Traveling with Emma 101

A few weeks back we went on our first big trip with Emma - 9 days spent in the Wachau Valley of Austria, then onto Budapest and back to Vienna. It was a great trip with future blogs to come on our travels in each of these beautiful cities, but first here's a look at the many things that we learned from traveling with a 3 month old...

Emma teaching dad who's boss!

• We are a tourist attraction: I have come to the conclusion that as long as we live in Europe people will stare at us. At first it was because we stuck out as Americans that didn't know what to do. Then it felt like I was stared at because I was pregnant (still confused on this one as I'm pretty sure I've seen plenty of other pregnant women out there before). Now, it's because we're traveling and going anywhere and everywhere with our ridiculously cute little girl. However, the staring reached a whole new level on vacation when we had people take photos of us with Emma! No one asked us, but in each situation before we knew it the person was quickly transitioning from ooing and aaaing over Emma to quickly posing next to us while their friend snapped a photo. Maybe we should start charging?

• Traveling with two adults makes life easier: I take Emma by myself many different places around Zurich, and even sometimes around Switzerland when Steve is out of town. However, I learned on this trip to be thankful that Switzerland is relatively baby friendly when it comes to transport. There are times when there are only stairs and you have to find someone to help you with the stroller, but these times are relatively infrequent. In other places this is not the case... especially in Budapest where we found both the train station and all subway stations without elevators and most without escalators as well. In some situations it proved nearly impossible to get around, especially upon arrival at the train station with all of our luggage and one very tired, cranky baby, but in the end we always found a way to manage. It also makes me think about how difficult it would be for a handicapped or elderly person to get around the city. Yet, at least Budapest had one thing going for it in this category that Switzerland seems to lack... friendly people willing to help you out when you have your hands full.

• Stroller surfing: Overall I think Emma did a great job traveling, yes we had our moments each day, but who doesn't get worn out on a European trip? These trips we take aren't exactly like going on a beach vacation. Speaking of beaches we did find something that helped keep Emma content for extended periods of time when she got tired of her stroller - and that was stomach surfing in her stroller. Our stroller is a little different from most typical American strollers in that it has more of a bassinet style attachment to use for a newborn, hence making it easy to lay Emma on her stomach. And since she loves to lay on her stomach these days, it worked wonders for us to get some extra playtime in for Emma with her toys in the stroller while mom and dad could take in the sights happily as well. We again got a few looks, but hey it's whatever works for your kid right? And to our surprise we actually have seen a few other parents do this too!

Stroller surfing - top down!

• Strollers aren't just for babies: I used to think it funny to see people carrying their babies and pushing their empty strollers. Now I understand why. Emma can handle being in her stroller for a little while, but somedays she gets tired of it quite quickly. If there's one good thing about carrying her instead of pushing her in the stroller, it's that we can put anything additional we are carrying into the stroller instead. My favorite day was when we went on a bit of an uphill hike and I carried Emma in the baby bjorn while Steve pushed the stroller with our jackets and other stuff in it the entire way up!

Emma was actually in the stroller this time Steve pushed it up a rather large hill...

However, on another day he pushed it up and held onto the runaway strap all the way down with no Emma even inside!

• Sock obsession: Europeans in general are obsessed with babies being more than warm enough, especially with them always wearing socks. It seems that no matter what the temperature they will look at you funny if your child doesn't have socks on. I have read that for the most part babies are comfortable in about the same amount of clothing as you are, maybe just a little bit more, but nothing excessive. It's quite clear Europeans don't feel the same way about it (if you don't believe me take a look back at the photos of the day Emma was born where they had her in 3 layers while it was close to 80 degrees and there was no a/c in the hospital). It has been the rare occasion that I have felt Emma is cold, usually I feel like she is getting too hot! Nonetheless there have been situations both on this trip and other times where people have either commented to us about her not having socks on, or simply looked at us with scolding eyes. Most of the time she does have socks on but I start to think when it is above 70 degrees she is probably ok if she doesn't have them on, but clearly I must be a terrible parent for thinking so.

• Diaper blowouts happen: They happen no matter where we are, Emma seems to have a secret talent for doing this... luckily they are becoming more infrequent. But this still meant we had to do some entire outfit changes in random public places. It also meant that I packed about double the number of clothes for Emma that Steve or I had packed (good thing her clothes are tiny), along with stain remover and laundry detergent to try and salvage any clothes that I knew I wouldn't get to wash until we got home. We've never been particularly light packers, but it's clear that packing and the amount of stuff we have to bring with us will never be the same.

• Good thing we're not picky eaters: As I'm sure every parent of a child can attest to, sitting down to eat a good meal is a rare occurrence. We've decided that especially when traveling our sit down meal of the day will probably have to be lunch (which isn't all bad since many times European menus are less expensive at lunch). We quickly learned that dinner can and will be completely hit or miss depending on Emma's mood and timing of what we are doing, and a quick takeaway meal will probably be the norm. However, on occasion, since Emma is usually asleep by 8 pm and for those first few hours after she falls asleep she sleeps like a brick, we can throw (and by throw, I mean gently place) her in her stroller and go out to a sit down meal and eat interrupted. Yet more often than not we will opt for the most convenient meal option. And on one rainy night in Budapest after putting Emma in bed that meant ordering in as our hotel concierge said "we have lots of options of restaurants that deliver." Evidently by lots of options he meant about 10 different restaurants, of which about 8 were Indian food. We're both open to eating just about anything, but Indian food definitely isn't our first option. However, there we were - two Americans, in Hungary, eating Indian food - and it wasn't good, but at least it was food and I think that's all either of us cared about by that time!

Enjoying a daytime stop at a cafe

• Diaper planning: When at home we try to use cloth diapers most of the time, but for sake of ease when we travel it's disposable. We figured if we had space we would try to pack what was probably enough diapers for the trip so we didn't have to worry about finding a place to buy some (or figuring out a new brand). So we did just that, but by the second to last day we knew we were going to be a little close with having enough diapers, so we tried to keep our eyes open for a store to pick some up. Given we didn't try as hard as we could have, but we never ended up finding any before we got back on the train for the 8 hour ride home to Zurich. And by the time we got home we had one diaper left, yes one diaper. Steve called it incredibly good planning on my part. I called it incredibly stupid planning, and that we just got very lucky. Next time we'll try a little harder to find a store that sells diapers...

• New forms of transportation: Emma checked a few more forms of transit off her list during our trip. First, she rode her first long distance train. Not really any different for her than riding the train 2 or 3 hours to get somewhere in Switzerland. But it was a new challenge for mom and dad to adjust to a different train set-up and finding out where there was space to get a stroller on board, changing areas, etc. It was also Emma's first time riding an underground subway (in Zurich we only have above ground trams). She did great, especially in Budapest, which has some of the oldest and loudest subway lines I have rode on, but she still managed to often times sleep right thru the ride.

First subway ride in Budapest! Old school cars!

• Tolerance for babies in public places: I think Europeans have a higher tolerance for babies being out in public places than Americans do. It's simply an accepted way of life, as people gather outside of the home more here, especially at cafes and restaurants. This obviously makes travel and getting out a lot easier on us, and doesn't make us feel limited to a few places. Unfortunately, as hard as we try Emma can't always be perfect everytime we go out. Yet for the most part we never felt like people got upset with us, instead they looked at us like "yes, we understand and have been there/done that." That was until we noticed some American tourists near us at an outdoor cafe one day. I won't lie, Emma wasn't having it that afternoon, hence one of the reasons we were at a cafe just trying to be low key. Yet it quickly became clear that they were not pleased with us and our crying baby when one man quite loudly and in an annoyed tone said "don't they just have a bottle they could give her." Not sure if he said that because he knew we could understand him or if he thought we couldn't understand him. Either way, we could have done without the comment. I'm sure similar things sometimes get said by other Europeans, we just can't understand them, but I'm still fairly confident that most of the time they don't make quite as rude of comments.

• Nursing in public: Similarly to the point above, it is much more accepted to nurse your baby in public here. I'm definitely not as open about it as many Europeans are, but it is nice to know you won't be judged for having to feed them in a public place, which I feel is often the case in the U.S. and makes traveling much more prohibitive with a small child. To say I'm not quite as open about it as others... take for instance the lady I saw walking and nursing her baby down one of the busiest pedestrian streets in Vienna. I bet you wouldn't see a lady walking around a mall nursing her baby in the U.S.! Also, in some situations Europeans will try to encourage you to feed your baby in public. Most of the time it is other women just out of good nature telling you to do whatever your baby needs. Other times, well it's not for quite the same reasons... in my situation in Vienna it was a 75 year old man at the table besides us at dinner one night. Emma was starting to get a little fussy (it was after all getting close to her bedtime), so after already having a pleasant conversation with him he turned to me with a little smirk on his face and said "she probably wants the breast don't you think?" To his disappointment she had just been fed a short time prior and I knew that was not why she was fussing. But he couldn't help himself when Steve took Emma outside the restaurant to walk around with her and calm her down to ask me again, "What is your husband going to do with her? He doesn't have a breast for her!" All I could do was laugh, especially coming from this cute old man that spoke with broken english. Meanwhile his son whom he was having dinner with kept trying to apologize to me for his crazy old man!

Needless to say we have a lot more to learn, and I can't wait (and sometimes I'm a little nervous) to find out the many other things Emma will teach us about traveling with her in the coming months!