Travelling with a baby in Japan
/“Are you actually going on holiday overseas with a baby?”
My husband and I nod. “Yes, we’re crazy enough to do it.”
We’ve had some incredulous looks when we’ve told family, friends and colleagues we’re going to Japan with our five month old baby.
We’ve saved up the money, mostly through abandoning a trip to Malaysia we were meant to go on while I was 30 weeks pregnant. We’ve packed, and we’ve repacked. We’ve spent hours planning and scrutinising the shit out of our budget, given our limited funds to spend. And here we are finally, in Japan! Travelling with a baby is not easy, but we’ve had some amazing moments so far. We’ve already learned a few things over the past week:
Forget about being environmentally conscious.
Keeping up the environmentally friendly baby products was a huge thing for me. I dutifully packed Ruben’s cloth nappies and cloth wipes, along with a few disposable nappies for the plane. Even in the last minute panic – “Oh my god, our suitcase weighs 25 kgs” – we kept the cloth nappies. We got to our first Air BnB in Tokyo and it took us a day to realise the washing machine was outside on the balcony. A trip to get washing detergent, a call to our Air BnB agency and a lesson on opening a Japanese ranch slider later, we were away. Except – the washing machine only had cold water. You need a hot wash to kill bacteria and get rid of ammonia. A week later, we STILL haven’t washed those nappies properly in hot water, and it’s unlikely we will, because apparently Japanese washing machines only run on cold water (this blows my mind. Does this mean no one uses cloth nappies here? Does anyone know?)
Learn about the local cultural norms.
Breastfeeding in public is not done in Japanese culture. I’ve been using a cloth to cover up (something I wouldn’t normally bother with), and in a most undignified way, I’ve fed Ruben sitting on the floor of a toilet stall near Meiji Jingu temple in Tokyo. Bottle feeding is slightly easier, though we have to carry the formula around in a sterilised bottle along with a bottle of boiled water too.
We use a pram, Japanese mothers tend to use front packs, so we’ve followed suit and done that sometimes, too. As I understand it, Japanese mothers don’t really go out much with their babies until they’re 6 months old.
Pack what you can carry, nothing more.
Thomas carries (drags) our one suitcase in one hand, the travel cot in the other, and has a small backpack. I push the pram and carry a backpack with Ruben’s stuff in it. And we still feel like we have too much stuff! The travel pram has been a god-send as you can stow it in the overhead lockers on planes, meaning tired babies can be pushed around the airport easier, and you can navigate Japan’s narrow streets. One thing we packed which we don’t regret is the baby first aid kit, with Pamol and a thermometer – we’ve used both as Ruben picked up a cold from the plane.
Take your list of things to see and quarter it.
So many things to see and do, in between feeding, changing and settling baby in new, strange environments. But you can’t do everything, and it’s going to be different to pre-baby days. It can be frustrating, but the good thing is it forces you to slow down. We look up the local things to see in our area, watch people go about their business, try to decipher packets of supermarket food in Japanese characters.
We’ve stuck to about one thing a day (maybe two if we’re lucky) and mostly in the mornings. We eat lunches out but dinners at home (jet lagged babies go to sleep at 6pm).
But ultimately, it’s about savouring the time you get to spend with baby, as a family. How often do you get to spend all this time together?
There will be beautiful moments and babies do take in a lot.
“But he won’t remember it!” people will say. But there is so much for babies to see, and who knows how long they’ll retain this experience and what impact it will have on them.. Ruben has watched houses and apartments stream by outside a bullet train window, he’s grinned at dappled light through a paper screen of our traditional Japanese room in the mountains. He’s seen the shapes of temples and new trees in the park, and so many people, well their legs, rushing past his pram. It’s an adventure for all of us. Isn’t travelling always an adventure?
