Hints and tips...

OK, so the trips almost over. Sat here now wasting time and just waiting for the time to leave for the airport so. Any hints and tips for those of you with 6 month old babies and thinking of travelling?

FLIGHTS

Bassinets - I knew nothing about them either, but basically they are a carry cot which can be fitted in front of the front seat of airplanes. Ask when you book your tickets, they´re free and you will get the roomier front seats ;o) Make sure you confirm prior to flyng that you have one! Makes it so much easier to be able to put the baby down when, or IF, they sleep.
Breast feed / Dummy - In order to ease the equalising ears in the baby when flying aim to feed the baby on take off and landing. The sucking action will ´pop´their ears and stop any pain. If feeding isn´t an option for whatever reason try a soother/dummy or even a lollipop in older kids?

SLEEPING

Buy a samsonite pop up travel cot! It folds up and fits inside my 80 litre POD rucsac. Probably takes up a third of the space in the bag?
´Grobags´, no not for the toms, these are a small baby sleeping bag. Really useful and saves carrying blankets etc.

FEEDING

Lindam microwave sterilising bags - Small and dead easy to use. Clean the bottles, put them in the bag and microwave for 3 minutes.
Milton tablets and a dry bag - For those times when you can´t find a hostal with a microwave fill a drybag with water, pop in the sterilising milton tablets and soak the bottles.
Thermos - the daily routine was to buy bottled water, boil it, fill the bottles and then fill a thermos with boiled water. This allowed us to either get the bottles warmed somewhere (standing in warm water or microwaved) or if not available to top up with the hot water from the thermos.
Milk Dispenser - bought from boots for a couple of quid. A small plastic tub with 3 compartments so you can pre-measure the milk for 3 bottles. You then just turn the lid to allow each section to be poured into the bottles as and when required!
Stove - we took our MSR dragonfly and pans and although we didn´t use it (we did use pans) it allowed us the ability to boil water whenever we needed it, wherever we were. A back up plan!
Breast feeding - now, not everyone can do this. I found it particularly difficult! But Claire managed to keep breast feeding up until the trip and it was soooo useful! eg. long trips, plane journeys, a quick feed. The flexibility it allowed was great but if you can´t then you´d just have to use the bottles.

MOBILITY

Pushcair - We bought a Maclaren quest from e-bay, 30 quid or so?, which is basically a foldable pushchair. It was easily attachable to the outside of the rucsac with a bungey cord to be carried around and also folded up fairly small. We also bought a small brolly for it for about a tenner, useful to keep the sun off Bodhi.
Manta - we bought the Peruvian blanket out here as sometimes the pushchair wasn´t practical (cobbled streets etc) and it was difficult for Bodhi to sleep comfortably in the baby carrier. Obviously not everyone can get, or use, a manta but the principle remains and one of the baby slings would do the job. Allows the baby to sleep whilst being carried.
Baby carrier - We bought a Macpac ´Possum´ baby carrier and it was great for more demanding treks etc. You could carry all the baby stuff in the bag at the bottom while baby sat on top. It had a sun canopy to keep the sun off him and a rain cover for when it got wet on Machu Picchu.

HOSTELS

We used Hostelbookers and Hostelworld to find our hostels and we´d suggest getting in touch way in advance to ask all the necesarry questions. The days of rocking up in a town and just having a look are gone when the baby comes! (well, not really but it does make things harder) I´d particularly recommend OneHostel in Lima, more like a family home than a hostel and the owners LOVED Bodhi, in fact they just loved having children in the hostel. Inkas Rest in Puno, again they loved Bodhi but there was also the nice lounge area which you could just put the baby to bed and then chill and watch a DVD, some YOU time! KB Tambo in Ollantaytambo was a good place to chill although they had no kitchen or kettle etc they were happy to boil water for us everyday!

Now, seeing as Bodhi has a milk allergy we had to carry ALL his formula milk with us but for those with ´normal´kids there was Milk available in most towns we visited. Particularly Lima and Cusco (So you could plan to replenish stocks here). Just be aware of upset tummies from changing milks etc.

We made the decision that we didn´t want to add to the burden of plastic and rubbish in Peru so didn´t want to use nappies bought here. We use Nature Babycare biodegradable disposable nappies at home so we brought them all with us! At least that way we were happy in the knowledge that they would biodegrade quickly rather than adding to the rubbish in Peru! Likewise with the nappy sacs. If your not that fussed, all sorts of nappies can be bought here no worries, again particularly in Lima and Cusco.

If I think of anything else I´ll pop it up here but I think that just about covers it? It´s been a great trip, hard work at times and definitely heavy in the pre-planning department but very do-able and well worth the effort.

Where next......