Don’t miss the 1st half of our article here. Let’s continue our journey together:
ADJUSTING TO JET LAG AND OTHERS
Time zone change – traveling 15 time zones was difficult. At home, Ian was regularly sleeping 11-12hrs per night with 2-3 naps during the day. In China, he woke up every 3-4 hours for the first few nights and was crashing by 6pm. We bought some night lights from TaoBao to keep all bright lights off (don’t let grandparents turn on room lights) and followed standard sleep training protocol: no bright/blue light, maintain quiet, offer pacifier, shusher, and prepare measured out bottles/water/formula of smaller volume than daytime feeds (Ian usually drinks 150ml; so we prepared 90-120ml bottles and then tapered down). It took him about a week to adjusted to China time, but only took 3 days when we returned to California – maybe an easier adjustment due to familiar surroundings.
Sleep In Hotel – Our hotel provided us with a pack-and-play, a thin topper, duvet, and mini pillow. We weren’t familiar with pack-and-plays since Ian had only slept in a crib at home since coming home from the hospital. The bottom felt like hard plastic, so we were a little nervous about using it. Especially with the duvet unsecured, and forget about using the pillow. The first day, Ian cried and screamed when we put him down to sleep in it for both nap time and overnight. By the second day he was OK with it though. We helped ease the transition by semi-swaddling him for naps and using a Halo sleep sack for overnight. Worked great and he was happy by the end of our stay.
Food – We brought enough formula and puree pouches for Ian to eat during the whole trip. Although we packed 1.5x what Ian normally would eat, we were down to the last bits by the time we came back since there was a lot of wastage during the time zone adjustment period. We also fed him hard boiled egg yolks, steamed pumpkin, and various other thoroughly cooked foods and thankfully he didn’t get sick. Some friends recommended bringing American water and soil with us (not joking) in case Ian was not acclimated to the local food, water, air and etc. Phoebe totally forgot to bring them but it worked out OK.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
- Bring something familiar – shusher/blanket/sleep sack
CHINA SPECIFIC
Car seat – At home we use Graco 4Ever 4-in-1 Convertible Car Seat. We borrowed a different one from Phoebe’s cousin and used it on the trip from airport to grandparents’ house. Rest of the trip would have been a nightmare if we tried to enforce car seat use. Either cars were too small or setup was too complicated. And it seems that although it is legally required to use car seats for babies, the policy hasn’t been strictly executed like zero tolerance on drinking and driving has. Most of the time for short distance within-city travel, we used Ergobaby and seat belt. For our upcoming trip to New York, we purchased an ultralight car seat – will write a blog post about it in the future.
Diapers – We had been using Huggies Little Snugglers and Little Snugglers Plus+ (Costco version which is more absorbent) at home, so we ordered a box of Huggies diapers from TaoBao thinking they would be similar. With the standard and Plus+ versions, we would be able to go 10-12 hours/overnight without a change. Turns out the ones we bought were a much thinner version which would soak through with the first pee. Most times Ian’s bottom clothes would be damp after just 2-3 hours. We wound up cutting the pads out of a bunch of diapers and using them as inserts to make “super diapers” which lasted about the same time as we were used to.
Towards the end of the trip, with a friend’s recommendation, we bought Merries (Japanese brand) from 1Haodian, which were delivered super fast and were much better than Huggies. Next time, we will buy Asian brands while in China/Asia.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
- Borrow a car seat if you can, or try an ultralight travel car seat (will post about this in the future when we travel again to New York)
- Ask local friends for diaper recommendations
ENDING
It was a fun trip for us and we got a bit of a break from taking care of Ian because everyone loved him so much and wanted to hold him all the time. But it was also tiring to travel so far with an infant. Next time, we will definitely book a direct flight to Shanghai and spend more time in car travel since flights are regularly delayed in China.
Thank you for reading!
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Song of Life 