Traveling to Taiwan with a baby

I would like to visit Taiwan within the next year. The problem is I have a 9 month old baby and don’t know how she’s going to handle jetlag? Has anyone traveled with a baby and how did he/she do with it?

You can adjust them with 1-2 hours per day, one here.

i have travelled with babies ranging from 4 months - 7 months, and 1 year.

Yes, they tend to be a bit confused once they discover that the time is different, however they get over that in a couple of days.

What you would do is basically the same as when you teach them to sleep at night, IE keep lights turned off and be as quiet as possible around them when it’s nighttime in your new location.

Toys are good if you are to get him/her to blow off a bit of energy at 4AM.

PLEASE leave your baby at home. I was once sitting close to a baby for a sixteen hour journey from HK to LONDON (packed plane, couldnt change seats) . the poor thing was in pain from minute one from the air pressure and whatever. It was just not a happy baby. and the mommie would even lock herself and the baby in the toilet bout ten minutes every hour to give us some peace. I even asked the stewardess to slip the baby some baby sleeping pills. But she said the baby drinks only mamas milk. I was ready to strangle the poor thing by the time we landed. GOSH.

your baby wont enjoy a trip to taiwan. FIND someone suitable to take care of her or you should probably stay home too. I cant see how you are going to do all the sights wiht a baby along either??

Of course if you have people who will be able to care for your baby after you arrive in Taiwan, leaving you a chance to go around the place. Then it can make sense. MOst babies seem to have no trouble with the flight. many people have written on airline forums bout how many babies were travelling. So your child should be fine too for the flight. And probably will adjust pretty quickly to the time diff. As long as you arent planning a lightning tour of taiwan for only a few days or a week or something like that. IN which case you really should find suitable family to take care of the baby? Well just my opiniion. NOt easy to find the right person of course and all that.

My whole family lives in Taiwan, so there will be plenty of people to look after the little one. It will be more of a visit than sight seeing trip. I know what you mean with kids screaming on the plane, I’ve experienced that many years ago before I had a baby and you just want to rip your hair out!!! I guess I should wait a little longer. I was trying to get there before I have to pay full fare :slight_smile:

haha. ya that reminds me. When do they start charging for a seat? Can babies fly free or half fare or what?? Not ever having a kid, i have zero idea how that works.

I think they charge 10% for kids under 2 (no seat), and 90% (?) for kids over 2.

My daughters both flew intercontinental before they turned 6 months, not much crying. More like sleeping and playing.

Nurse them when teh plane is taking off or landing, that helps on the air pressure issue.

That’s right and depending on how booked the plane is, the flight-crew are usually very nice to either move you and the baby for more space or finding a better seat for the person next to you (sorry to hear you had a rough time once, you AND tommy525)…

BUT…

I’ve done the trip many times now with my son (from Copenhagen to Taipei with 1 or 2 stops) and everytime he actually slept most of the time.
My advise is this:

-Buy some new toys
-make sure you have cookies, bread or snacks
-don’t bring to much personal stuff (make-up, magazines, music, book), you wontbe needing them and it take up more space. It’s not easy to have a kid AND bags of junk…
-1extra set of babyclothes and 1 extra t-shirt for yourself, if the baby spit or throw up on you :frowning:

This is my best advise: book the flights so that the longest stretch will be around your baby’s usually bedtime at home.
Me son usually goes to bed (or rather I put him to bed!) around 19-19.30, so any flight starting/take off from 18 to 21 is best for him and me, because after an hour or so (new places always makes them more curious) he settle down and fall asleep and is sleeping maybe 8 hours - with interuptions, but depending on your own babys sleeping habits, you can either walk the baby to sleep again, give some milk (breast or bottle, the stewardess are sweet and will make it for you) and it’s off to sleeping land again.
-bring his/hers favorite bed-blanket, it has the smell of home and nighttime.

My second best advise is: Relax, most people are really nice when it comes to travellers with babies and remember the most annoying thing on the plane is NOT you and the baby!!! It’s more likely the guy (or woman) who’s either smell really bad, snores loudly, too drunk, laughing too much of the B-movie they are playing or the one who had a “bad accident” in the toilet!

Have a good trip!

ps. The thing about the ears - is your baby using a pacifier? Usually babies don’t have any problems with regulating the pressure, it’s the fact that they are uncomfortable with the situation of being there, that makes them cry.
Of course if your baby has a cold or suffering from ear-infections, then you can help regulate the pressure with either a pacifier or give more often something to drink.
Have some water ready or milk…or juice in this special occation :wink:

Ok, so I have taken the advice and waited a year to travel with my daughter, who is now 22 months old. We are leaving this Saturday night for Taiwan and I’m still a little nervous. The flight is at 10:10pm which works well since her bedtime is normally around 10 anyways. So I’m going to push her nap and bedtime a little later a few days prior to the trip. We took her on a test flight and she did exceptionally well. Granted it was only 2 1/2 hours, but I think she will be fine. She’s got a great disposition and not a complainer in general. I bought some toys for the trip, and plan to bring lots of snacks in little baggies. Maybe will borrow a portable DVD player.

As for jetlag, I think we’ll let her nap during the day when she’s tired, but not let her sleep too long. If anyone has more advice, please feel free to share. Thanks.

have a good trip and enjoy your time here in Taiwan. Good weather at the moment, in my opinion. Not too hot and not too cold.

:sunglasses: tine

Will they do it if you don’t have a baby? Sounds like it could be a lot of fun.

Don’t need to bring one…we have lots of babies here.

Will they do it if you don’t have a baby? Sounds like it could be a lot of fun.[/quote]

:laughing:
:blush: