Overseas travel with baby

I was hoping all you sexy mumma's (and pappa's) would be able to give me some advice.

In July, DH and I will be travelling to Europe with Allegra (who will be almost 6 months by then) and I was hoping some of you could give me some tips for making our life a little easier (apart from saying dont go as most of our family and friends are saying) on the trip.

You see, I won two return business class tickets to europe and they expire at the end of August, so I really dont want them to go to waste (another reason I suspect everyone is telling us NOT to go, perhaps they think I will give the tickets to them?) so we decided that we are going to take the plunge and fly to Zurich, where we will stay with friends and then we are hiring a car and travelling into Italy.

We have worked out that hiring a good 4-wheel drive with a baby seat is the best way to travel as we can stop when we like and its easy for us to see all the things we want without physically lugging stuff through train stations and airports etc.

Also wanted to see what everyone's opinion would be of prams etc. We have the Bugaboo frog, which has a basinette so we thought that we could take that with us and Allegra could sleep in it at night too but I dont want it to get trashed (which we know it will) do you think its a better option to buy a cheaper pram (say on ebay) and a travel basinette? I figured if I did that I could always leave the pram at our last destination and donate it to an ophanage or pre-school etc.

Anyway, suggestions would be most appreciated. I did look on the travel with babies list on the main site and that also was helpful..

Sorry about the rambling :)

Hey there, definately go..... You will regret it if you dont....
I travelled a number of times with Maddison as a newborn & on wards...
We travelled to Bali, when she was 9wks old...
I bought a pram there (rarely used it) then at the end of the 3 months I left it there for a poor family to use.
We stayed in my very close friends village & slept on a mattress, maddy slept next to me. But it wasa wonderful time..
I would probably buy something there for Allegra, she will have grown quite considerably between now & August, she may not still fit in a bassinette or she may not like it..
I found when travelling that the countries you travel to, often have prams etc that are mosre suitable to the place... like prams in Bali with suspension due to the poor quality roads etc...
The hiring of the 4WD sounds like a great idea compared to trains etc...

Good Luck, dont listen to others telling you not to go... But if you decide noe to, I am happy to take tickets so as not to cause family arguments!!! ;)

Hi PrincessT,

I agree with Tracey - go for it!

We recently travelled overseas to the US with our little boy. He was about 4 months old at the time of the trip. I was a bit apprehensive about it before we went, but I can honestly say now that I think it was a great time to travel - age-wise, I mean. He was still at the stage where he was happy to sleep through most of the flights (just waking for feeds and a little bit of playtime on our laps) and he travelled really well.

I think you have a good idea re the pram. If you can get a cheap pram to take with you it would probably be worth it. We took our regular one with us and although it didn't get trashed, it did come home with a bit of minor damage due to handling and storage during the flights. (Which was frustrating since we only ended up using it maybe twice while we were there!)

One thing I would suggest...I don't know if you use a sling/carrier with Allegra, but it is a great way to go when you are sightseeing, etc and going places that arent really pram-friendly. We have a Hug-a-Bub for Josh and he spent most of our holiday in it quite happily. We did heaps of walking and sightseeing and I wore him pretty much everywhere. We would face him out in the sling when he was awake and wanted to look around at everything, and would turn him around when he was tired he would snuggle in and have a sleep.

I haven't really come up with many new suggestions or advice, so I will think about it and let you know if I think of anything else.

Have a great trip!