crib on the first day. Then quickly after, we went to a hotel in Taipei and they provided a pack-n-play, he wasn’t happy about that pack-n-play either and complained. Then after 2 days we moved to another hotel, then another one, then another one. Starting from the second hotel, he suddenly became this seasoned traveler (but also he was sick with a cold for the first time) and slept happily in the new crib. Ever since then, he was fine with whatever crib we put him in.
He also learned to be ok with meeting new people and letting them hold him. Sometimes he gets cranky, but overall he is this happy smiley buddha looking little guy that everyone enjoyed meeting. It really felt like traveling was a great way to socialize him and getting him outside of the comfort zone.
Taiwan is a very baby friendly country to travel in.
We stayed in 5 different hotels during this trip. All the hotels provided crib and baby bathtub with a little chair for us to sit on when bathing the baby. Some of the hotels even provided bottle sterilizers and very fancy baby shampoos/bath gels for us.
There are very very nice breastfeeding rooms on the high speed rail trains. The department stores have a whole “baby station” with 6 private breastfeeding rooms and about 10 diaper changing stations.
But what made a difference was also the people - they are super friendly and often offered help to watch the baby or even holding the baby for us so we could move luggage/eat/handle rental car.
Don’t be over-ambitious in your itinerery planning. Be flexible. Try to enjoy the trip in any creative way.
We used to like to visit a lot of places when we travel, and we love eating out at nice places. Now, we try to be very flexible in our itinerery. We were in Taroko National Park and it was super beautiful, but the baby was sick. So we decided to stay in the hotel for a whole day (fortunately we had a very beautiful view) to let him recover, and were appreciative that we got to enjoy the park the next day and took a beautiful hike.
We had several times that we had to order food to-go and eat in the hotel. But that made us even more thankful for the times that we ate at nicer restaurants and the baby slept through the entire dinner.
When we visited Chishang, a rural small town with rice paddies where people rent bikes to ride along beautiful rice paddie fields, we decided not to do it because we knew it was way too cold/windy for the baby, even though we are cyclists and always enjoyed touring on bikes. We didn’t feel like these were sacrifices. These were decisions we made.
Traveling as a family is wonderful.
I have to say I really didn’t take care of the baby that much before - we have a wonderful nanny during the weekdays, and during the weekend when I do take care of him, it’s not very much time, and it was always in a very controlled environment close to home. By traveling together, we really had to deal with all sorts of different scenarios, changing diapers on the train, breastfeeding on the high speed rail, sucking his nose with the nose frida, comforting him on the plane.
It really did feel like we went through this journey together as a family. We spent so much time together and in such changing environments, and what didn’t change was his dad and mom. I saw the baby’s attitude changing towards us as well - when he feels nervous in a new environment, or unsure about a new person, we explain the situation to him and that made him feel more calm in a new situation. It really does feel like a real baby bonding experience for us.