My fears were compounded by the difficulties our little guy had sleeping as we camped and visited family, all within 3 hours of home! Instead of sleeping when he is tired and has missed a nap, like I would, this baby starts waking up early from naps, and waking up much more at night. It took weeks to recover from our August travels.
I was prepared for the worst, and was pleasantly surprised by how well both he and I did. I had been moving Grant's bedtime earlier to reduce the shock, so he was actually going to bed as early as 5:00 pm before we left. Our flight left at 6:00 pm, but he was too enthralled with the new environment to be willing to sleep. I had called the airline, and had expected to have a bulkhead seat with a bassinet. They couldn't reserve it in advance, so I was recommended to arrive early to have the gate attendant make the reservations. We were plenty early, and the gate attendant was able to get us a row of 3 seats all to ourselves! It turns out there are benefits to flying around September 11. She told me that the bassinet could be set on the seat, but this turned out to be wrong. I really, really wished that we had not checked the car seat with our luggage, but had waited to check it at the gate if necessary. I tried this on all the other flights of our trip, but all other flights we took were completely full.
It was really hard to get Grant to fall asleep in such a different environment, but he finally did, and me and all the other passengers were insanely jealous of his cushy accommodations. Sadly, he was not so appreciative. Every time he stirred, he would wake up, and I had to nurse him back to sleep. This happened about every half hour. I gave up before long and held him for most of the 10 hour flight.
So it was a short night for Grant, and a non-existent night for me, but we arrived in Amsterdam at 4:00 local time or so. Grant took a little nap on the train to Nijmegen, we both took a little nap at our hotel, then we went out for a late dinner, and went to sleep for the night around midnight. We woke up around 10 am, and were pretty much on local time. Much better than I expected.
The return trip was another story. Our flight left at 10 am, we only managed to get Grant to take one nap, and we fell asleep at about noon local time when we got home. It took almost two weeks to get to a normal schedule. But if it had to happen, at least it was when we were home, and not while we were traveling. I'm not sure how I could have avoided this. I might try another night flight going back home, but it might not turn out any better.
There are several good lists out there on the web that I consulted when packing, but really, you know what your baby needs for food, clothes, medicine, etc. But the best baby accessory that we brought on this trip was the PeaPod. It has almost completely replaced our Pack and Play. Weighing in at only 2.5 pounds, fitting into my suitcase, and taking seconds to put up and take down, it was the perfect baby bed. In addition to its fabulous portability, Grant really, really liked it. Normally he has a hard time sleeping in a new place, but the PeaPod was a contained little cocoon that kept him happy even when we were changing hotels every night.
We even took it to church and stuck him in a little classroom for a nap! So awesome! I wish we had empty classrooms at our church here! The only problem with the PeaPod is that Grant likes it so much, I still haven't been able to get him back in his crib a month after returning. I'm afraid it is going to involve a lot of crying, as indicated by the couple of attempts I have made. If I didn't think that we would wear out the zipper soon, I might not ever switch back. He's so cute rolling around in there, rubbing against the sides.
I saw several blogs/websites recommending bringing a high chair for Europe, so we decided to get one. We really only needed it in Paris though. Every restaurant in Holland and England had baby chairs, although some were better than others, just like here. People in Paris seemed delighted to have a baby in the restaurant, they just didn't have chairs for them. I'm not sure why. If we had spent more time in France, it would have justified hauling along the bulky, heavy chair, but we ended up with only one day there. It was the lightest, smallest chair I could find that I thought would work, but it still took up as much space as all my clothing, and weighed a lot more.
Other things I was really glad to have include my front carrier and my stroller. The ErgoBaby works on both the front and the back, and it was great to have for walking in England and for having along in Holland when we got off our bikes.
My stroller is a BOB Motion, and while it isn't especially light, I love it. It collapses easily, and takes up much less room than a jogging stroller, yet it has good wheels that handle rough terrain and some jogging (although it says not to). I was able to get it on and off buses and trains (although I didn't brave a subway). I considered getting an inexpensive umbrella stroller, but I did a lot of walking, like up to 10 miles a day in London. It was totally worth it. If I generally spent more time in cities though, I would consider one of the Maclaren lightweight strollers. I saw quite a few of them, and they look ideal for city use.
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