emma69

Beach holiday at a resort that caters to children (maybe with baby sitters, child friendly wading pools, entertainment etc) or small towns around the Med where resturants are laid back and welcoming of children, but still have great food. When I was little and when my baby brother was little Portugal, Greece and the Greek islands were our normal summer haunts. My parents and my friends with children prefer self catering villas over hotels (more space so you can have adult wine, conversation etc after the child has gone to sleep, ability to prep baby food easily (kettle, microwave), no neighbours the other side of some plasterboard to disturb with crying), and hiring a car to explore (no having to be stuck on a bus on someone else's schedule, can drag along changes of clothes, extra towels, water, food etc easily). Whilst I remember little of travel as a baby, I do recall travelling with my brother when he was a baby / toddler. He loved playing in the sea and pools, was treated fantastically by waiters and taverna owners, enjoyed being approached by smiling strangers (he was blonde, which is more unusual there), didn't cry for any length of time on the plane, and enjoyed the new sights and sounds.

Tons of Europeans travel with babies, I am very used to seeing them in restaurants, hotels, beaches etc. I don't think having children does or should confine you to your own four walls as long as you are conscious of their behaviour, their needs, and the needs of others.

Boraxo

In our experience (our 5-year old has been on 79 flights and his 2-year old sister about 32) 6-12mos is easy because the child isn't too mobile and also they will (usually) take long naps in a stroller which permit you to enjoy lunch, dinner, pool lounger, etc. After 1 year they don't like to be confined, and 2-3 is actually the most difficult on airplanes and in restaurants because the attention span is too short. After 3 they can sit with coloring books or ipods/ipads with video games, etc.

Our child woke up 2x during the night on the 14 hour overnight to Australia. He was fussy for a couple of minutes and then calmed down as soon as his milk bottle was refilled and slept most of the flight. So your experience is by no means universal.

Most infants can easily be pacified if the parents are properly prepared.

As for grandparents, not all of them have time, energy or inclination to provide 24/7 childcare for an extended period. Should that preclude young parents from enjoying travel?

How progressive. No doubt you think women should stay in the home and children should only speak when spoken to.

Grow up, the world has changed. People take children everywhere. Quite honestly a sleeping 3 month old in a fine restaurant is often better behaved than some of the obnoxious older diners who seem oblivious that their loud voices carry throughout the restaurant. I'd generally agree that truly fine dining and certain young ages (1-5) don't mix. But it is wholly dependent on the behaviour of the parents and children. And you cannot be serious about restaurants like CEC, much less CPK, Cheesecake Factory, etc. where you probably wouldn't even hear a crying baby.

We've done some wine tasting when our child was <1. This is somewhat problematic as you will have difficultly standing in one spot when the child is awake. But we made it work in NZ and Sonoma, it helps if the winery has an outdoor area where the child can run around and you can rotate supervision. But we haven't been now for a few years.

+1 In some ways a better choice than Australia/NZ which require a great deal of travel to see everything. In Spain you can plant yourself in a couple of spots over a week and not run out of things to see and do.

dearbee

i am one of those parents. we frequently travel with the little guy and have been ever since he was 6mo. the fact is we try our best not to annoy others but no way am i locking myself and the family up for a few years just so that we don't annoy overly sensitive people like you.

the world is not YOUR own personal oyster.

SQ325

This has nothing to do with preparation. Some babies are easy to pacify, some not. Some are easy to travel with, some not. It depends on the personality of the baby/kid.

Whats wrong with taking a break and pause travelling for 1 or 2 years? That people taking their babies everywhere nowadays doesnt make it right. Who knows how travelling is influencing the development of a baby?
Why can people not accept that their life is changing? I accepted for myself that I cant travel the same way I have done before the kids. The focus is shifting and nothing is wrong with that. My break is over and Iam still alive. We are back travelling, but we selecting our destinations differently.


As long as a restaurant is catering for families with young children I find it fully acceptable to eat out accompanied by a infant/toddler. Elsewhere not really.


We had have that experience 2 years ago. But as parents. And it was really no fun at all. Iam happy that we are out of that, today it is very diffrent.

dearbee

is it a special privilege to travel as a parent with accompanying child? i have as much a right to sit in C or Y as you do. and just because we have a child does not mean that we will avoid certain destinations.

darthbimmer

I agree with the "wait and see" advice. Understand your child's personality before making plans. Some kids settle down quickly and can stay engaged with an activity for hours at a time, even at a young age. They're easy to travel with. Others demand constant attention and will deliberately create a scene to get it. It's not always differences in parenting; I see wide variety in behavior across siblings in my extended family.

Waiting and seeing will also help you gauge your own energy. You and your partner may find that keeping up with the little one saps all your energy.

Once you decide that it's reasonable to travel, I suggest keeping it simple. You don't want to do "If it's Tuesday, it must be Belgium" whirlwind tours, but I think you know that already. Set up a home base at a hotel in a city or a resort, and identify activities you can do in a few hours each. Keep your schedule flexible so that you can cancel or reschedule an activity if your child is having a bad time. Be ready to enjoy just soaking up the local ambiance when other plans fall through.

Kagehitokiri

@ $430/nt, you could post in the luxury hotels forum, and avoid all this nonsense

obscure2k

Folks, I have just removed several topics which were off topic. The OP was asking for "International Trip Ideas With 10 Month Old.

However, some folks decided to change the topic and discuss the general topic of "Traveling with Children." Please confine your remarks to the original topic.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

SFflyer123

I would leave the 10 month old with the grandparents, personally. I know that's not your question and you want to bring the baby with you. But if you like Paris, fine dining, and a "nice" vacation, it won't be much of a vacation with a 10 month old. You'll be lucky if you're at a pizza parlor with the child and they're not screaming their head off.

If you can find it in your heart to leave the baby with the grandparents, I would personally just go with you and your wife to Paris, book a lot of Michelin star restaurants, and enjoy yourselves. Maybe you don't have to go for a week, but 5 days will get you a good "Paris" fix. It will also give you a nice breather from the kid.

Otherwise, if you really must take the baby, think about beach vacations as others have suggested, or renting out condos where you can cook. Maui is a great place. Rent a place in Palm Desert. It definitely has a different flavor of vacation with the baby.

roknroll

Thanks obscure2k. As to the comments about Paris, I totally agree and kind of hinted at that in the original post. Although we love fine dining and would love to visit Paris, I don't think it would be the place to bring a newborn, and we'd probably not get the most out of the trip.

I love the beach holidays, so I will aim for that. We actually will be going to Maui for 4 nights in March (baby will be 5 months), for a friends wedding at the Sheraton. I guess that will be a good test run, and we'll be on a flight with several other friends sitting around us to give a little buffer zone. My parents will probably be going with us there as well, to help watch the baby on the wedding night, and rehearsal dinner night. I think the fact that we'll be going to Maui might steer my wife from wanting another 'purely' beach vacation, although I could do every trip to a tropical beach resort.

I think we will wait to book any travel or decide on a location until AFTER we have gone to Maui. That should give us a good idea if it's really something we want to do.

I'm leaning a bit towards Europe as a destination. First, my sister lives in Brooklyn, so I figure we can split up the trip/flight by spending 2-3 days visiting her in NYC. Then it's a much shorter flight from NYC to Dublin, London, Germany, Spain, ETC.

Does anyone have some advice on if splitting the trip like that is a good idea or bad idea? Is it easier to just do one long flight and get it over with, or split it up into two smaller trips?

People mentioned Spain earlier, and I started to look into it a bit. We'd probably be traveling in September or early October. How is Marbella or Malaga? I figure we can get our relaxing beach destination as well as a nice town/city to stroll and dine in. It seems that there's a lot of history, culture, dining, city life, etc to walk around in to please my wife, but also beachy too. We really enjoy just walking through towns, window shopping, grabbing quick bites at out door cafes, etc so I think that would be good there.

SQ325

I would wait and see until you have done the Maui trip and decide then. My kids for example are more the "we do it in one go and are over it" kind. But on the other hand if you stop in NYC for a couple of days it would probably not make much of a difference. But I would not fly in and leave the next day, this break might be to short.

If you like to visit Europe I would suggest you go to Spain. Find a resort which offers you the possibility to do daytrips into the surrounding. You can rest in between your daytrips which makes more enjoyable for the baby. The area of Andalucia (South of Spain) sounds like a good plan. In October the temperature there are still quite pleasant. In Germany/UK/Ireland it can get quite cold (the nights might get below freezing point) and the weather may not be that stable.

Ben_mw

Hello, first time poster here! (Excuse me if I mess up the quotes etc)!

That makes a lot of sense. You'll not know how you are going to cope with your little one until they arrive. They might be a little angle who enjoys all the new experiences (or at least tolerates them), or they might be a little horror!
Our thinking since the birth of our daughter has been along the lines of "If we don't try it, we'll never know if it works or not". We've friends who have never done anything or travelled anywhere with their little ones and have found it much harder to introduce in later life. Our little girl's first camping trip was at 10 weeks, 2nd at 14weeks and first flight and foreign holiday at 16 weeks. She has taken it all in her stride and whilst I'd like to think she has enjoyed it I can't honestly say she has - at her age everything is new and exicting, or scary and horrible. However we have enjoyed taking her away. We have just had to accept that we have to different things to what we would have done before she turned up.
My little tips? Well...
Spain and France are both very family friendly, we had no problems with taking our little girl out in France for meals etc.
Southern Spain in september/October will be nice and warm, but not too hot. (We found in France in July that the heat of the day was too much for a 16 week old from Northern England and had to keep to somewhere we could be sure of shade or air con).
Malaga was a suprise for us, we had no intention of anything other than landing and getting the train to Seville, but (thanks to striking ATC) we spent a night there and decided to go back at the end of our holiday to explore a bit more. It's full of bars and restaurants and we hapilly wandered around for a day or so, and could have spent more time there.
Seville (a couple of hours by train) is well worth a few days.
If you have a car, you can travel by your own (well, your baby's own) timetable which we found to be much less stressful - you just need to adopt the attitude that you'll get there when you get there!
We found that travelling with family was very good just for the extra pairs of hands - it made our holiday much more relaxing.
Bear in mind the logistics of all the baby stuff - it's amazing how much stuff you need - though nappys etc are available anywhere, maybe travel with a few days worth of stuff spare and pick up others as you go.
Language - Was a big thing for us. We wanted to be confident that should our little girl be ill that we could effectively communicate this to a doctor without having to rely on them being an English speaker.
Baby carrier/sling thingies are great for mobility, but they can get very hot in them, and you can't easily put them down - can you eat with one hand whilst balancing a baby on your knee? (That would be a good look in a Michelin starred place)! Pushchairs can be handy here, but otherwise are a faff.
Flights - well our experience is rather limited - a 2 hour hop on BMI Baby, but we decided to feed our little one on takeoff and landing to force her to swallow to help her ears pop. This worked a treat - but had we not had a row of 3 seats (we didn't book a seat for the baby) my wife would have found it difficult to feed without invading someone else's personal space. We flew with this particular airline because it was the only direct flight and we thought that two lots of takeoff and landing might be pushing our luck.

I reckon you should just go for it. Accept that you can't do all the things you normally would. Always have some form of backup plan for when things don't go as planned and Enjoy!

daregale

My husband's from Germany but we live in the US, so we've done lots of European travel with a baby, starting at 6 weeks. (Berlin, Heidelberg, Paris, Barcelona, Venice, Vienna, as well as many small mountain towns). Really, you can go anywhere that strikes your fancy.

We prefer to rent an apartment to having a hotel room--and definitely staying in one place rather than moving about. We love being able to close the door after then boy's asleep and have a nice evening together with a little more privacy. The infrastructure of an apartment is also nice for washing clothes, keeping snacks cold or warming things up. It also gives us the opportunity to spend time in a neighborhood and get the feel of a city in a different way outside of the normal places frequented by tourists. The slower pace can be welcome, even though you give up a few of the niceties like room service.

emma69

Another idea to throw into the mix, is if you have a teen relative who could babysit, they could come along too - I did this when I was at Uni - an extra pair of hands to help, do a couple of evenings babysitting while you go for dinner, and in return they get some time off too to explore where they are, as well as join in on group stuff like a boat trip. I know people who take grandparents along too, so both sets of adults get some adult time, and both have time with the child.

pinniped

Originating in the Bay Area, with a 10-month-old, the only remotely reasonable international destination I can think of is Vancouver. And I doubt I'd even do that...

But Vancouver's a great town, and if you're just dying to get out of the U.S. for a while, go for it.

If you were from the East Coast, I'd similarly recommend Montreal and Quebec City - also fine destinations. But not from the Bay Area...not with a 10-month-old.

We took our 7-month-old to Bermuda (from Chicago) and spent most of the trip dealing with a cranky child. We jumped on a 20k R/T promo from United and went for kicks...in retrospect, we should have left the kid at home with Grandma.

Now that our kids are 4 and 7, we have no hesitation taking them (almost) anywhere. At this age, they enjoy the travel. Kind of funny to turn them loose in a playground on a trip and watch them make fast friends with kids who speak different languages!!