Reflections on an amazing year - Travel with a baby? Do it!

A year ago our crazy, wonderful little man entered into our lives. On his first birthday this weekend I was pondering how life has changed and reflecting on our adventures so far. In 2015 the UK law changed to allow parents to convert maternity leave to shared parental leave, to be utilised in a flexible way between them. We decided to take full advantage of this in order to go on a 2 month family adventure around the world. Would I do it again? Oh good god yes! I wouldn’t hesitate for a second. It was by far the best decision we made and was a hell of a lot easier to do than we had initially thought and I’ll tell you why:

1. Children under 1 are easy to travel with. Yes! You did hear me correctly! Think of it this way – they don’t need entertaining as much, they can’t complain if you take them wine tasting instead of to the zoo; they need relatively little (yes leave all those “nice-to-haves” at home you really do NOT need them!); they travel virtually for free; they sleep a lot… I could go on.

2. When will you ever get the chance to have a long break from work together with a job to come back to? Many employers would require you to give up work in order to take this much time off work or would want you to take time off when convenient to them. They can’t say no to parental leave and can’t discriminate against you for taking it.

3. No school holidays to worry about and the slow pace can make travel relatively affordable.

4. Quality time as a family – This is by far the most important one. Usually one parent is at work for a lot of the time. When our son Thomas was tiny, he would often be in bed very soon after my husband returned from work and was tired even when he was awake. That left only weekends to have quality time and, well as I’m sure you all know, weekends end up getting filled with other things that need to be done. To have the luxury of spending two full months just the 3 of us with no chores or distractions was something very special. The bond between father and son grew wonderfully and we really had time to establish and appreciate our little family.

5. Development and contentment – we definitely noticed that Thomas’s development accelerated whilst we were away. The stimulation of different experiences he got plus the undivided attention of both of his parents has turned him into a very happy and contented little boy. We were so much more relaxed whilst we were travelling and focused on him that I am positive that he benefited greatly from it.

6. Memories are created – Thomas won’t remember when he’s older that he went around the world before he was 1 but we will. We have that in our memory bank and are creating a photo book for Thomas to have when he is older. Ideally I’d love him to retrace the journey one day when he is old enough to enjoy his own travel bug, which I am very much hoping we are passing to him.

I return to work tomorrow but I feel so privileged to have been able to have some quality time with Thomas and Ian before I do. I am sad to return to work but am already planning more adventures with the return of my salary! Hopefully it won’t be long before we are heading off somewhere new.

I would really urge anyone considering taking a trip somewhere with their children to jump in with both feet and just go. You won’t regret it!