Before becoming parents, we worried having a baby would hold us back. We didn’t know any world travelers who packed a mini-me into their suitcase and had no idea how to navigate an airport with a stroller in tow.
Now, one year later, we call ourselves a full-time traveling family. We’ve lived on three different continents in the past two years and traveled to seven different countries – all with a baby.
Here are our reasons to travel with a baby and why we think it’s the best age to travel with – so far!
Portability
This is honestly my number 1 reason for traveling with such a tiny baby. They’re portable!
Our little baby weighed a measly 16 lbs on his first-ever flight (at 5 weeks old). That’s lighter than a carry-on! He couldn’t walk, crawl, or even roll over and slept the entire flight. This easy baby phase didn’t last long; he walked at 10 months old.
We babywear and will continue to do so for as long as possible. Thanks to our baby carrier, we’ve taken our little guy on planes, trains, subways, hikes, and through crowded streets, all hands-free.
The earlier you travel, the more portable your baby is, even if it doesn’t seem that way. For packing tips, check out our post on The Go-Bag, about packing a bag for daily adventures.
Sky High Sleep Training
There’s only one way to make your baby into a passionate traveler – the hard way. The parents you see with a napping baby on a plane didn’t just get a chill baby who loves flying; they worked on sleep-training their little one on a plane.
Our baby’s first flight was at 5 weeks old. After 24 flights, our sweet baby started falling asleep as soon as we took off – even if he had just woken up from a nap before boarding! How did we do that? We sleep-trained him on the plane. Now… if only we could get sleep training to work on the ground!
Insane Social Skills
We speak three languages in our home: English, Russian, and German. Add the languages in our surroundings to that, and our baby has been exposed to 8 different languages before his first birthday.
He’s recently started talking, and seeing what words he uses has been remarkable. Hello is in Portuguese, “Yes” is in Russian, “No” is in German, and “Night-Night” is in English. We can’t wait to see what other words he picks up!
Another exciting travel perk is interacting with locals. Our baby doesn’t care about language; if someone smiles, he’s toddling on over! We’ve had conversations with anyone willing to smile at a baby. Some of these conversations have led to friendships, secret waterfalls, insider tips on restaurants and bars, and free fruit.
Our baby makes friends wherever he goes. This is Maria. She invited us to her home for yogurt, freshly baked bread, and coffee before sending her husband out to their garden to pick some grapes for the baby.
People are a lot friendlier to couples with babies as well. Instead of getting yelled at for not following rules or honked at when we cross the street, people stop cars, wave us across, and smile at our baby.
Learn to Live with Less
We live minimalistically, which is very much influenced by our luggage allowance. Our family travels (and lives full-time) out of two large suitcases. We are limited to a grand total of 44 kg of personal belongings – so we reflect a lot before purchasing anything new.
Before having a baby, we never realized how much pressure is put on parents to purchase something for their baby. It feels like something new is recommended whenever I open my phone. Traveling allowed us to avoid debating most of these items – there’s no room for a second package of wipes, let alone a wipe warmer.
When talking to friends with “stationary” babies, we notice how much more they purchase in preparation for their little ones. Our friends set up an entire diaper changing station with multiple kinds of diapers, wipes, a wipe warmer, four different types of butt cream, and a butt cream spoon to smear it on their baby’s bottom hands-free.
Our baby’s diaper changing station is a diaper clutch with two diapers and a package of wipes.
Jet lag – no Problem!
This is a controversial one, even in our well-traveled home. Jet lag. While babies and their parents are by no means immune to the inconvience of jet lag, I believe it’s easier to handle jet lag as a mother than before. My husband loves to remind me of our pre-baby post-travel routine of two days of blissful sleep and relaxation whenever I get too off the rails about baby jet lag, but he admits I do have a point.
Thanks to our newborn 40-minute sleeper baby, we can function on minimal sleep. Not being able to snooze on a flight affects me mentally and physically much less now than it used to, and my newfound ability to sleep almost anywhere at any time (also known as being exhausted) means I can catch up on my sleep whenever.
Our baby generally needs 3 days to adjust to new time zones, but he’s an expert snoozer. The first three days are rough, but after that, we’re all adjusted and ready to go!
Pre-packaged food
Babies are seldom described as being easy to care for, but when it comes to food, they are. Our baby was exclusively breastfed for the first five months of his life. His food came pre-mixed, pre-packaged, and ready to eat.
His first introduction to solids came when he was five months old, and now, at 12 months, he still gets most of his nutrients from breast milk – although that’s coming to an end soon!
When I compare feeding my little dude to my friend’s two-year-old or to most of the picky eaters I met in pre-school, I’m glad that now is the time we’ve chosen to travel. We don’t have to order buttered noodles in five different languages; we just give our baby something off my plate.
Plus, his willingness to try everything now means it’s the perfect time to try all the world’s exotic flavors. He’s tried curry, ramen, and more kinds of fruits than I can count.
Quality and Quantity Family Time
Travel stresses the individual, relationships, and families in ways no one imagined before setting off. Once you’ve dealt with a diaper blowout at 30,000 feet, conquered a cold in an entirely new language, or missed your flight an hour before the baby is due to sleep, you’ll understand why travel is quality and quantity family time.
We’ve spent almost every hour together as a family for the past two years. We’ve grown closer in ways we never could have imagined. Traveling while pregnant helped my husband and I grow as a team, and once we had our baby, we only continued to grow together.
This may sound odd, but removing ourselves from other families, friends, and relatives helped us figure out what works for us as a family.
Our family model works for us, specifically. It won’t work for other families! By not having the daily connections to others, we don’t have other models to compare ourselves to. We’re forced to come up with our own solutions to the many issues we have as both a couple and parents.
Flexibility from Day One
Our baby has never had a rigid daily schedule. He hasn’t even had a weekly schedule! We follow wake windows and make sure to keep them developmentally appropriate. That means adjusting our schedules and travels to keep up with baby’s current needs.
It also means our baby is extraordinarily flexible. As long as he gets his milk and a nap after about three hours, he’s good. He can (and will) nap anywhere, provided he’s not undergoing a sleep regression.
Traveling with a baby doesn’t only help him become flexible; it helps us as parents remain flexible. While we know we can’t skip a baby nap, our lack of a home has forced us to become experts at out-and-about naps. Not having a freezer stocked with our baby’s favorite foods makes us adapt our eating habits to fit in with baby’s most recent development. Living minimally allows us to concentrate on where baby is currently at, developmentally, and form our lifestyle around his current needs.
One downside to this? We can’t use our baby as an excuse to leave social gatherings. He is entirely too flexible! If he’s tired, he’ll fall asleep in our arms. If he’s oversocialized, he’ll remove himself from the situation. He always finds a way to entertain himself, meaning we’re forced to tell people we’re leaving because we want to.
Travel Perks
Hotel chains worldwide offer free stays to children and free or reduced meals. Some chains (mainly in the USA and Caribbean) partner with baby equipment rental agencies, allowing parents to pre-book bulky childcare items, like highchairs, cribs, and playpens. Others, like the Ritz Carlton, offer child-proofed rooms with all the safety features of a home.
| Hotel | Child-Friendly Perks |
| Holiday Inn | Depending on the location, children 19 and under stay free! Up to 4 children get free meals when dining with a paid adult. All-Inclusive resorts in the Caribbean offer free stays (and meals) for all children under 12. |
| Iberostar | Kids stay FREE in their all-inclusive resorts |
| Club Med | Kids 6 years old and under stay free in Europe, Africa, and Mauritius. Elsewhere, the cutoff for a free stay is 4 years old. From there, discounts range between 50 and 40% off |
| Divi | Kids 12 and under stay for FREE |
| Choice Hotels | Children aged 18 and younger stay for FREE |
| Kimpton | In addition to free stays, kids at Kimpton Hotels have access to Kimpton Kids, a club with child-sized bathrobes, child-proofed rooms, welcome amenities, and even a goldfish to care for during your stay! |
| Best Western | Kids 12 and under stay free at all Best Western Resorts, and some resorts offer free stays up to 18 years old! |
| Ritz Carlton | Provide baby-proofed rooms, child concierge, 24/7 nanny and babysitter service, plus a kids club. |
| Marriott | Kids 12 and under stay FREE at Marriott hotels, worldwide. |
Give Your Baby the World
We solidly believe the future is global, international, and vibrant. The world feels smaller today than fifteen years ago, a trend we can’t imagine reversing. When we found out I was pregnant, we decided the best gift we could give our child was the ability to be at home anywhere.
Our son doesn’t have a home, he doesn’t have a place to come back to. But he does feel welcomed and at home around the world. He knows how to communicate with people from completely different backgrounds, climbs mountains, swim in oceans, and feels completely at home wherever he is. We won’t know if we’re making a huge mistake or giving him an unimaginable gift before he’s much, much older, but isn’t that true with all parents?
So there you have it! Embrace the chaos, pack those diapers alongside the passports, and prepare for the most epic adventure of life – parenting.
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