The golden rule is keep the itinerary simple with as few accommodation changes as possible and plan just one big ticket activity to achieve each day.
The other travel mantra I stand by? Travel light and be prepared to buy foreign products for your baby. That's it. Armed with these travel principles, we've travelled with my 2 year old now to Burgundy, Rome, Ireland, Sardinia and Lisbon. We've also done multiple road trips around U.K., Hong Kong, Malaysia (twice) and Australia but as those trips were not overseas/ family visits we've never encountered the same challenges as travelling in Europe other than the multiple long haul flights.
I know I am not an expert on this and we generally have an easy kid who loves the experience of exploring something different or new with us. So if you are interested, I'll elaborate further.
Prepping Your Kids and helping them enjoy the trip
Plan and research ahead of the trip. The internet with its plethora of blogs and forums are full of helpful hints on what to expect. I also like asking our new friends who were locals of the places we'll be visiting on their recommendations and advice.
Then I formulate a little game plan that could involve:
- Introducing new books or little toys that relate to where you are visiting.
- I've started my little one on learning the flags of the different places we visit and she goes berserk whenever she sees a flag she recognises (Mainly the union jack as we are in U.K.)
-Teaching them the local language. My little one loved saying Ola to people in Lisbon having learnt Spanish in her nursery.
Once at the location, I love seeing the new city from her eyes, from the colourful buildings and the various different modes of transportation in each new place (she loves comparing the local buses to our double decker red buses in London) to pointing out any item of interest to her such as a windmill or animal sculptures or even shop signs when she was learning the alphabet. We describe the items using words within her vocabulary as it grew too in each trip and she always found the interaction made the journey that much more engaging.
Other locals with children love striking conversations with you more too when you have a young one of your own. Our beach neighbour in Sardinia very happily shared all her toddler's toys with ours when the two started playing together. This is usually a lovely way to compare parenting notes with a different culture and I'm quick to note that sleep deprivation is a universal issue with raising children.
Food, Naps and Supplies.
Food - If your child is still exclusively breastfeeding as was my experience in Dijon/ Burgundy, this is the least stress free travel period. I just had to plan the car journeys around feed stops and be prepared to change her anywhere or let her sleep anywhere. When she grew older, my relaxed rule became that children should be ready to eat what's in front of them, she eats what we eat. Granted she has no known allergies and we did stick to staples in most places; it is usually yoghurt, fruit (fresh or dried), bread and cheese that we always gravitate to in any new city we visit. The fun part is trying the local varieties of these and my toddler has loved the Italian ricotta, the Sardinian flatbread (Pane Carasau), light flaky Portugese pasteis, fresh Mediterranean fruit and even grilled squid as well as various varieties of pizza and pasta.
My one saving grace travelling in Europe is the availability of ready made formula packed in portion sized cartons or bottle so no more warming up bottles, asking for hot water at restaurants etc. Between the ages of 1-2 we just always brought with us cartons of long life milk and fed her that on demand. This meant that I didn't have to stress if she didn't particularly enjoy the meals we'd ordered as she'd always have a supplement.
Naps - My relaxed rule here is that children should be comfortable sleeping in strange beds/ environments. I didn't stress about putting her in a dark closet so that she wouldn't wake (although my husband still fondly remembers her harassing me from her cot in our Manchester hotel room). We co slept everywhere else and mostly the supplied cots were more used as play pens during our stay.
We let her nap anywhere (In a carrier or stroller or car seat or even on a towel at the beach in Sardinia) and anytime that suited her. Sometimes it was a long nap (the whole trip in the Vatican City) and sometimes it was short but we didn't stress it and didn't force her to keep to a strict bedtime. This meant that we could even stay out till 9 p.m. sometimes which is usually when the European cities have dinner in summer time.
Supplies - I pack light and tend to pack just enough supplies to last us the travel leg and one day at the destination. Then my priority upon touchdown has always been to seek out the local supermarket or pharmacy to stock up on nappies, formula and snacks. This is handy if you asked locals for the localised brands in advance although I have found that the major brands are typically quite prevalent across all of the major European cities. My favourite shopping experience has to be coming across tubs of packaged Plasmon horse meat baby food in Rome. I have an Italian friend who told me they do feed their children horse and other choice game meats, but I'd thought it was lost in translation until I saw it with my very own eyes.
We'd typically only have a reclining lightweight stroller and carrier with us and not bother bringing other things such as a travel cot or baby bath (it was either the adult bath tub or a shower with no soap for the trip)or car seat as we'd either borrow or rent those things off the accommodation we were at or make do with whatever resources we did have available to us. I found that most restaurants/cafes in Europe where we visited don’t have safe baby seats. They have high chairs with no leg harness so our little one could slip through. We fortunately brought along a portable cloth wraparound thing to tie to a seat and actually found this very handy to have even in hotel rooms where we might need to convert a normal chair into a baby friendly seat for feeding (Ages 6 months to 13 months depending on how mobile your little one is, Ours didn't walk or climb till 14 months).
It goes without saying then if you've read this far that my last tip is on flexing your usual routines and habits. If the bub is tired, she will sleep. If she is hungry she will eat. We likely spent a bit more on better accom and taxis on our travels with her than if we were to travel on our own, but it is balanced by us seeking local taverns/ pubs or family run restaurants that are less fancy a.k.a less pricey for food. She is also at an age where she doesn't get bored too easily yet but we'd still limit the amount of galleries, ancient ruins and museums we'd visit per trip. It is unrealistic to expect that you may be able to enjoy a full tour or read through the information packs on each exhibit, so weigh that up before you pay a lot in entrance fees.
That's it really. Travelling with little ones make them happy and open minded about the world. That in its own is reward enough for me to keep at it even when I don't relax the whole holiday. So much of a reward that we've upped the challenge to include one last babymoon in Santorini before I stop flying for a while. Pregnant in the height of summer and navigating cliff side cities with an active 2.5 year old will be interesting I am sure but we didn't want the easy way out and pick a 'family-friendly' island. So pardon us if you are a honeymooner in Oia at that time of the year. We hope we don't put you off starting a family with the antics we may get up to.
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