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| Cameron and me in Hong Kong |
The flight was 15 hours. The time change was 11 hours. All three of us made it through with our sanity in tact and no benadryl during the flight. (Confession: I drugged baby boy with a 1/4 dose of benadryl to help him sleep the first night.) Thankfully, English is an official language in Hong Kong and the city's public transportation system is easy to navigate. Overall, it ended up being a fabulous first trip to Asia.
For other adventurous parents out there, I offer these international travel tips we learned through trial and error:
- Schedule the flight during usual night sleep time if possible. The flight to Hong Kong was easier than the flight back to the U.S. because the first flight took place pretty close to the time that Cameron usually goes down for the night.
- Know ahead of time how you feel about medication. On a 15-hour plane ride, sleepy meds can be quite attractive. Know that the benadryl bottle says not to give it to children under 4 years old. Because of that and because of the sensitive nature of my baby boy, I wasn't comfortable using benadryl while we were in the air. He had never had that medication, and if he were to have a reaction in the air, I'd never forgive myself. However, I have a friend who is a nurse who gave benadryl to her children on an international flight when they were younger than 4. So, at 2am in Hong Kong I was perfectly fine with testing a 1/4 dose to combat the time change.
- Rely on breast milk and/or jarred baby food for infant nutrition. Unfortunately, M and I both got food poisoning in Hong Kong. I'm so thankful that I didn't try to give Cameron a sample taste of the local cuisine.
- Have a plan for if your baby gets sick. If Cameron had gotten sick in Hong Kong, we wouldn't have known what to do other than go to the hotel lobby and beg for help. Next time I travel international with baby boy I'll do research ahead of time.
- Bring a baby carrier and an umbrella stroller. Our Ergo baby carrier was perfect for moving naps throughout the day. But we were also grateful for our umbrella stroller to give our backs a break and baby boy a chance to wiggle around a bit more.
- Carry hand sanitizer. In general, I think we're overzealous about hand sanitizer in the U.S. But I'm so glad I had my Purell in Hong Kong. Cameron has blue eyes and blonde hair, which meant he was a veritable celebrity in Asia. There's no telling how many strangers reached out to shake his little hands.
- Request bulkhead seating. We lucked out and got this special row on the way home. If your infant isn't sitting up on his own yet, they'll bring out a bassinet that hooks into the wall. Even if baby is too old for the bassinet, the extra leg room makes a fabulous mid-flight play area.
Go you! That's awesome that you went! I thought traveling 7 hours in the car back to Wisconsin was a feat, but you nailed it. As far as traveling in a car with a 6 month-old goes, we did alright. We've done the trip a couple times before. This one went well because we left at 5pm, and he slept about 45 minutes and then we stopped at a Starbucks to stretch the legs, caffeinate my hubby (the driver), change into PJs, and nurse. We got back into the car, and he promptly fell asleep at 7pm and slept all the way to Grandma's. It was pretty painless.
ReplyDeleteHow did he adjust to the time changes?
Nice job! That was smart driving during sleep time. Cam did better than I thought he would with the time change. It took him 4 days to fully adjust. Now that we're back home, every night gets better. Can't wait until he's back to sleeping the whole night through in his crib like before we went on vacation.
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