Travelling with an infant
Travel with an infant is all about guessing where you’ll be in 3-4 hours’ time, and making the best of things when it’s feeding time and you are in the middle of a curious crowd, surrounded by dozens of cameras and no chairs or shelter. Unsurprisingly, my milk supply dropped drastically during this trip (which makes things easier for me, even in Canberra, since we have to deal with all the bottle-and-formula rigmarole anyway).
Although CJ is certainly capable of giving Louisette a bottle, she had a lot of trouble focusing on feeds, so I tended to minimise distractions by feeding her (almost) exclusively. And the combination of natural adult hunger plus the inability to feed a baby on a moving vehicle meant that I usually fed her precisely when some exotic dish was placed just out of baby-hampered reach on the table in front of me. So that was certainly unfun.
Travelling took away most of the things I actually liked about breastfeeding – the privacy, obviously (I did sometimes – generally when the only men nearby were strangers – feed Louisette without a cover, which felt a lot better; a peculiar change in someone as desperately modest as it is my nature to be), but also the peace for Louisette – feeding often gave her painful wind and/or reminded her of how tired and far from home she was. Babies almost never cry when feeding, but it happened all too frequently while we were away. My breasts were almost completely pain free, but my back often suffered badly from awkward positions (that is a problem at home too, even with all my U-shaped cushions and assorted paraphernalia – but it’s a problem I think I can fix).
Sterilising bottles and using clean water was extremely difficult (we bought enormous quantities of bottled water and then boiled it) – but breastfeeding is no picnic either (allowing myself one bottle-only feed a day was a huge luxury). Outside restaurants sucked.
Baby bjorns and strollers (effectively a truly portable portacot) are the best. We used the bjorn for a little bit of safety in taxis and buses.
On planes, bassinet seats were extremely useful – giving us the ability to put Louisette down which also meant she slept better – but we had to have her on our laps (and tied to us) when there was turbulence – so a flexible change mat was essential (our normal one is good thick rubber, but attached to the nappy bag), plus all the nappy-change fixings close by (shoved into the seat pocket). And about a billion bottles with sterilised water ready to be mixed with pre-measured formula. They let us take all the water on board, but we had to get it all out at security checkpoints – and it’s a good thing we’ve always served her bottles at room temperature, because not all staff will help with heating/cooling food for you. Something about the heat or humidity or air pressure changed the bottles’ shapes, so they leaked – they didn’t used to leak. We travelled Cathay Pacific, who is well established as the most baby-friendly airline in the area (and more expensive). I always did my best (which was certainly not easy) to time feeds for takeoff and landing, so Louisette was swallowing at the right time to deal with air pressure without pain. It mostly worked, although takeoff delays were frequent and excruciating (especially leaving Beijing – apparently a chronic problem).
Physically, I was in fairly good shape but unable to run, and walking fast was painful in places walking shouldn’t hurt (never a good sign). Walking long distances was much more difficult than usual, as was carrying a bag or baby (two things that are heavy to start with, and of course we had much more luggage than usual as well). Psychologically, breastfeeding was something I dreaded hugely, and hadn’t had long enough to get used to myself (or for Louisette to be very competent, particularly on the move or half-smothered under a cover). I was hyperalert to Louisette too (protective instincts when away from home), which meant less sleep for me (to a literally dangerous extent) and when she needed a feed or a sleep and wasn’t able to get it instantly, I was extremely distressed. I had some food poisoning that my body was able to sort out without medicine (always a better path in the long term), and Louisette remained healthy (we were advised to take infant panadol and suppositories, which luckily we never used. She and I both had dry skin due to AC/heating beyond our control, and probably due to a whole lot of pollution too. I was still abnormally attractive to mosquitoes, so I was deeply grateful I’d indulged a random whim to pack stop-itch creams. I’m MUCH better at walking long distances now than I was two weeks ago.
It’s true than 2-month olds are easier to travel with than almost any other age (up to about five years, I reckon), but there are certain mum-specific disadvantages (more than offset by the fact that she sleeps so much, and doesn’t need to run around during a nine-hour flight).
Huggies newborn nappies were especially handy for the blue line that tells you when the nappy is wet (only up to 5 kilos). Chinese nappies all seem to have it (but they’re not so absorbent, which is more important). Some formula/nappies are evidently imported, and hugely, insanely expensive (more than at home).
Our hotel’s web site said they had a cot, and they confirmed by email that we could use the cot – then they informed us upon our arrival that said cot did not and had never existed (and yes, Louisette did fall out of the single mattress they supplied for her during the period before we acquired another cot). They collected the (stinking) rubbish whenever I asked, day or night – very handy – but the laundry service was insanely expensive (eg $5 Australian per T-shirt). It was important to have breakfast and other meals within the one building.
At home, I usually get 6 hours of sleep five or six times a week. That happened exactly once while I was away. I was tired enough to have problems with reality, and to hallucinate for three days.
When we left, Louisette’s favourite toy was dangling Winnie the Pooh characters in her bouncer. I took the toys and a piece of ribbon, which was brilliant. They were tied to strollers and bassinets all over the place, and Louisette loved them as much as ever.
I’m not sure how I feel about breastfeeding now. Despite facing my fears, the thought of breastfeeding in public still fills me with horror, whether covered (smothering my baby and making things harder for her) or uncovered (eep! Boobs away!) But I just went to a parenting class with a physio that gave me a lot of ideas for making breastfeeding not hurt (right now the pain is mostly in my back, neck, shoulders, and legs – as you’d know from the Great Wall photos). So I’m cautiously hopeful. But I’d estimate my chances of getting rid of bottles at approximately nil, so it does all seem close to pointless. Other times I wish all my feeding issues would go away so I could just enjoy it. Maybe next child – although the punishing schedule will still exist, and the social awkwardness.
People in Hong Kong were totally discreet and totally helpful. No-one ever gave me a second look, or a dirty look, and when we’d dropped both dummies on the ground at various points (we were travelling with three, but we kept one at home) a lady in a sandwich shop was super sweet even as Louisette cried loudly. we asked for a cup each of just-boiled water and cold water to cool it, and she refused to give us cold water because it was tap water, and she knew it wouldn’t be clean enough for a baby. Instead she took it away and washed it, then waved it around until it was cool enough for Louisette, who took it and instantly fell asleep).
In Beijing people often photographed us (with or without permission), constantly stared or complimented us (I’m okay with people constantly pointing out how gorgeous Louisette is), and sometimes scolded us for not dressing her warmly enough, or (more gently) for not having her permanently strapped to us.
In conclusion, I’m confirmed in my views that travelling with any child under about five years of age is simply not worth it. Anything that causes a person (me) to have a mental breakdown – particularly in a public place, particularly when several hours away from the next home base, and particularly while travelling with the in-laws – is not worth doing. Ditto anything that causes me to lose touch with reality, or to hallucinate. The health and safety risks are a whole bundle of inadvisability, too, and we were lucky. Even with our good luck, I was very sick for a few hours one night – if I’d been breastfeeding exclusively, I’d have had no choice but to feed Louisette while simultaneously being ill, and sitting on the toilet in severe pain. When you travel, things happen.
We did a lot of amazing awesome things, and always took Louisette along. Many of those things aren’t the kind of things I’d normally let Louisette even get close to (hookahs, loud noise, Mongolian wind, major pollution).
So we had a brilliant time, and there doesn’t seem to be any lasting harm to any of us (I’ll write in a couple of weeks if Louisette has fully recovered or not – right now she needs more props – dummy AND being held, for example – to get to sleep or to feel safe) – but travelling with an infant is definitely a bad and unpleasant idea. There are only two possible reasons to put oneself through it:
1. If major travelling is an essential part of one or both parents’ identity or job.
2. A wedding.
Tomorrow I’ll be blogging about the wedding – which was one of the most beautiful and fun weddings I’ve ever attended (it helps that it’s one of the world’s best marriages thanks to the sheer goodness of the participants). Next week on Wednesday I’ll be posting this month’s daily Louisette photos (with lots of picturesque extras from our travels).
Know where to shop
Too tired to write more words. Here’s something I prepared earlier (tomorrow: travelling with a tiny one: everything I’ve learned).
As I may have mentioned, CJ and Louisette and I have a wedding in Beijing (probably “have had” by the time I post this). I looked up the weekly forecast a little while before we left, and panicked. There was snow! There was “maximum 3 degrees”! Aieee!
Two Winters ago I finally said goodbye to the extremely dishevelled leather overcoat I’d worn for about ten years. Last Winter I mostly stayed in bed, moaning. So I had no giant, reassuring coat with which to face Winter – or Beijing – this year.
The day after looking up that forecast I went to an op shop. I found a ridiculously giant, heavy coat that comes down to my knees. It was suede, lined from neck to knee with real sheepskin. And it was $15. I win!
Here’s hoping Beijing doesn’t warm up too quickly. . .
PS I totally wore it to Lush. It was perfect.
Chillin’ in China: The Great Wall
The Great Wall is possibly my favourite tourist attraction in the world (as I think I said last time). Instead of wrecking the stunning mountain ranges of China, it frames them, draping across the landscape like an especially relaxed and sinuous cat. Last time we visited Badaling in the depths of Winter. This time we visited Wutianyu in Spring (including an awesome cable car ride up – and CJ took the toboggan down).
The above photo is for orientation. We began at the rectangular section on the left, and I walked through the first guard tower and down to the little platform (also on the left), then returned. CJ walked on with a surprisingly large portion of our group, and took this photo.
The above picture is taken looking away from the rebuilt section, into the overgrown ruins of the Wall. The below is just for fun.
The above photo shows a section that is by no means the steepest on the wall. That’s Bil in front.
And here are just two more photos – both breastfeeding.
To me, the slightly exasperated look on my face and the pointed toes say it all: breastfeeding is an awkward and uncomfortable thing, and although a part of me enjoys it I still dread feeding time. I wrote a few days ago that I’d like to breastfeed on the Great Wall. It struck me then and it strikes me now as a uniquely female way of marking territory. Breastfeeding is so hard and so humiliating and it takes away so much – but dammit, I’m doing it anyway. I own myself and I own my body and now I own China from the Great Wall to Kowloon Park.
I’m in lush again, laughing at a great song sung by a friend of Bil’s (“I cry and eat french fries simultaneously”). I love being here, especially with friends of Bil and Bonnie from all over the world – but the wedding is tomorrow and CJ and Louisette and I will soon be home. Home is always sweeter after being away, and best of all – no more strangers staring or photographing me while I’m trying to breastfeed perched on a shelf, hidden in back rooms, or sitting on major tourist sites.
Well, probably not.
Brillig Beijing: The Food
Beijing has an enormous variety of delicious international food. The only sad part is that unusual food tends to require a certain amount of careful questioning (“It’s a pickled WHAT?!?”) and attention, and a little bit of extra labour (rice with chopsticks, for example) which really makes things difficult while also attempting to feed an infant (and not flash my breasts as passers-by), who often has eating difficulties of her own. Generally CJ tries to keep up with the food, and to feed me and himself simultaneously. I get the general gist, at least.
Korean Barbeque (involving cooking on your own hot plate):
At/near a Yunan/Vietnamese restaurant in Hohan.
Naturally, since we were in Beijing, we made sure to have some Beijing-style duck pancakes. The sweet heaviness of the duck and the thick sauce contrasts perfectly with the wafer-thin pancakes and cucumber sticks or bean sprouts that go inside. We had Beijing Duck last time we were here, and we’ve been craving it ever since. And so the cycle of joy and pain begins again.
Brillig Beijing: Buffet Style
Even without those odd little multilingual/cultural moments (eg asking a concierge to call a taxi then waiting in consternation for twenty minutes as he vanished out the front door) hotel life would be a fascinating and exotic experience for me. The best part, inevitably, is the breakfast buffet (fairly necessary when one carts an infant to a foreign country). It’s exorbitantly priced, as one would expect, and has about a hundred different dishes. We park Louisette at a table (prepped for the inevitable midmeal nappy change) and take it in turns to get food.
If I was still young, and still had faith in my digestive system, I would perhaps challenge myself to try every single dish at least once. Here’s one good reason why not – that’s salted duck eggs on the left (fine), and fermented bean curd on the right (for breakfast).
One of the juices featured is tomato, and there is a suspicious stand near the juices that appears to contain most of the other fixings for a bloody mary (but who am I to judge?)
At the time of writing, I felt I’d had enough experimentation and should just give up. Apart from anything else, the pancake griddle is increasingly temperamental and my interactions with the staff there are getting more and more awkward. Also, there were no dim sum pork buns OR red bean paste buns today, which was very disappointing. So all I ate was some fresh bread and butter, a hash brown, scrambled eggs, a fried chicken-and-indeterminate-vegetable dumpling, orange juice, grape juice, and five pancakes with butter and maple syrup (and I sneakily added cheese to one of them, since they were cooked on the omelette stand after a mild altercation between the pancake and egg staff), some fresh berries (one of which I didn’t recognise). And all I stole was a bit more butter, and a knife slipped into Louisette’s bag.
What a poor effort. I’m sure I’ll do better tomorrow.
Temeraire: Empire of Ivory
This is book four of Novik’s brilliant series featuring intelligent battling dragons during the Napoleonic wars. Britain is in an extremely bad situation, as a flu-like epidemic is slowly but surely killing all their dragons – the entire Aerial Corps – and it is only a matter of time before Napoleon’s dragons take advantage and Britain is lost. The title dragon, Temeraire, and his captain, Will Laurence, can only watch in horror as many captain-dragon relationships go through torment and grief all around them.
When it becomes clear that they stumbled across a cure during their overland journey from China to Istanbul, they set off at once to Africa to find out exactly what it is that could save Britain’s dragon population before the secret is out and Britain is destroyed.
Africa, however, has problems of its own. Many have tried to explore the dark interior, and none have returned. On a mission to retrieve an unusual and specific foodstuff, Laurence and the other humans are captured and it soon becomes clear that the so-called feral dragons of the interior are not feral at all. They are part of an organised and intelligent force that has had enough of the British Empire, and plans to take back their slaves – and they’re perfectly happy to destroy the British Empire to do so.
Laurence himself is against slavery, but he also knows that the African force cannot be appeased – too many of their friends and relatives have long since been killed by sea voyages and mistreatment. There is no solution here.
This book ends on a moral climax, when Laurence’s honour is put to the greatest test ever.
Even Laurence finds it hard to be sympathetic to the British in this book, and the readers feel the embarrassed defensiveness with him. As readers, we are kept involved by the humans and dragons involved – the larger struggle is not so gripping.
I didn’t mention earlier, but Novik deserves credit for planning – small incidents from previous books turn out to be vital later on. And of course the characters never cease to involve the reader.
From here on, the books end in ways that would be unsatisfying to some readers. The main action is certainly complete, but the consequences (almost inevitably negative) for Laurence and Temeraire are left looming.
Rating: PG battle violence
Free sample (dragons as a whole REALLY like shiny things, and Iskierka is a somewhat immature fire-breather. In the military, you are financially rewarded for taking enemy ships):
Iskierka meanwhile took inspiration, and began to plot the acquisition of capital. “If I burn up a ship, is that good enough, or must I bring it back?” she demanded, and began her piratical career by presenting [her captain] with a small fishing-boat, the next morning, which she had picked up from Dover harbor during the night. “Well, you did not say it must be a FRENCH ship,” she said crossly, to their recriminations, and curled up to sulk.
Brillig Beijing: The Forbidden City and beyond
They don’t make megalomaniacs like they used to.
Be advised (particularly if you’ve recently had a child) that the Forbidden City is called a city for a reason. It is ENORMOUS. Luckily Bonnie is a smart tour guide and encouraged us to take the most direct possible route through. She also carried our nappy bag (while CJ carried Louisette and the baby bag), which meant I carried nothing at all – a cunning (and successful) plan to deal with a physically draining day.
We started off by walking across Tiananmen Square.
The worst part of the Forbidden City was the ridiculous number of people (this week has three public holidays in a row). The best part of the Forbidden City was the beautiful Imperial Gardens section at the end.
After going a-l-l the way through the city, we climbed the fairly steep hill behind it. The hill is called “The Mound” and is artificial. Apparently there’s someone else’s palace underneath. It’s actually not all that high, but because Beijing is so very flat there are long views in all directions – including directly back over the Forbidden City.
Baby Days
As you can tell, Louisette is so brilliant she likes to read over her dad’s shoulder.
Louisette’s feeding is changing: she’ll only breastfeed for about ten minutes (as opposed to up to 40 minutes pre-travel) and she’s having a bit more than half her food from formula – which does make things easier for me.
I’m prepping a “travelling with baby” blog for after I get back, which will have everything I’ve learnt from all this travel. In the meantime, here are two pictures of her getting burped (in the first, she’s just caught sight of herself in the hotel mirror).
The best thing about travelling with a baby is you always have a great source of entertainment.
Two day ago Louisette really impressed us: She initiated a game of peek-a-boo with her Dad. Not only did she pick the parent who plays peek-a-boo with her most often, but she demonstrated the initiative and self-awareness to know that another person wouldn’t see her face if she turned her head to hide in the side of her baby bag. Wow.
And here’s another breastfeeding photo – perched on a dusty shelf just outside the Forbidden City, with passers-by walking up and taking photos.
And here’s a pretty sunset from our hotel window, just because.
Brillig Beijing: Venturing Outside
It’s Spring in Beijing at the moment (or “dust season” if you prefer – Beijing is has a variety of hideous weather to suit all seasons), but given that Winter (or “death season” if you prefer) often sees temperatures of around minus 20 degrees Celsius, warming up takes a while – it’s roughly the equivalent of a Canberra Winter.
Today (well, 31 March) was super exciting, as it turned out. Louisette began holding onto her toys for the first time. I’d seen her grasping for her hanging toys (she loves hitting them – involving a great deal of adorable and random flailing with the occasional hit) so I placed the toy in her hand and watched in delight as she gripped it and shook it, making it rattle. This expression is halfway between delight and concentration.
Oh yeah, and we did a bit of China stuff too. We visited the (outside) venue where the wedding will take place – a beautiful sheltered courtyard with a Chinese-style pavilion.
And here’s the mandatory “street scene” shot for a new city (that’s the CCTV tower spire in the background).
I’ve had a simply brilliant time constantly using (and, frankly, needing to use) my pathetic scraps of Mandarin to get around – since Bil and Bonnie are a teensy bit busy with their impending nuptials. As an Australian, any bilingualism is pretty much a super power.
Tomorrow (ish): Baby in a bar.
Brillig Beijing: Baby in a Bar
Yep, we took Louisette to her first bar today. Here she is (and that’s her grandma – Bil and CJs mum – in the background):
And here’s me, five seconds ago:
I’m writing this blog on Sunday night, which is open mike night at Lush bar in Wudaoko. It’s my favourite bar in the world, because Bil and Rich (one of the owners, who co-hosts open mike nights with Bil) sing and play guitar in order to encourage others to do the same (a huge treat for me), and somehow the level of talent seems abnormally high. I always get really emotional – the guitars, the hookahs, the green walls, the sense of community – it all makes me get teary-eyed. Or maybe it’s because I always have a chocolate martini (when I was pregnant, I promised myself I’d come to Lush and have another – and I keep my promises).
Here’s Bil and Rich doing their thing:
And Bil, who to us will always be the main event at Lush:
Felicity Banks 