The Secret of Traveling with your Little One - Episode 14
Want to travel with your little one? What to travel minimally on top of that? On this podcast we talk about how we traveled with our 4.5 months old internationally. We’ll let you know the minimal essentials you’ll need for both yourself and baby. Join us! Where have you gone with your little one?
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TIMESTAMP:
►00:12 - What does Yuntaku mean?
►00:45 - Recent Happenings: Wildfire and Earthquake on the West Coast
►03:11 - TOPIC: Minimalist Traveling with your Little One.
►04:09 - Baby Essentials when Traveling and Tips
►06:42 - Travel Sweet Spot Age Range
►08:11 - Parents' Essentials when Traveling and Tips
►12:32 - Importance in having a Buffer Day
►13:40 - Fasting Related to Jetlag
►14:10 - Requesting a Bassinet on the Plane
QUESTION: Where have you traveled with your little one? Would you like to travel with your little one?
MUSIC:
► Copyright Chillhop Music - https://chillhop.com
Podcast Transcription
The transcription below is provided for your convenience, please excuse any errors made by the automated service.
Akko 0:00
that'd be awesome that'd make my year my life
Tamo 0:05
so the rain candy rain Gods.
Akko 0:08
It's Yuntaku time with Akko and Tamo
Tamo 0:12
What does Yuntaku mean? It's an Okinawan word from the islands of Okinawa, which means chitchat. We want to invite you to our kitchen table and include you in our chitchat to explore new ways of thinking, to welcome different perspectives.
Akko 0:30
And we want to share ideas and how to love yourself. Love your partner, and shower your children with love.
Tamo 0:37
This is Episode 14,
Akko 0:39
and the topic of the day is minimalist traveling with your little one. But before we get to that, let's talk about our recent happenings. So recently, we've been experiencing a lot 2020 and we had fires we had the we had record breaking fires. So we live on the west coast and it was raining ashes. Yeah, the outside just look like it was it's completely gray. Yeah, it
Tamo 1:02
was our area wasn't as bad as some of the other areas.
Akko 1:05
You could even see it 10 feet in front of you. So it's pretty bad. And we can't go indoors because of COVID we can't go outdoors because of the buyers. It's like Where do you stay? But on top of that we had an earthquake 2020s
Tamo 1:19
What do you say to that? Right? So for me now, I'm just waiting for aliens. And I'm sure for you to top it off. If we have a day that it rains candy house.
Akko 1:28
That'd be awesome. That'd make my year. My life.
Tamo 1:33
So the rain Kenny rain gods, please. Requesting Kenny to be raining.
Akko 1:40
Oh, man. So there's a lot that's been happening. 2020. But you know, we just have to stay positive. And try to get through the year. Yeah. And create new opportunities.
Tamo 1:50
Yeah, I totally agree. And for those who are who are listening, uh, we sincerely hope that all your family, friends and family colleagues are doing well. It's been really difficult times. But within those difficult times, there are seeds of opportunity that start to sprout. So let's look at it that way. Let's look at 2020 as a time to reset, we've been forced to reset it's been very difficult psychologically to many people, financially. I mean, relationship wise, everything has been placed on pressure. And so within that, please find an opportunity for growth. And once you start to look at life from that lens, the lens of opportunity, every single thing that happens is an opportunity for inner growth. And from the inner growth, you'll start to see a new beginning something more beautiful on the outside, just like for us to when COVID first it was difficult for us, right? I'm sure I was going through a slight depression just being down. Yeah, lethargy, things like that. And through that, we've looked for opportunities for growth. And now we've seen so much growth together. Yeah. And our relationship has grown just like we talked in previous episodes, we talked about seeing the relationship as fertile soil and continuing to fertilize and enriching the relationship.
Akko 3:07
Yeah, yeah. 100%.
Tamo 3:08
Let's go into the topic of the day.
Akko 3:10
Yeah. So the topic of the day is minimalist, traveling with your little one. And we just want to let you guys know, we traveled with our daughter when she was about four and a half months internationally. And to top it off, we went to Norway, which is an 11 hour flight, which is crazy, because that's crazy
Tamo 3:28
for adults, but I share some of the experiences that we had some of the worries going in. Yeah. And for us, we've been into more minimalist type travel. And when we say minimalist, we're not talking about people who just travel with their jacket. And that's it. We had a backpack backpack is a very small 15 metre backpack and one for each of us. And that taken us on a month long trip throughout Southeast Asia. Yeah, for our honeymoon. That's what we did very small backpacks. And we'd made do it No problem, no problem. And so we're more on the minimalist side when we travel. Yes. And when we went to Norway with our daughter, we had to add one extra small suitcase rolling suitcase. So yeah,
Akko 4:07
with our daughter, we had to add more carry on the rolling carry on just for her essentials. I feel like there was a lot more of her essential than our essentials, right. But though we just had diapers, bottles, and a breast pump,
Tamo 4:22
oh yeah, that did take up a little bit more space.
Akko 4:25
And for the diapers and wipes. We just had enough for a couple days, until we found a grocery store that we can buy diapers and wipes from
Tamo 4:33
and that's one tip that we want to share with parents that would like to travel Of course, it's a really difficult time to travel now but are those adventures and want to travel Now you don't have to worry about trying to bring everything you can and again, there's babies all over the world being born and so diapers are going to be most likely quite easy to find unless you're going to an area where going shopping is actually difficult. That's a different story. But you know, most countries you go to go to the supermarket and pick up some diapers. You're good to go. Yep. And if there's babies, there's other essentials that are sold that will
Akko 5:06
work for your. Exactly, exactly. So just to give you a list of what we had, we just had diapers and wipes for a few days worth. And then we had three bottles, I believe, three baby bottles and a breast pump. And that breast pump was actually much smaller as well, because it was one of those wearable best pumps where it's very compact. So we bought that with us. And that worked wonders for me and our daughter.
Tamo 5:31
Yeah, True. True.
Akko 5:32
And and then we just bought a few clothes for her sister a few fleece one D thinner. onesy. And jacket. Yeah. Okay, one thicker jacket that you might need, just because we went to Norway when I was a lightly cooler.
Tamo 5:43
So we also had a beanie too,
Akko 5:46
just to make sure that we cover all ends for our daughter. So that's what we brought.
Tamo 5:50
Yeah. And as for traveling at that time, again, like Akko mentioned, our daughter was about four and a half months old. Right? So being four and a half months old, she not gonna walk. What we did was we didn't even take a stroller we just carried her. That's right carrier. That's right. And the carrier actually took up a little bit of space did it a
Akko 6:07
little bit. It's the Ergo baby carrier that we had.
Tamo 6:11
So that's what we did. And yes, as long as your baby is, you know, healthy doing well, you wanted to talk to your doctor about this, but we got Okay, from our doctor.
Akko 6:20
Yes, yeah, I've had friends where they were going to travel to a place where they were more concerned for measles and whatnot. So she was able to vaccinate her six month year old at that time at six months for the MMR. So just to give you guys that info that is possible. You want to travel to countries where the measles outbreak is more prevalent.
Tamo 6:39
And again, you always want to talk to your doctor about this.
Akko 6:41
Exactly, exactly. And so in
Tamo 6:43
another sense for us, it was a little easier that we went when we went because if we were to go with our daughter now it would be a lot lot more difficult just because she's running around. She can't stay still. No, she's very curious all over everywhere. Yes. And so right now it would be much more difficult at one and a half years old. Yes. So that's something to consider. And that's what I had been told when I asked him for advice from other parents. They said, yes, you want to travel when they're actually really young. And they actually works out. It was that that was the case for us.
Akko 7:14
Yeah, absolutely. And we also did travel with her a couple more times before her one year birthday. And it actually worked out as well. flown.
Tamo 7:23
Yeah, we flew probably two other times referring to
Akko 7:26
Dallas.
Tamo 7:27
And yeah, that's something to consider. So if you're considering traveling, that is a sweet spot.
Akko 7:35
Before they can be very mobile.
Tamo 7:36
Right. Right. Right. For me. I think the Yeah, the four to eight month mark was pretty nice.
Akko 7:42
Yeah, I think that was a really sweet spot. Although when she went to Hawaii was around 11. Oh, was it? Okay, so
Tamo 7:47
let's say in our case, from about four to 11 months around there, and then it just became a little more difficult because she started to stand, then she started to walk crawl a lot more, then it went into straight up running.
Akko 8:00
Yeah. She's a runner. So she's a mover. Exactly. And
Tamo 8:04
so yeah, consider that. If you are wanting to travel. Yeah, if
Akko 8:09
you want to travel with their little one. And as for us, we are a minimalist ourselves, like como had mentioned, we just bring a few underwears because we can just easily hand wash it and just hang it and it'll just dry the next day. And then we bring a few tops and one or two bottoms. And that's literally it. And we usually stay at places where they do offer a washer and dryer so that we can wash our clothes when we're there.
Tamo 8:34
And so for that we look at Airbnb. If not, you know there are some hotels that offer that and worst comes to worst we just wash it in the sink. Yes. And in regards to clothes. Yeah, like Aqua said we don't carry that much, maybe about two to three articles per so if it's a shirt two to three, including what we're wearing. Yes. The same for underwear pants. Maybe it's just one. Yeah, one or two, one or two most Yeah. And so for those, it helps if you have kind of performance fabrics, right. So if you have a thick pair of jeans or 100% cotton clothes, unless you have reactions to other type of
Akko 9:09
like you're sensitive.
Tamo 9:10
Yeah, unless you're sensitive to other type of materials. You want to go with the performance fabrics because they're usually lighter. They're usually quicker to dry, which means it's easier to wash to you wash it and we can hang it to dry really quickly. And so those what we've done is we found some pretty nice underwear and kind of shirts at Uniqlo. Yeah, Uniqlo has that super lightweight, very lightweight. It's so compact when you pack it. So yeah, look at that. And what we use is a wool socks. wool socks dries quick and it keeps you warm. It's nice cushioning. It's comfortable and it doesn't smell as much.
Akko 9:46
Yeah does not prevent
Tamo 9:47
Yes, yes, like antibacterial properties. So it's quite nice. Yeah, look into that if you're interested.
Akko 9:54
Yeah. And then we pack everything in the small compartmentalised travel bags where You could expand it, and then you can zip it up again to to condense it. So that's a really big help.
Tamo 10:05
Yeah, it makes packing a lot cleaner. And you know where everything is, it's much easier to deal with. Yeah. opposed to just throwing everything into the backpack itself.
Akko 10:15
Yeah, exactly.
Tamo 10:16
Yeah, exactly. And for that, we'll be linking everything that we use on our YouTube page. So come over search for US, UK time on YouTube, you'll see us and click through and in the descriptions, we're going to be linking to all the products so that you can check it out. And if you're interested, check it out by see how it works out for Yeah,
Akko 10:34
and join the club. And so
Tamo 10:36
yeah, we carry everything in heightened backpacks, but it's it doesn't have any frames or anything. It's a smaller backpack. Yeah, like I mentioned, it's only 15 liters. So it's a small backpack, but it has a waist strap. So that's a must, must, because you want to make sure that a lot of the weight is on your hips, rather than your shoulders so that you don't, you don't fatigue quickly. Yeah, and your shoulders fatigue very easily where as your hip can carry a lot more weight. And then Aside from that, what we do usually carry is a small chargeable battery or USB power pack to keep our phones charged. In our case, it was used to USB charge a cause breastpump, which is awesome, because you can do both. And then also, if you have a tablet, we didn't bring any tablets or anything. But we did it through the phone, we charge the phone.
Akko 11:23
Yeah, we did. And we also never forgot to bring a raincoat because you never know when it's going to rain. So one ultralight raincoat, why we can kind of roll it up into this like small little ball. And of course, yes,
Tamo 11:35
it does take space, and I usually don't prefer it. But hey, it's a great insurance. Because you can cover yourself in your backpack with that. And you're good to go.
Akko 11:44
Yeah, yeah. And I have to say, yeah, we probably use it more than 50% of the time that we bring it. And it could be you can use it on the jacket. Yeah, so dual purpose. And as
Tamo 11:52
for the footwear, we usually wear waterproof boots. That's not completely like bulky, but it's good enough to protect your ankles just because you're going to be carrying a little bit more weight. You want your ankles to be supported. So we wear hiking boots, it usually offers more grip. Yes, it does, even when it's raining. So yeah, it's a really nice Win win. So we usually wear boots, especially right, especially more international travel, of course, if we're going to Hawaii, we're just going to get worse slippers.
Akko 12:19
Exactly, exactly. Yeah. So yeah, that's what we do. When we're traveling, we think about which country we're gonna go to, and we look up the weather, whether it's gonna be cold, hot, or if we need to bring all the spectrum to protect ourselves. And
Tamo 12:32
as parents, when you travel, of course, we're going to be tired. And at the same time, we have to take care of our little one baby, there was a rough ride on the plane, whatnot, you're going to be tired, and your views is going to be shorter, right? So you want to make sure that you get a lot of rest have a buffer Day Day of buffering so that you can rest at wherever you're staying. Get a good night's rest, good days rest and take some time. Go slowly. And then the next day you guys can really enjoy exploring the sights.
Akko 12:58
Yeah, a lot more fresh. Oh, yeah, I think we went to Norway. I mean, because of the time change to that first day that we arrived. Well, we actually arrived at later that day. So then the next day, we just relaxed and really did nothing, right. So always have that buffer day so that you can get that rest. And you can be on your A game when you're ready. Right, right. Because
Tamo 13:17
especially if you're traveling with your little one, you don't know the area, this the first time you've gone to this place, you know, you have to be a lot more alert. And so for that reason, again, having well rested and make sure you're hydrated, make sure you eat well too, so that you feel good and can continue and enjoy all the sights and experiences that the country has to offer. With that said, I've also read studies they done on fasting related to jetlag. And so I don't have the clear kind of schedule, how you need to eat. But if you do kind of fast do the first day meaning when you're traveling, and then when you get to the destination, if it's the correct time, if you start eating, supposedly, you can get over jetlag a lot faster. So that's something to look into. Yeah, if you search, what jet lag fasting, the study might come up, so yeah,
Akko 14:08
check it out, check it out. And also in regards to your little one and the plane, as long as they're less than 25 pounds. You guys can request a bassinet for them so that they can sleep so that they don't have to be sleeping on top of you.
Tamo 14:21
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point, which means we get the best
Unknown Speaker 14:23
and hit seat which offers a little bit more space between the wall and yourself. We had to pay a little bit more like a little small fee, but it is so worth the fee. Yeah, it
Tamo 14:33
is definitely because you get extra space. You have a bassinet for your kid, while the kids stay in the bassinet and don't know just like our daughter. Yeah, what a standard
Akko 14:43
just because she's a co sleeper. So she was like what is this bassinet and she really didn't take to the bassinet even when she was younger. So we had it just in case and I think she slept in it for like an hour or two. But the rest we just had to carry her.
Tamo 14:58
Yes, we did. So if you You would like to travel but worried about taking your little one, you know, you want to of course, do the pros and cons within, you know, talk to you or your partner, see where your tolerances are. And usually it ends up being okay. You know, we were kind of had a little bit of fear going into the first international travel, which is off the bat like that.
Akko 15:18
Yeah, I mean, she didn't get any training from domestic flights, you just went straight to international and being 11 hours, we were a little more stress in the beginning, before we even went on the trip. But it all works out at the end, right? So try not to stress as much you could enjoy. Yeah, enjoy cuz it's gonna work out. Yep. And you won't remember after a year,
Tamo 15:41
just remember the final time Exactly. Alright, so the question of the day is, where have you traveled with your little one? Or if you haven't traveled yet, would you like to travel with your little one?
Akko 15:52
We'd love to hear from you. Please comment on our YouTube channel by searching Yuntaku time
Tamo 15:57
alright Till next time, take care. Bye