Follow Up from Travelling with a 7 month Old

Hi All,

Just wanted to post about our experiences travelling with our 7 month old daughter to Vanuatu staying at La Lagon in Port Villa and White Grass in Tanna. Firstly we were lucky that she was relatively immobile, about to start crawling, but not quite, so she relatively stayed in one area when we put her down, and because it was all strange, was also mainly happy to be held or put in her stroller.

I found that taking her stroller was very useful. We didnt bother with it when we went into Port Villa or trips to the Cascades or villages, but to have around both resorts it was really worthwhile. It enabled us to have meals, especially dinner without worrying about her as she would sleep in it. Was also very useful to use to get her to sleep as her sleep routine was really messed around from the travel. It allowed us to get out and about while she was asleep rather than being stuck at our bungalows if we didnt want to be. We probably did look a bit strange though, walking around the White Grass golf course each night in the star light until she went to sleep so we could then eat dinner peacefully!

Car travel with her went well, we used taxis and buses in Vila. On Tanna she found the bumpy roads soothing and always fell asleep within 3 minutes of being in the car. Each time we drove from the airport to Whitegrass she managed to fall alseep (a 5 minute drive). For the longer trip to the Volcano I used a Baby Bjorn carrier so that I just had to concentrate on keeping her head from hitting anything (from the bumps) rather than have to worry about her wriggling as well.

She only got one insect bite the whole holiday. I saw La Lagon staff fogging, which explains why there were no mosquitos around the resport. On Tanna, White Grass provided a net for her cot, we used baby friendly repellants (Scatterbugs by Cherub Rubs seemed to work really well) and covered her stroller with a net at dinner time. I wouldnt recommend the shade/insect stroller cover commonly sold in Australia for a hot humid climate like Vanuatu. It really made the stroller heat up very quickly. We stopped using it and used a lighter sleeping net we had brought with us. I on the other hand slept too close to the net one night and ended up with a very spotty bum!! Make sure you sleep in the middle of the bed if you can!)

The local people both in Villa and at Tanna, at White Grass especially, were fantastic. Very very baby friendly and very genuine. Our daughter got whisked away into kitchens and off to villages to be shown off quite regularly.

While it was a lot of work travelling with a baby, especially making sure she wasn't a crying baby, it was definately worthwhile.

Thanks for posting your experiences. This is great information for others thinking of traveling to the South Pacific with infants.