When it comes to traveling with a baby, many parents are skeptical. Common concerns include from limited baby food options, nap schedule, diaper changing/breastfeeding schedule, to finding a baby friendly place to stay. Some may say taking a short trip somewhere local could already be challenging, not to mention traveling on a long distance flight to Europe hopping different countries. The good news is, with careful planning, you can make it work!  I truly can’t wait to share my experience of taking my 13-months-old to Europe this summer.

4 critical tips to keep in mind:

Practical and useful baby items

Baby Blender

A portable baby food blender comes in handy on almost every meal. But, don’t forget to bring an outlet adapter for the country that you travel to.

Inflatable Bath Tub

It’s not a secret. We all know how the bath tubs and sinks clean in hotels. I personally wouldn’t feel comfortable using them, not to mention putting my baby in there for a bath. There’s inflatable bath tub for baby available in Amazon. You would certainly have a peace of mind putting your baby in there.

Book a direct flight

Plane ride can be a painful experience for babies due to air pressure in the sky so the shorter the better. We tried to limit the flight time by booking direct flight to a city that our city has direct flight to. Yes, you would have to return to the same city and book an extra night when you return, but you would find it still worth it than taking a straight 20 hours flight with connecting flights in between.

Take a cruise

Given the consideration of exhaustion from busy baby schedules, I selected cruise as our main transportation to visit different countries and cities in Europe for the following reasons: 1. It’s easy! hop on and hop off whenever you want. 2. It takes you to different countries and cities when you are resting so you save energy on driving or taking planes all that hassalls. 3. It offers unlimited and a wide selection of food options on the ship, so you don’t have to worry about finding a restaurant which would save you a ton of energy and time.

Selecting the right cruise for you and your family is crucial since a big portion of time will be spent on it. We selected Celebrity Cruises line 11 nights which came with perks like free drinks and WiFi package.

The pros: It’s a large ship and it’s gotten the most ports to stop by. Combined with its elegant interior decor and fancy international culinary, it’s fancy sail.

The cons: It’s not as baby/kid friendly as other cruise line, such as Royal Caribbean or Disney cruise. There’s limited kids activities both indoor and outdoor. Only one daycare center and a teen club are onboard. The largest swimming pool is for adult only. There’s no kids dance or movie time.

Check out all cruise lines on Cruise Direct. It’s your one-stop shop for cruise and it’s easier for your compare different cruise lines.

Bring a durable and comfortable stroller

Baby gears matter! You need to have compact and durable stroller system for your long distance travel. A good stroller on which that baby could sleep comfortably goes a long way because your baby will spend a lot of time on it while you exploring the new places. a compact and integrated system allows you save space and easily move around. We brought our UppaBaby stroller along with the car seat in case there’s car ride. He’s a bit out-grown of the car seat already but still ok for a short period of ride. The large basket of this stroller gave much room for all the stuff that we needed on the go, while tucking the car seat in there as well. The frame of the stroller is steel so it’s very sturdy and durable. It’s totally a life saver!

San Francisco to Zurich

We chose a direct flight to Zurich, Switzerland. It’s an 9 hours flight and we took SWISS airline. It’s definitely the best airline that we had ever taken. Service was excellent! After we checked in our airbnb located in downtown, we roamed around the area and had dinner at the local restaurant for cheese fondue. Can’t miss it since we are in Switzerland, right? However, do note that what cheese fondue meal offers wasn’t  baby friendly at all. The cheese has strong taste and most babies can’t handle it. Summer in Switzerland is hot and humid in some days. The couple of days that we were there happened to be very hot even at night time. The airbnb that we got had no air conditioning and therefore good-night-sleep wasn’t checked. Be mindful of that and find out the weather and make sure if air conditioning is available if you are going with airbnb. I preferred airbnb as I like the option of cooking something simple for baby.

We stayed in Zurich for only 2 nights so only one full day was available which left us not too many choices. We decided to go to Pilatus-Lucerne Mountain where is one hour drive from Zurich in the center of Switzerland. It’s a perfect spot for a one-day trip and it’s super kids friendly with perfect combination of sight viewing and fun activities. It’s well-planned tourist site, equipped with facilities that meets your recreation and adventure needs. We arrived at the cogwheel train station, got a package of taking cogwheel train up to the top from the front of the mountain and taking gondola back down.

Cogwheel train was certainly a fun ride, with the breathtaking view of the world famous switzerland Alpine peaks when winding up the hill, it’s such a memorable moment for all of us. The surprising part was when we took the gondola down, I discovered the world’s longest mountain roller coaster-that I had always wanted to try. We also discovered camping park and fun kids’ playground built by natural wood with zipline. We didn’t have much time left for the day to spend on the play structures and exploring the camping site as we spent too much time roaming around the top of the mountain before taking the gondola down. Try to limit one to one and half hour at the tourism center and viewing at the top only if you want to leave more time to check out the gondola side of fun activities.

Switzerland is definitely a baby/kids friendly country and it’s certainly a highly recommended family travel destination. Our stay was TOO short and we definitely have to go back.

Off to Rome

Rome is the proximate city to the port for boarding our cruise. We took an hour from Zurich to Rome. The airport of Rome was a bit chaotic. It took us an hour to get our luggages because they mixed different airlines luggages at the same carousel. Thank god that I got baby pouches and formula handy as we arrived around lunch time. After we checked in our hotel, we were back to our feet. Rome is home to Italian food. It’s gotten so many choices and it’s easy to find food on almost every corner of the streets. We jumped right into a Ristorante and had our first pasta. Baby still couldn’t handle regularly cooked pasta. I asked for pasta to be cooked for longer time and simply put cheese on top. Seafood or fish are easily to be found on menu in Italy. I ordered fish and mix it with the pasta to come up nutritious and easy to eat meals for baby.

Getting on Celebrity Reflection

Finally! Here comes our big day of getting onboard of our cruise, beginning of our journey of multi-countries trip, luxurious stay and experience, top notch performance, panorama view of mediterranean sea, fancy cuisines and unlimited food and drink for 12 days. It’s quite a relief after we settled in on the cruise knowing that we would be taken care of for the biggest part of our trip. With plenty of food choices, I was able to arrange baby meals as follow:

Breakfast: Yogurt, cheerios, oatmeal, scrambled eggs, or fruit mixed using Baby Bullet

Lunch: instant oatmeal with banana, baby food pouches, formula or soft food from restaurants

Dinner: Salmon, tender broccoli and carrot, mashed potato, or cooked Spinach with chicken and rice mixed with Baby Bullet 

These are food items that are easily to be found on cruise and are suitable for a 8 – 15 months babies.

Reflection sailed from Civitavecchia (Rome), stopped by Pisa/Florence (Italy), Nice (France), Barcelona, Malaga (Spain), Gibraltar (England), Cartegena (Spain), Ibiza (Spain), and back to Civitavecchia. We stayed at Rome for two nights before flying back to Zurich for return flight. We utilized the full day for a day trip to Siena to avoid wasting time in line for museums in Rome, where is a historical cute little town in Tuscany. It’s a little surprise from my husband and I loved the medieval cityscape of this romantic little town.

Hope my trip experience had given you some confidence in bringing your little on board. Come back and read more.

Vomiting during pregnancy, commonly known as morning sickness, which doesn’t necessary happen in the morning but anytime of the day. It usually happens during 7-11 weeks of pregnancy, but some may experience it earlier or later.

Symptoms include: change of taste of food including food that you usually adore, lost of appetite, nausea, headache, thirsty, constipation, drowsiness, and sensitive to certain taste of food, etc.  Rule of thumb is when experiencing severe vomiting, keep yourself hydrated.  Below are 9 strategies to fight against morning sickness:

Drink sparkling water, ice cubes, and herbal tea

To keep yourself hydrated, fresh sparking water, Sprite with ice or herbal tea would be the best choices for you now. The key is try to drink zero calorie drink such as sparking water.

When you feel like eating, eat what you like to eat

Don’t over stress that your baby is not getting enough nutrition since you are not taking in more than your normal portion even before you got pregnant, plus you are throwing up. Baby will still absorb what it needs from you regardless. Eat when you can and when you feel like to. Eat what you like, simple as a slice of bread, rice, nuts or crackers would do the tricks.

Replenish liquid little by little

Some women vomit whenever they eat. Moms with this symptom should drink liquid little by little. Milk, sport drink or juice, any liquid helps! Drink slowly and keep zipping it when you can. If you can’t drink any liquid, check with doctor.

Wear loose clothes

It’s time to put away your fitted tee or tank and upsize your bra. Wearing loose clothes or pregnancy clothing helps with blood flow and will eventually relieve your nausea.

Create a new recipe list

Replace your regular meals with light soup, such as chicken noodle soup or miso soup. If soup doesn’t work for you, add some lemon juice or vinegar to your meal.  Eating refrigerated fruits of your choice or meals that are already cooled down are helpful too.

Keep your favorite chewing gums next to you

Chewing gums helps relieve stress and light up your mood. Find your favorite taste of gums and keep it near you. There are even tastes like coffee beans or ginger.

Heat up your favorite fragrance oil

Replace your strong scent fragrance or scented products for bathroom with light fragrance oil. You may heat it up or simply just tap it to your neck. Let your invigorating scent surround you. (Warning: some fragrance oil such as cinnamon, jasmine, sage, fennel and lemon grass are not suitable for pregnant women. Check with before applying.)

Shorten your commute time or work time

Getting substantial amount of time to rest is crucial for early stage of pregnancy. Avoid long commute or cut off work hours to get the rest that you and your baby need will foster a healthy pregnancy for both of you.

Practice Yoga or stretching your body everyday

These exercises help with blood circulation, which is what you would need the most during pregnancy. Study showed that it significantly helps improving morning sickness. The best time to do these exercises is in the morning or before bedtime.

When approaching to 20 weeks of pregnancy, vomiting symptoms should disappear and you would be able to fully enjoy carrying a baby. Rock, Baby!