Anyone ever traveled to Europe/France with baby?

[penguin]

DH may have a two week business trip to France in the beginning of November. If he goes, my 4 month old daughter and I will be taging along with him. However, I don't know anyone who has traveled with a baby on vacation overseas, so I am looking for advice.

Do I have to buy a seat on the airplane for DD? How easy or difficult will it be to find such things as portacribs at hotels or car seats from car rental companies? We probably will not have much control over the hotel since DH's company will most likely set all that up. Also regarding a passport, anyone know how quickly one can be obtained for DD (DH & I are all set)? I am still exclusively breastfeeding her (except for a few tablespoons of rice cereal/day which we just started) and the breast pump I have can be battery or even manually operated. I have heard people in Europe are more open to breastfeeding, i.e. it is more the norm culturally, but I would love to hear more on this subject. By the way, I speak French fluently so that is not a concern. In fact, I probably wouldn't be so inclined to go if I didn't. But I love France and haven't been in almost 10 years, so I am quite excited at the prospect of an almost free trip (just my plane ticket and my meals).

If there are any old threads on this topic, please direct me to them. I didn't have time to do a search. :eek: TIA for any and all advice!!!

[tbb113]

Amy:

My baby is now 14 years old, so its been awhile since I traveled to England with him. I did 4 separate business trips to England when Michael was between 13 - 18 months old. I did not get a seat for him at that time (since my office wasn't paying for one :) ). I did fly there in coach all 4 times. The airlines (Pan Am) was extremely accomodating and attempted to block entire rows for me and him. Even when they couldn't, I would get lucky and find an empty row for him to sleep. I took night flights there, all day flights home.

I took a port-a-crib with me...just in case the hotel didn't have one available. I would verify with the hotel if they had cribs available. If worse came to worse, the baby could either sleep with you or even in a drawer. Or you can take a port-a-crib. The car rental places did have car seats available, but once again I would check before you leave. I didn't have problems with nursing in public...but I also didn't feel odd doing it here :cool:

Airplane tips: book a window and the aisle for you and your husband, ask the airline to block the center seat. If they can't and it gets booked, give up the aisle or window. Put the blanket down on the seat, in case of spills, you will still have a dry seat. Carry changes of clothing for ALL of you on the plane, accidents have been known to happen. You can gate check a stroller. It is a BIG help. Otherwise I would have a sling/baby carrier available so you can have your hands free. When they pre-board, one of you go on the plane, the other one should stay at the gate as long as possible if walking around is better than sitting. Take at least one more diaper than you think you need :D

Passports take just a long as an adults. You can rush it if you need, just like an adults.

Have a great trip....

Tyra

[Guest]

I took a quick look at the State Department's passport information site which has a lot of good information. The link to the page with the requirments for issuing a passport for children under the age of 14 is here - http://travel.state.gov/specialreq_text.html .

Information on getting a passport in a hurry - http://travel.state.gov/passport_expedite_text.html There are private services that can turn around passport applications very quickly. I am not familiar with them, but recently read about it.

Contact the airline for information about a seat. When I flew with DD, I always bought her a seat, so that she could use her car seat. I always felt safer having her properly restrained and then we had the car seat at our destination. I would imagine that you could contact the hotel and car rental agency prior to departing. If they are international chains, you could call the 800 #. If they are in France, get the number and give them a call to see if they have the equipment you need.

Don't worry about breastfeeding in Europe. Hardly abyone would blink to see a mother breastfeeding.

[penguin]

Thanks for the advice. I am currently in the process of obtaining a passport for DD and getting mine amended because I realized this morning that has not been changed since I was married (but it hasn't expired yet). We have about 3 weeks and an expedited passport only takes 2 weeks, so we should be all right in that department. Now I have to go research flights...

[Beth H]

You might check out Rick Steves' web site and books for advice - I know that he writes quite a bit about traveling with children.

About the car seat - and I'm not suggesting that you be unsafe - but will you need one? It is so easy to get around Europe on public transportation: trains, Metro, etc. Of course if you're driving then I suppose you would definitely need one. :)

Edited to add this link to the "Graffitti Wall" section on "Traveling with Kids" from Rick Steves' web site. When DH and I took our trips to Europe, I found quite a bit of helpful advice from this site.

http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/graffiti117.html

[sneezles]

While we were living in Scotland we took a trip to Amsterdam with 2 children. One was 4 and the baby was 9 months old. We took a stroller and the carry seat that could be strapped in as a carseat but came in very handy for using to feed (course he was on more than just a few tbs of cereal)and a place for baby to sit while we were in restaurants. The hotel had a port-a-crib and that was almost 20 years ago. Europe is very family oriented for travel. Our only problem was that the baby got conjunctivitus and I couldn't get any medical help (again that was 20 years ago) so we had to cut the trip short by a week. We had holiday insurance and actually got some money back.
My advice would be to pack some pedialite since it isn't easy to find there. Also be sure to take a thermometer, any other baby meds and "spoons" to give the meds with (baby Tylenol isn't sold over there). You probably won't need it but it sure beats hunting around for the stuff. Disposable diapers are much easier to find than US OTC products.