Visiting as a first time parent with a 7 month old!?

[PumpkinCupcake]

Oh I have missed the Dibb! I haven't been on even to browse since around September last year as I was too sad with the lack of trip planning. Barely even been able to watch any vlogs either ANYWAY, my question..

I am 19 weeks pregnant with our first baby, and thankfully all looked well at our '20 week' scan yesterday. I am still nervous about something ever going wrong, but think if I have a Disney trip to plan it'll be a good distraction
As we had two cancelled trips last year, and haven't even attempted to book any sort of international holiday this year at all due to covid/pregnancy, I have been looking at booking for next May/June sort of time, and I'm hoping for some advice

I will be off for a year hopefully on maternity so want to take advantage of it, and have already started saving for this and so I thought that time of year might be good as its not the full heat of the summer, not too close to the end of my maternity when we might be short on money, and not too early that the baby would be really young. I'm hoping by around 7 months old we should hopefully have found our feet as new parents a little bit, and maybe be a bit more in the swing of things (I'm probably sounding really naive).

Has anyone travelled with a baby before that can offer any tips or advice?
We are thinking of staying on site so that there should be less travelling about, and easy access to getting back to the room for rest/naps. Unsure of how long to book for and whether to do just a week at Disney, and a week elsewhere (we were originally supposed to do California & Florida last year), or do 2 weeks in Florida (maybe a split stay).

[Gryff]

We have with ours and now grandkids
It’s a breeze honestly you just need to keep them hydrated .a good buggy with a big sun shade is a must , either buy self sterilising bottles or sterilising bags ,take enough formula with you ,you can do an order with boots to pick up airside for formula
Nappies and wipes take them with you they can be expensive and nappies are sized differently ,calpol take your own none of hours would take the cherry flavoured US stuff
Disposable bibs saves so much washing ,a buggy fan is also handy
It will be different but amazing
Enjoy the planing

[PumpkinCupcake]

Originally Posted by Gryff

We have with ours and now grandkids
It’s a breeze honestly you just need to keep them hydrated .a good buggy with a big sun shade is a must , either buy self sterilising bottles or sterilising bags ,take enough formula with you ,you can do an order with boots to pick up airside for formula
Nappies and wipes take them with you they can be expensive and nappies are sized differently ,calpol take your own none of hours would take the cherry flavoured US stuff
Disposable bibs saves so much washing ,a buggy fan is also handy
It will be different but amazing
Enjoy the planing

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Thank you yes, even before pregnancy I'd read peoples posts about some baby things being quite expensive over there so would definitely try to bring our own!

[Blue nose]

At 7 months you don't need to sterilize and they don't need baby milk so can be really easy.

Depending on how you choose to feed baby they can eat normal food from 6 months. We'd take weetabix or porridge, they can have pasta, rice, veggies and cows milk or if you are breastfeeding still even easier.

Never done Florida that young but travelled with my to the Med from 6 months.

Congratulations and happy planning.

[RachaelC]

Originally Posted by Blue nose

At 7 months you don't need to sterilize and they don't need baby milk so can be really easy.

Depending on how you choose to feed baby they can eat normal food from 6 months. We'd take weetabix or porridge, they can have pasta, rice, veggies and cows milk or if you are breastfeeding still even easier.

Never done Florida that young but travelled with my to the Med from 6 months.

Congratulations and happy planning.

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The advice is it sterilise until they are 1 as the baby milk isn’t sterile once opened.

They are so easy to take away at that age though - we took our DS when he was 6 months and had such a lovely time.

For sterilising, I recommend this, milton-tm/en/consume...vel-steriliser as it does both cold water and microwave - very versatile!

[DonnaD]

My biggest tip would be to keep breastfeeding until after the holiday if it works for you. My oldest was adopted at birth so it was never an option and I have travelled with a bottle fed 1 week old. My younger daughter was tiny and fed like a newborn for months. She was barely able to eat solid food at 7 months so breastfeeding with her was a lifesaver. It was a great way to keep her quiet for take offs and landings in the plane too.

Either way, travelling with a baby is far easier than a newly walking toddler. We did it many times with both.

We always preferred a villa or at least suite with young children. Cooking and laundry facilities plus a separate space for a sleeping baby are really handy.

I would be planning mornings or evenings in the parks instead of full days with a nap in the middle. With a few exceptions, getting back and forth to a Disney hotel for a nap is pretty time consuming. My two could always nap in the pushchair or sling anyway while we were out.

[Hollie04]

Congratulations! I took both of mine around that age. It’s really the same as any other family day out in terms of planning for the baby. Disney is very breastfeeding friendly - they have feeding rooms in every park if you want a bit of peace/air conditioning but plenty of women feed outside too. I really liked the baby rooms because they were a bit of a sanctuary from the chaos. The changing tables in the baby rooms are much nicer too.

My best tip is to take an extra change of clothes in a waterproof bag. We used large sandwich bags at that age but wetbags are a more eco friendly solution. It is really handy to have somewhere to put wet or dirty clothes while you’re out.

Edit: I found a lightweight sling really useful too. I had solar Connectas which were great anywhere we couldn’t have the buggy. I would also recommend a City Mini buggy because the hood is massive and has UV protection. We used to rent them from Kingdom Strollers and would put a snoozeshade over the bottom half to protect their legs a bit.

[abiknox]

We took our daughter at 6 months and stayed at AKL. I did a trip report if you want to have a read. It's the 2018 May one x

[abiknox]

We took our daughter at 6 months and stayed at AKL. I did a trip report if you want to have a read. It's here

[beaky2808]

We went last February with our 10 month old and honestly it was my favourite trip so far (been 3 times before her) - so so magical and she loved every second!

Lots of great tips here already...

We were planning to order her formula airside but when we found out she had a full 23kg luggage allowance we ended up packing it all as she didn’t need that weight for clothes alone 😆 she was normally on powdered formula but we just took loads of the small ready made bottles plus a couple of bigger ones we kept in the room in the fridge for bedtime. She was on 3 bottles a day by then so worked it out and added a few!

We took a cold water steriliser tub and Milton tablets which worked really well for us.

Food wise she just ate from our plates...it probably wasn’t the healthiest 10 days for her but figured no harm in the long run. I did take some fruit pouches so if we didn’t find much healthy one day she at least had something with vitamins in it! Also took lots of her regular dry snacks.

I was worried about the drinking water out there as we only ever have bottled out there and it’s not great for babies. So I ordered what they call nursery water delivered to the hotel (via garden grocer I think it was called) as well as some cereal and milk.

We stayed onsite 10 days and just did disney using the buses. Usually did early starts and came back to the room for naps but occasionally she napped in the pushchair.

We actually ended up putting her travel cot in the bathroom as we could close her in and not disturb her as much in the evenings whilst we watched tv.

One thing I had to do was lower my expectations as to what she could achieve. We were never strict for bedtime but she was 😆 always liked to be in bed by 7pm so fireworks were out unfortunately... we did do Happily Ever after but were faced with a huge meltdown on return so I did a couple of the other shows solo and hubby stayed in with little miss.

For the flight have some new toys to grab attention but honestly it was fine, I was so worried about it! And she slept the whole flight home!

Good luck - it will be amazing! I’m pregnant too and planning a trip for next year with a 3 year old and infant...much more terrifying 😆😆