Taking Your Baby On Holiday For The First Time

                        

                      

                           

Having had Primrose in February, we was a little unsure whether to take her on holiday in June/July, just because for us we were still getting to grips with becoming parents and we were still majorly learning. So as a family we didn't feel quite ready. 

We decided we would book a last minute holiday to Cyprus in October, we researched alot of destinations and Cyprus we found was the best at that time of year, it was still quite hot but not too hot so Primrose would be OK to sit around the pool etc without getting too warm. 

Primrose was 8 months old when we went on holiday, I thought this age was perfect for us (BUT that is just our experience). Primrose was so good on the flight there and back, going there we flew in the day time and landed there at night so not much changed for her regarding bed time, I think the motion of the plane helped a lot with us, she must have liked it - she falls asleep in the car all the time so I'm guessing this is kinda the same thing? As soon as the plane set off, we were going up into the sky, I literally had my milk ready and I just let her drink that whilst we were getting up in case her ears popped. She was totally fine, she fell asleep pretty much straight away and didn't wake up for like 2 hours. When she woke up we just had lots of small toys in our hand luggage and snacks for her, and Adam brought the iPad so she was watching that too for some time. The flight there flown! She was such a good girl, everyone was looking at her and talking to her too, she loved the attention of course! 

Hotel Resort: Constantinou Bros Athena Beach 

We loved it here the food was amazing and the staff were great too and so friendly. 

Food/Milk Supplies

Milk - for the flight there and back we got lots of them ready made milk cartons (Blue Aptamil) so we could just pour it straight into her bottle and give it her to make it easy for us all. I think we took 3 on the plane there & 2 on the way back, we had a couple for the holiday in case we needed them too. 

For the duration of the holiday, we took a big tub of the powdered milk (had to keep unsealed in your case) which I worked out that was enough from what she has at home - Although we were literally scraping on our last day on the holiday, I don't know whether Primrose was drinking more milk because we were on holiday and the warmth made her thirsty, or whether she was just a little more unsettled because we weren't at home? Unsure but we survived, but if you are going on holiday work out what you would use at home and add a little extra. 

Food - She was on them Ella's pouches for her meals & desserts, so Daddy went to the supermarket and literally it looked like he bought the whole shelf!!! We just put these in the fridge to keep cool and took out in the day when we needed them. Pack a little extra for these too! (Just in case). 

I'm not actually sure what I would do now Primrose is eating solids, like are babies allowed to eat foreign food? Will this not make them poorly? Maybe I will do another Blog just to update on taking Toddlers on holiday. 😁

Around the pool 
Primrose was great around the pool in the day time, in the morning we would go for our breakfast then we would go straight to get our sun loungers. As soon as we got to the beds we would take primroses clothes off and just let her sit in her nappy to keep her cool under the umbrella. She obviously loved it because in case you didn't already know my child loves being naked!!! 24/7 god sake!
Then around 10/11am we would put her suncream, costume and hat on and go in the pool before it started to get quite hot, at first she wasn't that sure about being in the water she would literally cling to you, but by the end of the holiday she LOVED the water. After the pool we would get her all dry, put a new nappy on, wipe all the cream off her and put her in the pram by this point it was her nap time, Adam would walk her round and down the beach front to get her to sleep.
SUNBATHING SESSION for this mama!!!!!!!
After a few days we went and bought a little float for babies, we just sat it next to the sunbeds and put water in it and let Primrose splash around it that to cool her down too. She sat in this with no clothes on haha!! Adam at one point had to get rid of her poo - this was the funniest thing ever!! I could not deal with that!! But Prim was happy :).
The only problem we had with Primrose on the whole holiday, was one morning she woke up and was sick everywhere like 3 times in the space of an hour. We literally thought oh Jesus has she got sun stroke??? we was so worried, but she was super tired so she went back to bed for an hour, when she woke up it was like nothing had ever happened. She was fine and she wanted to eat everything insight. I think this was down to drinking some of the pool water - this couldn't be helped anymore, she just kept trying to put her mouth under to drink the water when she was in the pool so we just had to watch her and make sure she didn't put her mouth in the pool (again Adam was like "RIGHT SHES NOT GOING BACK IN THE POOL FOR THE REST OF THE HOLIDAY") and he got bottled water from the bar to fill up her little float for her to sit in haha!! This lasted all of a day before i told him to stop being so silly.

The Beach
We didn't actually ever sit on the beach on the sun loungers (even though the beach was literally on our complex) Adam was too obsessed with being near the sea because apparently its hotter and you get more burnt here - probably true a little but he was SUPERRRRRR dramatic about it. We went down one day for a little walk and to put Primroses little feet in the sea, but she wasn't sure about it, I don't think she liked the feel of sand on her feet because she was wriggling her toes and pulling some right funny faces as if to say "MUM WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS ON MY FEET".

Me and Adam found we got ourselves into a routine whilst we were on holiday, with the naps and eating etc. This helped a lot because we knew when we would have a little break etc and we knew how to plan our days whilst being on holiday :) Because of the little difference in time we didn't think we would have it sussed as much as we did - Adam, we did it kidda! 😝

Everyone was so nice at the complex, there were quite a few older couples who literally LOVED Primrose(she was famous on that complex by the end of our time there haha) and there were a couple of families with children and babies, so Primrose met a couple of little baby friends and us mums compared experiences on being on holiday with our babies.

Doubts
So Many of our family members, and people around us were a little worried for us taking our baby on holiday whilst she was still a baby.
"it might be too hot for her"
"she's too young to go on holiday yet"
"what about the flight, she might be in pain with her ears"
"Sterilising her stuff, its not as clean she might get poorly"

Yes they all flagged my mind, and I was such a nervous wreck leading up to the holiday just thinking have I took everything (Because all mums know even just a day out to the park, the amount of stuff you have to take with you, so a holiday for 10 nights - 20 kilos each??? is this enough really?) will everything be OK in a different country etc. But everything went fine, we didn't experience any problems what so ever and we had the best first little family holiday, even better we got baby daddy to ourselves for a whole 10 days!!!!

Hope you like reading this blog, I know taking a baby on holiday can be such a daunting experience, but don't let it, just make sure everything is organised and then you can go away and enjoy it :).

Love

PAIGE PICKERING