First trip out

Last weekend was a big adventure as we conquered another milestone by travelling out of Bangkok for a short weekend getaway to Pattaya with a baby in tow. All three of us and along with everything but the kitchen sink.

Call it a practice run if you will as we set ourselves up for future travels with a small child. A practice run not only for us, but for Spud as well since we are curious as to how she would take to travelling. If anything, we reckon that she might as well get used to travelling since she already has a set of footloose parents on hand.

Day 1
Spud slept through the 2 hour drive to Pattaya. By the time we got there, it was just a couple of hours away from her witching hour. At 5 pm sharp, Spud started fussing away and the only person she would want during her witching hours is her Momma.

We stuck to her night routine by putting her to bed by 7pm. Unlike being at home, we cannot really leave her on her own in the hotel room while we grab some dinner. So we brought her along with us by putting her in the stroller while she was still sleeping.

She must have been disturbed by being in a strange place for she woke up startled in her stroller several times while we were having dinner. It took a while before we could calm her down as we tried to finish up dinner. We were back in our hotel room less than 2 hours later. As expected, Spud slept pretty badly throughout the night, waking up almost every hour till the morning light.


Day 2
We were already out having breakfast by 7.30 am with Spud being all wide-eyed bushy tailed at 6 am. By noon, we had done all the shopping we needed to do at the outlet malls. Unfortunately, Spud decided that that she would prefer to be cranky for the rest of the day. We did suspect that she could have been in the middle of a growth spurt at 11 weeks as her appetite has been insatiable since Friday.

We did the same dinner routine as Day 1 but Spud clearly showed signs of distress as she woke up several times while sleeping in the stroller and appeared inconsolable. As hungry as I was before dinner, I somehow could only managed a few bites of my pasta as we tended to Spud’s needs. She, did, however, slept just only slightly better than the night before, waking up only a few times during the night.


Day 3

It turned out to be a rather pleasant day for all of us as Spud decided that she was going to cooperate. With Spud being less fussy than her usual fussiness, we managed a breakfast

 session with an ex-colleague of mine without any major hitch. In fact, sometime in the late morning, Opa even managed to take Spud out for a walk in her stroller for a good hour!

We decided to stick to her routine as closely as possible, which included the ritual of putting her down for afternoon naps. Ironically, we spent much of the afternoon of this fantastic vacation indoors that kept her rather cheery and happy. Not wanting to further disrupt her night-time routine like we did in the first 2 days, we decided to shift our dinner time earlier and made sure that she was in bed by 7.30pm.

This had worked out better for both of us. Once she was asleep, she was pretty much out cold and woke up twice at night for her feed.


Day 4
Weird day this was as Spud decided to stay in bed till 7.45 am as compared to her usual 6 am! To be honest, I can’t quite remember what happened, except that as soon as we were done with breakfast, we were ready to check out and head back to Bangkok. After fussing quite a bit when we were about to check out, she pretty much crashed on the one half hour ride back home.

It was all hard work, I tell you! So much so that I was very glad to be going home from the mini vacation so Spud can get back to her routine. Come to think of it, it was no vacation for me since our time was just consumed by Spud.

Imagine that we did not even have the chance to enjoy the pool or go for an hour of massage or take naps when we want to for the 3 days we were there! Everything really had to revolve around Spud.

As hard as it was though, we surprised ourselves yet again at our ingenious ways of trying to make things work for us. We make do with what we had and improvised around it, especially when it comes to entertaining her or how she gets her bath every morning in such a tiny bathroom with bathing facilities that was not meant for tiny babies.

The troubles almost seemed worth it when she gave her heartiest smiles while Dad tried to entertain her in our tiny little room

It was a learning curve…our first baby steps and in preparation for the next big(ger) trip.