How to vacation with a baby, part 3: out and about

This is the final part of a multi-part post about how to vacation with a baby.  Part 1 was about staying in a hotel, and part 2 talked about eating in restaurants.

Structuring your day
Having a realistic sense of what can be accomplished in a day with a young baby is the key to having a good time.  Remember that each additional stop will require loading and unloading a car, getting the baby into the stroller, and probably either a trip to the bathroom or needing to nurse.  You're bound to move more slowly than in the days when it was just you and your partner.

Wiggle time on the lawn at a Ritz-Carlton,  age 3 months

If you have traveling companions who are not parents, or who were parents in the distant past (such as, um, YOUR parents), it may be worth reminding them that they are traveling with a baby, so they should be ready to spend a lot of time at each stop.

Besides needing to nurse regularly, there are two important things to build into your day:  time to play (I call this "wiggle time"), and time to sleep.

I still have trouble remembering to leave room for wiggle time.  But I definitely think that my daughter is in a better mood the rest of the day if she gets at least 20 minutes of active play time on the floor in the morning, afternoon, and evening.  When you're traveling, this means that you have to be a little relaxed about the kinds of floors you put baby down on.  You can always use your scarf, jacket, or nursing cover as a surface for play time.

You also need to leave time for a nap or two.  Depending how difficult it is to get your son or daughter down for a nap, this doesn't necessarily mean that you have to return to the hotel.  But it does mean that you'll need to stay put somewhere reasonably quiet for the duration of the nap, whether it's in a carrier or a stroller.  I've found that my daughter does well taking her shorter, late morning nap "on the go," in a stroller, while her longer, late afternoon nap goes much better if it is in fact in a tent/crib/bed in a quiet room.

Finding rest spots
There are many places to which you can take a baby for a few hours, but which become a nightmare if you have to spend all day in them.  Shopping, museum-going, and eating in restaurants can all be done with a baby...but you're going to need breaks.  Baby needs to stretch out on a blanket on the floor occasionally, you need to be able to change her on an actual changing table rather than on the bathroom floor, and you'd like to have a comfortable chair to nurse in from time to time.

Where to go to get these needs met?  You have a few options.

Choice A:  A baby-focused business.  
These places can be fabulous, but you won't always be lucky enough to have one around.  Think of places like birth centers (Blossom Birth in Palo Alto; Natural Resources in San Francisco), cafes that are specifically geared towards kids, or children's activity centers and some shops.  They will often have changing stations, some floor space set aside for play, and comfortable chairs for nursing.

Choice B:  A five-star hotel.
This may sound like a bad idea, but trust me, it's brilliant.  Go have coffee and a pastry in the restaurant or lounge cafe of a really nice hotel.  Then proceed to use their lobby area as a base camp.  There are usually comfy couches for nursing, nice clean carpeted floors to play on, and deluxe changing tables in the marble-covered bathrooms.  Honestly, it's a great way to go if you're stuck in a big city with a baby all day.

Choice C:  A department store.
Wherever you are in America, you're usually not too far from a mall.  And where there is a mall, there is a Nordstroms, Saks, or Macy's.  Whatever.   Believe it or not, these often have, in addition to cafes and nice restrooms, carpeted lounge rooms specifically intended for nursing mothers.  Which can work for nursing, play time on the floor, or even a place for baby to take a nap while your traveling companions browse the rest of the mall and you read.  Which brings us to...

What to bring
This is going to be very dependent, obviously, on the age of your baby, whether you're breastfeeding, and whether you use 'sposies, cloth, or EC.  Most of us already have our diaper bag packed with the usual.  Here are a few non-standard things to consider bringing for a whole day away from home.

• large scarf for you: can double as nursing cover, play surface, or stroller-cover for naps
• magazine: entertainment for you during nursing or nap time
• meal supplement bar:  I like Odwalla bars, personally, but anything with some protein and a couple hundred calories will work; meal-times can sometimes get pushed back by baby's schedule, and you can get starving very quickly when you're nursing.
• reusable water bottle:  because nursing makes you thirsty
• baby carrier: even if you're bringing a stroller, since many places are way more accessible with a carrier.
• pocket umbrella: just in case

How to vacation with a baby, part 2: eating out

Part 1 of "How to vacation with a baby" was staying in a hotel.  Part 2 is how to survive meals in restaurants: breastfeeding, entertainment, accommodations, diapers, and the two all-around best kinds of restaurants to bring a baby.  Onwards!

Breastfeeding.
Make sure you are wearing a very easy top to breastfeed in; it can be hard enough to nurse at a table in a crowded restaurant, and complicated clothes make this even harder.  I favor a pull-down neckline (or nursing tank) with some kind of drapey cardigan over top.  The advantage to this set-up is that as long as your baby hasn't reached the pop-off-and-look-around stage, you can nurse pretty discreetly without using a cover.  Sadly, we are definitely at the popping-off stage, which also seems to coincide with the excuse-me-Mama-but-there's-no-way-in hell-I'm-nursing-with-that-cloth-over-my-head stage.  Sigh.  I do the best I can.

Timing.  I feel like it took me far too long to learn this lesson, but now I know it.  If you possibly can, nurse as soon as possible after arriving at the restaurant.  At the newborn stage, this will probably buy you a baby nap while you enjoy your meal.  Later, it will simply buy you a happy baby who won't be fussing to be fed while you eat.  Long before my daughter actually began to reach for my food, she started to want to nurse when she saw me eating, so I would inevitably have just a couple bites of my entree before I had to reach for the nursing cover.

Entertainment/Dining for babies.

Sophie

I keep a few go-to toys in my diaper bag at all times now.  The current favorites are Sophie (Sophie la giraffe, bien sûr), a wooden rattle, and a cloth book.  But really, the best entertainment has turned out to be food.

Plastic bibs are handy

Since we've been giving our daughter "whole" foods to eat for over a month now, there's almost always something in our meal that we can give her to chew on.  Raiding the bread basket is always a hit.  Pieces of chicken can keep her occupied for upwards of 15 minutes.  If something is especially salty or saucy, I (sorry, this is kinda gross) lick the sauce off myself and then give it to her.

To keep things somewhat less messy at the table, I've started carrying a sippy cup to give her water in, and a hard plastic bib that I can quickly rinse off in the restaurant bathroom.  

Finally, passing the baby around to your dining companions can be a good way to keep her entertained--although yes, she will be returned to you at the first sign of fussiness!

Accommodations
I like to let restaurants know that we'll be bringing a baby when we make a reservation.  We're still at the stage where we pull the stroller up to the table, so it's helpful to have a table with a little extra space.

(5 months) Uncle D's facial hair keeps
 his niece entertained in a restaurant

We're lucky that our daughter is pretty easy-going, so she's not usually much of an imposition on our fellow diners.  If she starts to fuss or cry more than a little, I try to whisk her away from the table and take her for a walk outside until she calms down.  We ate at a really wonderful French bistro in Napa on Saturday night (Bouchon--try the osso bucco!), and there was a very modish couple next to us who looked a little peeved to be seated next to a baby--but honestly, there wasn't much they could complain about, as she was on her best behavior all night.

If the situation ever gets really dire, and I feel like I am ruining someone's date night, my secret killer plan is to ask the server to bring the offended party a couple glasses of champagne on us, as an apology.  If that seems pricey, just think--it's cheaper than hiring a babysitter!  (Well, probably.  Depends on the champagne.  And the sitter).

Diapers, diapers, diapers
I find it pretty surprising how few restaurants have changing tables in their restrooms.  I swear that at lunchtime, moms & babies make up half the clientele at Cafe Barrone in Menlo Park, and yet, no changing table.  (According to the management, this is because the building owners won't put one in...).  And DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED about how few places have changing tables in the MEN'S bathrooms.  What do gay male couples with children do?!

Anyway, I carry a changing pad in my diaper bag, and that works okay on the floor with a cloth diaper folded under baby's head for extra padding.  Or you can use the stroller in a pinch.

The funniest thing about taking my daughter to the bathroom at restaurants has been the noises that she makes on the toilet.  Particularly when she was younger, she used to grunt and groan quite a bit as she, you know.  People in the stalls next to us have occasionally started to giggle at the noises--and they'd be quite shocked when we emerged and they learned that all that ruckus was coming from an infant!

Choice of cuisine
Nowadays, we can go to pretty much any restaurant, although it helps if it's not too hushed--it's nice if any happy baby roars or squeals just sort of fade into the background noise.  But early on, there were definitely certain restaurants that worked better than others, for two reasons:  I often had to eat one-handed, and my meal was often interrupted.

Salads, large cuts of meat, sandwiches, and anything drippy are just not a good idea to eat one-handed.  You're liable to spill on the baby and/or yourself.  Likewise, traditional Western food with a main course can be difficult if your meal is interrupted by fussiness, nursing requirements, etc.  Two all-star cuisines to eat with an infant were tapas and dim sum.  Easy to eat one-handed?  Check.  Multiple mini-courses that can stop and start at your request?  Check.  Often boisterous atmospheres that camouflage baby noises?  Check.  Yes.  Tapas and dim sum:  the clear baby-friendly winners.