Traveling with your baby

As a parent, you may have to travel with your baby on short and long trips. This would means taking your baby away from cozy, familiar surroundings in to new places with which your baby is not familiar. This can turn out to be a stressful experience for you as well as for your baby.

While traveling with your baby, plan early. Gather as much information as possible and try to cut down the inevitable uncertainties that go with any most travel plans.

These simple guidelines can make travel an enjoyable and pleasant experience for yourself and fun for your baby:

* Try to plan your trip well in advance. This will minimize hassles such as arrangements for boarding, lodging, destination breaks etc.

* Make a checklist of the baby items you will need to carry with you on the trip and stock up on these in advance.

* Carry diapers and wipes. You may need more of these than you think.

* Have a back up plan in place, in case you are not able to stick to the original arrangements you made while planning the trip.

* Schedule your trip to avoid inconvenient travel timings. Your baby will be most comfortable when its routine feeding, sleeping and waking time is only minimally disturbed.

* Avoid traveling to destinations where medical help may not be readily available.

* Avoid long-drawn out trips. Try to stick to the most comfortable modes of travel available.

* If possible, avoid traveling with your baby to places you are not familiar with.