Before we left for our first family vacation in Greece, Daniel and I were very excited and also a little scared of the whole situation. We were super organized and had the feeling we were ready for every scenario, but just like entering the unfamiliar territory of parenthood, when it comes to a first vacation with a baby (especially abroad, but not only), until you experience it you cannot really know how it feels and what to expect.
In this short post I want to share with you the insights and lessons from our first family vacation, and the tips and conclusions we internalized for our next family vacations.
5 Winning Tips for the Perfect Vacation with Your Baby
1. Arrive prepared: True, you cannot really prepare for everything, but you can and should arrive prepared and organized in terms of baby gear. You will find my complete baby packing list here.
2. Ditch the FOMO and embrace the JOMO: Right, when you go on vacation you want to fit everything in? To eat at all the great restaurants, taste everything, drink both wine and cocktails, hang out at the pool and the beach and the spa, go out exploring but also manage to rest in the room (it is a vacation after all, huh? 😅)… In short, the infamous FOMO phenomenon, fear of missing out. So if you are planning a vacation with your baby, prepare yourself in advance for the fact that you cannot do it all, or even more than that, you cannot do most of it 🙈 This is the time to adopt the JOMO approach, the Joy of missing out. The less you expect to fit things in, and the more you celebrate every single thing you did manage to do on vacation as if you had won the lottery, the better you will feel and the more you will enjoy your vacation. By the way, after the vacation I realized this is true of parenthood in general and not just during a vacation, it is just that during a vacation there are far more great things you will probably miss because of your baby's schedule. Things we “missed” on our vacation: great dinners at restaurants (Yasmin adamantly refused), time at the beach (it was too hot until about 8 in the evening), a couples' massage. On the other hand, Yasmin treated us to extra-long afternoon naps, so we managed to spend hours upon hours of quiet at our villa's private pool with unlimited room service, and that totally felt like winning the lottery!
3. A lounging vacation versus an urban trip: If your baby is fine with lying in the stroller, then maybe an urban trip could suit you. For us, an urban trip was completely out of the question because Yasmin gets bored after 15 minutes maximum in the stroller, and there is a limit to how long we feel like wearing a carrier. Not to mention that on an urban vacation there is much more potential for FOMO from the previous point (think of the number of attractions you would want to do in an urban destination, especially if it is a destination you are visiting for the first time). If you have still decided to go for an urban vacation, do yourself a favor and do it only in the shoulder seasons when the weather is pleasant, otherwise both you and your baby will suffer through every moment.
4. Skip a July-August vacation: The hot season has become scorching in recent years, and even if you really love sitting by the pool and the sea at the peak of the heat, with a baby it is less suitable (or more accurately, a big no no). It does not matter if you plan to buy special sunscreen, a UV-protective swimsuit, a hat, sunglasses or even a float with a canopy (apart from the last one, we had it all 🙈), the July-August heat is simply unbearable for your baby (especially if they are under six months old and cannot even go in the pool… imagine being in July-August heat out of the water. Even if you sit in the shade, you will suffer after less than ten minutes). That is why the decision to go on vacation only with a room with a private pool was pure genius. If we had gone for a regular room, there is a very slim chance we would have spent time at the pool (just like we did not sit at the beach more than once, and even that one time was only at sunset…).
5. Keep in mind that you cannot control everything: Growth spurts, developmental leaps, gas, teething and a whole range of moods that cannot be predicted or foreseen. Who knows if your baby will suddenly switch on “cranky mode” just in time for the vacation. The only certain thing about a vacation with a baby is that nothing is really certain. True, you can try to calculate when the next growth spurt will be, but do not be surprised if it decides to arrive a few days early or late and land exactly on the vacation. In our case it was luckily the other way around: in the week before the vacation Yasmin brought us almost to despair, to the point where we were genuinely worried about this vacation, and then on the very day of the vacation she came back to herself and was an absolute angel (most of the time, at least).
And despite everything, I would never give up family vacations. So many people warned us about flying abroad for a vacation with a baby, and a tiny 3-month-old baby at that. I had a few worries, but the truth is that deep inside I knew that no matter how the experience turned out, better or worse, I would not regret it for a moment. That no matter what happened on this vacation, we would learn a great deal from it, and it would be the first family vacation of many. In my eyes, vacations and trips are the kind of things that create the most meaningful experiences in life. They create amazing bonding that I am absolutely not willing to give up with my family.
These were my two cents about a vacation with a baby. I truly hope they help you arrive better prepared for a vacation with your little one ❤️
