You might think I’m crazy for traveling with a two-month-old. Honestly, I was more than a little nervous. I just tried to go with the flow, stay attentive to my surroundings and have a positive attitude. Looking back, I would absolutely do it again and would encourage other parents contemplating travel to go for it! Just prepare beforehand and do your research. The work that goes into it is well worth the adventures you have and hugs you get on the other end. 

I had been planning this trip long before we even moved to Japan. I knew it would be the trip where Lucy was going to be meeting most of her family and my heart anticipated the day. As always, I did a lot of reading and watching YouTube videos to gather advice and tips from other parents who had traveled with their little ones.

PREP: Before even getting on the plane we prepped by doing a bunch of things. When we booked our travel we looked for an overnight flight hoping that Lucy would be able to sleep on the plane. I also contacted the airline to make sure I had everything I needed for the flight and I called to make sure my credit card and bank card would be active. I pumped, so Sean could do overnight bottle feeds the night before we left. I wanted to be as well rested as possible. My biggest tip with travel is WATER. It’s the last thing on your mind because who wants to have to find a bathroom when your trying to get to your gate or your baby needs to eat. But I promise you, it makes a huge difference. Drink as much as you can whenever you think of it. Travel takes a toll and it easy to get dehydrated, so take care of your body and you will feel better.

PACKING: Did you know that moms get an extra carry-on AND an extra suitcase with a baby?

That news was pretty exciting and I took advantage of the extra carry-on. I was a lot more concerned with what was in my carry-on than what was in my checked bags. I knew in the U.S. I was going to be in a familiar place with a washer and dryer where I could get something if I forgot it. My carry-on luggage was my biggest concern. If I needed something in the air there was no backup plan. I used two bags. One was her regular diaper bag and one was a backup bag. In the diaper bag I also used one of the pockets for myself. I had some mascara and chap stick in there as well as snacks for my nursing mama appetite. I tucked head phones in there as well.

Our back up bag had three changes of clothes for Lucy (she is notorious for blow outs) and a hat and blanket for the cold plane. I had a pair of unmentionables and a tooth brush for myself in case we got stuck someplace, a swaddle blanket for Lu, a backup pacifier, a bunch of extra diapers and wipes. I also had one small toy. That was really the only wasteful thing I packed. She only used that once being only two months old. I used the front pocket for all of our important documents so that they were easy to get to without having to scramble around. In that pocket I always include our address and some numbers (I have a horrible memory and if my phone died I would be in a jam).

AIRPORT: Most people universally are kind to you when you are pregnant or have a baby. And if they’re not they have the rest of the room glaring at them appalled with how they are treating you :) Children are a pretty nice buffer to travel actually. You are looked on as way less of a threat and directed to an area with ridiculously short lines to complete your security check. I almost always had kind people help get my bags off of the baggage claim belt and stack them on my cart for me. The biggest tip I have to navigating airports is a baby carrier. You can keep your baby on you the entire time, including the security check. It was SO easy.

IN THE AIR: OK so let’s get to the good stuff. I’ll start by saying Lucy did pretty awesome and I am very thankful for that. I had flight attendants and other passengers tell me they were impressed. I thought that was pretty funny actually. It’s not like she had a choice in the matter, she’s a baby. The babies on the plane that were screaming weren’t being bad. Its just interesting to me how people view children sometimes. I just smiled at these comments and thanked God for being the one with the quiet baby that people thought was being “good”.

Takeoff and landing I had read that its best to help your baby swallow by letting them nurse or using a pacifier. Lucy was content just sucking away on her bink so I never had to nurse during those times to help her ears. Once in the air that seat belt light went off and it was game time. I just let her do her thing. She played with her hands, napped and nursed as she pleased. We sat in window seats on the short flights to use the window space for a little more room and the wall for nursing privacy. One AWESOME thing about big planes (our long flights) is the bassinet option! This was something I had noticed before and was super excited to use. It’s literally a baby bed that clips into the wall in front of you. That means I got AMAZING leg room and a place to lay Lucy down. She only slept in there a total of 3 hours but hey, just the leg room and easy in and out row was worth asking for it. I changed her frequently and we didn’t have a blow out! Whoop! Plane bathrooms have changing tables that pull down over the toilet and it made it pretty easy to change her. The only real plane struggle was getting Lucy to sleep. I normally nurse her in the dark with no light or noise before bed and she has always been a decent sleeper. On the plane the environment is a bit different. She was pretty over stimulated and had a hard time falling asleep. I ended up walking with her with a blanket over her face and that did the trick.  

Honestly, blogging is a lot more challenging than I anticipated. Being open and honest about living in Japan sometimes makes me feel like I might offend someone or say the wrong thing. I get worried about how people will receive what I have to say. With the start of the New Year I am determined to blog more often and put that fear behind me. This year the holidays looked a lot different for Sean and I. We added a little addition to our family and moved across the globe to Japan. We tried our best to embrace Japanese traditions concerning the holidays and had a lot of fun along the way. In this blog I’m going to talk about our experience celebrating Christmas in Japan. 

OK so I feel like I have to give some background before explaining what we actually did on Christmas. Christmas is not a national holiday in Japan. However, the 23^rd is the Emperor’s birthday and observed as a national holiday. Although Christmas is not a national holiday many people celebrate it in a commercial way by giving gifts. If you’re a child you can expect to get a couple gifts from family. With only about 1% of Japanese people claiming to be Christians, Christmas is generally not observed as a religious holiday. It is known as a time to spread joy and happiness. The other thing that was very interesting to learn is Christmas is traditionally celebrated as a couple’s holiday in Japan, specifically Christmas Eve. In a similar way to the U.S. celebrating Valentine’s Day, Japan celebrates lovers on Christmas. That means that every fancy restaurant is booked well in advance. Other than that, the days leading up to Christmas felt very similar. Everywhere we went there were Christmas lights, Christmas music and festive decorations.

One Japanese tradition we enjoyed was buying and eating a Christmas cake! A sponge cake covered in whipped frosting with fruit on top, specifically strawberries. This is a very old Christmas tradition and it has a pretty interesting origin. I attached a link below if you want to read more about Christmas cake. Christmas cake is a big deal and family gatherings generally center around eating cake, not dinner. You can find a picture of a full Christmas cake and a slice in the emoji keyboard on your phone.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/12/16/369830094/a-christmas-cake-that-isn-t-about-christmas-at-all

KFC/ fried chicken is a very popular meal for Christmas in Japan. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s a real thing. It started as a marketing campaign and took off. One story is that a group of foreigners were looking for Turkey (almost impossible to find, you have to pre order from meat shops) and couldn’t find it. So they went for the next best thing, fried chicken. The company seen it as an opportunity and started marketing Christmas chicken and got very popular. People even order their chicken ahead of time so that they don’t have to wait in the long lines! We didn’t wait in line or pre order. I went to the grocery store and bought chicken though.

On Christmas Eve we celebrated by having our Christmas cake and a steak dinner. Cake and Steak! We opened gifts around our little tree as a family of three. It was Lucy’s first Christmas, a precious time that I will never forget. On Christmas we went to church and had a wonderful service. After church there was a Christmas program. We were put on the program schedule to sing a song. We sang “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”. It wasn’t as intimidating as it sounds, Christian churches are very small here. Our church has an average of 12 people but had a lot more on Christmas :) We sang, we ate, we laughed and also had more Christmas cake! It was really a great Christmas with our new church family.