Breastfeeding while traveling

Traveling with a breastfed baby is an absolute treat!! I've traveled a lot with both a bottle fed baby and a breast fed baby and what a huge difference. With breastfeeding, no matter where you are, you have warm milk ready to feed baby with.

The trick is to have good nursing clothes (I am a huge fan of Motherwear and had a good supply of both summer and winter shirts) or bring along a good nursing cover as you will most likely be spending most of your vacation nursing in public places. The biggest challenge will be to find quiet, out of the way places, so baby can relax in order to nurse properly, but overall, the experience is so much easier than warming bottles.

Here is my breastfed baby travel story taken from the tips section of JetSetBabies:

Planning a trip with a breastfed baby? Lucky you.

When I found out I was pregnant and due in the month of July I vowed to make my summer of maternity leave a fun one for my five year old son soon starting kindergarten. We planned to spend every day at a beach or playground and thanks to the success of baby and my breastfeeding we did almost that! I never realized the ease of getting around with a breastfeeding baby since my first child had only nursed for five months and most of the time I had spent working from home. Appropriate nursing clothes made feeding away from home a breeze.

When we planned our first plane trip when Anna was seven months old, I just knew it would be an enjoyable one.

We flew to Phoenix, Arizona when Anna was just seven months old and not having to worry about making and heating bottles was a great relief for me. Our first flight was a short one, from Duluth to Chicago, so I nursed her during take off and then stopped after we were in the air. It was just enough to keep her satisfied and yet not full, so she was more than ready to nurse again when we started our descend into Chicago. Unfortunately, there was bad weather in the Midwest that day and we were forced to sit in the Chicago airport for over seven hours waiting for the storms to pass. Lucky for me I didn't have to worry about having enough formula on hand as the milk was always available. I had jars of baby food in my carry on and a banana and yogurt from the store were enough to get through the day. By the time we boarded our flight to Phoenix the kids were tired and nursing Anna during takeoff was enough to put her to sleep for the whole flight!

We had a great vacation and were never limited to planning around eating schedules. We nursed in restaurants, parks, playgrounds, museums, the zoo, and very often sitting in the car while the others enjoyed the attractions. The only time we had to put a crimp in our hectic schedule was when Anna became very fussy in the car and we had to pull over so I could remove her from the car seat to feed her.

We ate cereal mixed with fruit everyday for breakfast. Then I tossed enough jars of baby food in my diaper bag for the day and we would be off. By the time we were ready to leave Phoenix and head home, both my kids were very tired from the busy schedule we had kept, and they both slept all the way home. Our connections home worked out perfect and we arrived home with free tickets from the airline due to the delays we experienced. It didn't take long to start planning the next trip!

If you are breastfeeding your baby and planning a vacation, you have the best of both worlds, so relax and enjoy it!