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Feeding while traveling

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 yuck associated in our minds with entering a bathroom to drink the water from the tap there. Or maybe its just me. So we just thought it safer to purchase bottled water for the baby's feed. After the first couple of times, instead of simply picking up a bottle of water and paying for it in the supermarket - I would first obtain a clarification on whether the water was still or sparkling. Not that sparkling water really makes a difference (I feel) after you have boiled it. But still....

So then I would take this bottled water and then boil it and then cool it and then prepare my daughter's formula. 

Again, bottled water is not an environment friendly solution - my husband and I usually make it a point to request tap water, even returning the bottles of water that are complimentary with the room, while traveling in India (we give up when traveling abroad because it is so difficult to communicate). But when it comes to traveling with an infant, we just decided to toss this conscientiousness aside, for a while at least. But not in Switzerland. Our host in the airbnb in Switzerland assured us that the tap water was pure Alpine water - and we simply had to gaze at the pristine Alps surrounding the town of Sargaans and felt it was alright - tap water was pure enough for our baby!

I also carried a steam sterilizer for cleaning the feeding bottles (other than the Farlin liquid cleaning solution and brush), an electric travel kettle and a couple of feed dispensers. Steam sterilizer is ideal for travel - very convenient to pack and go. Then I carried a few extra feeding bottles. My baby has 6 feeds a day, so I had 8 bottles. And this was a blessing because while in Milan I stuffed the sterilizer into an oven-cum microwave without checking the settings, and destroyed 2 bottles (the other 2 that were being sterilized at that moment were made of glass and so I could salvage them). While in most places we stayed in hostels and B&Bs where we had access to kitchens, in Germany we stayed in hotels. This was really painful because I did not have access to microwaves. Now I know this is not the best solution, but I did the next best thing to procuring an electric sterilizer - I washed the bottles in the bathroom and put them in the steam sterilizer. Then I boiled water in the electric kettle and poured the hot water into the sterilizer. Well my baby came back healthy and smiling - so I guess it was good enough. 




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