Traveling with kids definitely takes a lot of patience and planning. This is especially true if you have a newborn that you need to travel with. Whether you’re heading to the airport or planning to take a road trip, these tips will help you travel with your newborn.
Tips for Traveling with a Newborn
Pack, Pack, Pack!
If you’re planning to travel with a newborn, be prepared to bring a lot of luggage! When you travel with a newborn, you need to make sure you back all of the necessities, including outfits, toys, diapers, food, and more. Pack one bag with all of the essentials you’ll need throughout the day. This will include enough diapers for the day, food, a change of clothes, toys, a blanket, and anything else you know your newborn will need. Any other bags should contain the items that you’ll use after you reach your destination.
Have Food Ready
Babies tend to eat a lot. You can feed your newborn at lunchtime, and within two hours, your child could be hungry again. Because your newborn will want to eat pretty often, have some food ready. If you breastfeed your newborn, you’ll want to have some extra stored milk on hand in a cooler in case you can’t pull over right away. If you formula feed, have bottles of filtered water on hand with your can of formula. This should be within reach so that you can mix up a bottle as soon as your baby lets you know that he’s hungry.
Play Some Music
Thankfully newborns tend to sleep a lot. This is good news for traveling, but unfortunately the sounds of travel can sometimes keep your baby awake. To help keep your newborn sleeping and happy, try playing some music while on the road. The soothing sounds will help your baby fall asleep, helping to block out other noises that might wake him up. If you’re traveling by air, you might want to turn the volume of your phone down and play some lullabies from the speaker.
Don’t Forget a Travel Buddy
Traveling with a buddy is always better when it comes to taking a trip with a newborn. Oftentimes this travel buddy will be your spouse, but if necessary, see if your parent or a sibling can come with you to help out. If you’re travelling by car, then you can have your travel buddy drive the vehicle while you sit in the back entertaining your newborn. If you’re travelling by air, then a travel buddy will help you juggle all of those bags you packed!
What are some of your tips for traveling with a newborn? I’d love to hear from you!
oh I could never travel with a newborn, but that’s just me….
Those are good tips. Maybe when I have another child s/he will like the carseat better and we can travel!
My toddler hated the carseat for at least the first year…even as a newborn screamed top-notch for even a 5-minute car ride. The car didn’t put her to sleep, unfortunately. 🙁
Great tips, will be sharing with all my new mom friends
Our plan is to not travel, too scared
Thanks for sharing these great tips
Always have a lovie or something the newborn might be familiar with. My son was attached to his lovie almost from day one and when we took him traveling, having the lovie next to him when he just woke up really helped calm him down.
All great tips! Definitely having someone with you is a good plan. Thanks for sharing.
these are a set of good tips for travelling with a new born, which I did frequently. Once with an over-night ferry trip. My baby (9 wks) and I were both seasick due to bad weather. The ferry people were really good and gave us a cabin, which we didn’t have to pay for but it did give others a bit more peace and quiet 🙂
Love these tips! It always impresses me when parents take their newborns on trips. This is a helpful list to have!
I never done it but i would think it would be difficult,unless of course you had another adult to help
I’m due in Nov & traveling out of country in January. This list is super awesome & makes me feel less silly for inviting the MIL to come help us w the kids.
Definitely not silly, especially if you have other kids!