Becoming Momma

We spent 3.5 weeks on a road trip in Europe. Driving around in a rented car was immensely practical because we were not bound by any train or flight schedules and could set our own pace. Particularly so, because we realised that when traveling with a baby it is near impossible to check out on time - if the time was set for 10 AM, by the time we had breakfast, fed and bathed our baby, sterilized her bottles for the rest of the day, prepared her diaper bag, got ready ourselves, packed everything and loaded the car, we would not be out before noon. We were lucky that wherever we stayed, no one was particularly finicky about us checking out.  At the end of the trip, I realised that people who have babies are most likely to have empathy towards other parents. Just the simple offer to hold our baby for 20 minutes in the morning while we packed was of immense assistance.  Or not harassing us about putting on our baby's harness when the flight was taking off  (this...

As far as bottle fed babies go, long vacations like ours can require a great degree of planning. Initially I planned on carrying formula for the entire 3.5 weeks of our vacation. The reason being that you cannot count on finding the formula your baby is used to while abroad - unless you know the local language, can locate the same formula (at least one that looks identical to what you use and manufactured by the same entity) and can compare the ingredient list and the compound composition etc. So I did the next best thing - I packed formula for just one week and decided to phase in the new formula that we purchased abroad into the baby's diet.   Then there is the question of water used to prepare the baby's feed. Normally in most European countries, tap water is considered good enough to drink. But from my experience while studying in London, I knew that sometimes even tap water requires a degree of distillation - even in Europe. And then we are Indians with a certain degree of...