Notes of a Traveler-Parent:
It has been a long long time since my last post. Quite a few travels have been undertaken in between, but the most important has been the journey that we have embarked upon since 2014 - an experience, an adventure, an enterprise of a lifetime. Parenthood is indeed the grandest journey we have undertaken so far. Till now, the experience has been like any of our travels, but only this has been more exhilarating and rewarding, enriching and also exhausting. While groundwork - of reading, researching, listening to advice and also witnessing from close quarters others at it- has been necessary for mental conditioning and to have an idea of what we are heading for; meticulous planning has never worked in our favour in the travels and neither has it in this journey till date. Raising a kid is just like traveling with a 'somewhat' itinerary in mind and then just letting yourself into the flow - so there might be change of plans because of circumstances or on the way someone tells you to visit some place not in your plan or 'you gonna miss big time' and you head to that, or simply you like one place so much that you chuck your other plans and stay there to just enjoy and explore it more; and then from there starts the digression and the itinerary goes kaput - and when you are done you realise its a different story from what you thought you would tell when you begun.
Right from adoring those cute little dresses in the girls' section of baby attires throughout the nine months and then ending up being congratulated by the doctor - 'it's a boy!'; to seeing the cherub's super wide eyes and playful mood at bedtime and rushing to get the caffeine dose to keep you ticking and then just as you lick the last drop from that giant mug in preparation for staying awake through the night you find your playmate has dropped off to a sound sleep!! Welcome to the topsy-turvy journey of parenting! Plans and plannings, that had been your soulmates for so long may ditch anytime now without a notice and leave you distraught. But, as I said, my travels taught me something - do not take it to heart, just go with the flow. If there's a typhoon on its way, and your plans for the precious next few days of travel (for which you have spent a fortune) dangle mid-air bashed by the storm and the rain, don't sulk and curse your fate couched in your hotel room; just experience the typhoon in a land which is also famous for its natural calamities and disasters (and may be just brave a little of it like the citizens and head out; surely if only you are allowed to).
Traveling with a baby has been the biggest apprehension of parents, I realise. Indeed, it had been one of our prime concerns as well. Not traveling was just not an option for us - we had decided that beforehand. Blogs on how to travel with an infant/toddler had been high on my reading list throughout my pregnancy. So the moment he was three months old, we got back to what we did best, start planning our next trip. However, it was not to happen until his sixth month, what with endless weddings in the family in between and also his big fat 'rice-eating' ceremony to keep our plans at bay. Taking our first baby steps to traveling, we decided to visit my sister in Bangalore and may be go around to nearby places. The three hours flight would have been otherwise peaceful, all the more as he was still not mobile on his own, but for the fact that my poor thing had his first bout of cold and got cranky with a blocked nose. #Lesson1: Do not be embarassed of or bothered by what people around you think about your baby's cries and wails. Ignore those looks and let them deal with it. Be concerned about your baby and how you can comfort him/her. The more you panic about what others might think, the more you lose cool to comfort your baby, and things will only get worse. #Lesson2: Always keep things handy to keep your baby distracted, especially during these times when they are physically down. Something visual scores above all those rattles and stuff. So, while our rattles and soft toys failed to draw my boy's attention or calm him down, a neighbour's iPad did the trick (and thankfully it had animation videos of nursery rhymes downloaded - she had a niece she said and could perfectly understand our predicament).
One thing that I realised later when I traveled with my baby when he was one and already walking, that it is indeed much easier to travel when they are a little bundle. It is much easier if they are breastfeeding, but even if they are on formula it shouldn't be difficult. If you are traveling within the country then you can always buy the formula wherever you are headed to, but if you are traveling abroad it is advisable to pack the extra supply of formula (which is the only tough thing, as that would mean quite an amount of extra supply or a very short trip). Though you can buy formula feed at the destination, it is better if you carry what the baby is used to, as often the composition might slightly vary even if its the same brand, but manufactured in a different country, and may not suit your baby. However, you can take your chance of trying out the formula feeds found there (my paed had said we could do that). Anyway, my baby was already on solids in his sixth month, so putting up at my sister's place was quite a relief for us as first time traveler-parents (redundant to say, it was a well contrived plan).
#Lesson3: Prepare yourselves and the baby for the travel by taking him/her out in the carrier and stroller for longer times. While you need to get used to carrying your baby for longer periods of time, your baby also needs to be used to being in the carrier or stroller or both for a prolonged time and nothing better if he/she gets used to sleeping on their own in the stroller (my one got so pro he could sleep dangling in the carrier as well). This indeed came as a big help for us in the longer run as well, when he had grown out of the carrier and we only used the stroller. When we traveled just after he was one to U.A.E., we really did not have any problem whatsoever of carrying him. With him being comfortable in the stroller it also gave us a lot of mobility and we could explore more and quite easily. We would take him out of the stroller when we were in the malls or subway stations or anywhere indoors and let him run around and allow him time to enjoy himself, and stretch so that he would not be cranky of tiredness of just sitting. Happy baby, happy us. We had a great time and we did walk around all the souks and the deira or take that lovely walk at the JBR in Dubai without a complain from the baby.
#Lesson4: Do not fret too much about baby's exposure to the outside world and the germ hazards. While you surely need to be cautious, you also need to get his/her immunity stronger and that can only happen once he/she is exposed to the outside world. Also, do not deprive the baby of exploring as they develop their senses - they really enjoy what is mundane and banal for us with utmost alacrity. Allow them to meet and greet the surroundings and the people from an early age, so that the stranger anxiety does not hit them hard. On one of our early days of strolls outside I tried to whisk my baby away seeing an ugly looking stray dog (Disclaimer: I am a dog lover, and this was only from my baby's perspective that I was trying to think) barking and snarling and scratching away to glory, thinking that dog hair would be harmful and also it might scare my bundle, when I noticed those eyes lighting up and the hands and legs cycling in a matchless speed of excitement, and my heart had to forego the anxiety and let him have his first eyeful of what would later on become his favourite and first mates outside home. Also, going out and meeting people from a very early age helped him being generally friendly - so much so that on our flight back from Bangalore, he for most part of the journey was happily moving from one lap to another without a care and I had a difficulty keeping tab of his whereabouts in the flight. Even when he was one and had a mild stranger anxiety, it didn't stop him from befriending people at the malls or the subways in U.A.E., who even looked ethnically different from what he is used to seeing usually.
#Lesson5: While traveling it is best to carry some of the baby's comfort items - a few toys or rattles or teethers he/she is fond of; the security blanket surely, but also may be the wrap you (the mother) usually use if you happen to co-sleep with the baby, like us; his little pillow if your baby uses one. And also some new toys and sources of entertainment to keep him/her busy! In our preparation for U.A.E. the father went overboard with entertainments for the son, so that in the flight we were literally lending out toys and books to other babies to distract them from crying, for whatever reasons they did; while my son happily amused himself seeing the other babies. Indeed, trust me, in-flight entertainments for the baby are a must. They are yet to attain that age where they have the patience to sit through for a longer period of time and watch cartoons or anything on the screen, so being stuck in the lap is the last thing they are up for. It's a coup if you can manage the front seat (ask for bassinet while booking your tickets - in most international flights they would then assign you the front seat with more leg space). More leg space means you can let the baby slip down and play in the little extra space available. And new toys and books can be the masterstroke. My little boy had a smooth time enjoying the 51/2 hour journey. However, this was not before we learnt another lesson while we were heading to U.A.E.. The onward flight timing was deliberately chosen to be late in the evening to coincide with his sleep time, as we thought he would be off in the flight and that would be easy for us. Everything went according to the plan and he dosed off as well just before the flight took off, right at his usual bedtime at home. But then after sometime he started getting fidgety and woke up being cranky with a disturbed sleep. And then through the entire flight he alternated between dosing off, fidgeting positions in my lap and waking up being cranky. It is only later that we figured out that, while he is used to taking his day time naps in the stroller or carrier in a single position, he is used to the luxury of rolling in the bed and change positions and sleep at night time, which was denied to him in the flight. #Lesson6: No more late evening flights till he grows up. The baby should not be robbed of his luxury of the night time sleep, especially if he is into the habit of sleeping through the night without disturbing the parents.
#Lesson7: It is also very important that you start conditioning your baby to eating outside at just any place. We used to take our little one out on our off-days for the whole day, packing his lunch and snacks and feeding him at random places - at the food-court of a mall or in a park, or just random open place by the road. This really helped a lot. While he knows that in the house he is supposed to have his food sitting in his booster chair and at the dinning table, when out, his stroller is his dinning chair and food has to be had that way. Though this doesn't apparently seem important, but believe you me, kids are very disciplined and can be extremely disturbed if a regime is not followed, or they are suddenly introduced to a new regimen at a new place amidst new people. So it is better that the mind is conditioned beforehand, and not everything new is just thrust upon them all at once.
While meticulous preparations are never a guarantee for a error-free successful show on the d-day, they are nevertheless necessary to ensure that the show is satisfactory and rewarding despite the glitches and the lessons learnt on the go come handy always for the next show.
A friend (and a mother who has been really good at her job) had advised me when I was still pregnant that your baby grows up the way you want him/her to. So true. The onus is on us as parents to shape them. We want our boy to be a traveler, a fearless explorer. That's just one aspect though. And we are trying our best to prepare him for that. Fingers crossed. So far, he loves to go out, meet people, see and enjoy new surroundings and new things, explore every nook and cranny with an indomitable zest. But its a work-in-progress!!
