Christmas and birthdays.. The absolute best time of year if you are a kid.
The absolute most expensive time of year if you are a parent.
The absolute most hard to manage time of year if you live in a motorhome/caravan/backpack.

When deciding what to buy Gypsy for Christmas, we had to really think about size, practicality, and how many uses it had. We encouraged our family to do the same. 

We decided for Christmas to buy Gypsy a toy kitchen and after much shopping around, found one that fitted in perfectly at the end of her bed, wedged between the mattress and the roof! She also got a variety of foods etc to go with it that can be stored either inside the oven, or in her normal toy box beside it. 
We took the opportunity to explain to Gypsy that because she would be getting lots of presents, she also had to give lots as well. We made a big effort to include her in the present buying for her cousins. 
Then, after Christmas, we pulled all of her old and new toys out and did a cull. Favourites stayed, non-favourites (including some new ones) went. 

Tips:
* Speak to your child about giving and receiving and allow them to be part of the process.
* Lay all of the toys out in categories. Then minimise each group of toys. Gypsy had 8 rubber ducks! Now she has 2. 
* But gifts that have multiple purposes, or can be used in different ways so they don't get bored with them.
* Buy a box that fits where you intend to store it and allow your child to only have as many toys can fit into the box. 
* Buy things that can be later incorporated into craft activities. 

It’s the million dollar question isn’t it?

And one I truly wish I had the magical answer for!!

But the truth is, there isn’t a magical answer because every day is different.

Today for example, the 3 hour drive went by in a blink of an eye. Little miss wanted nothing more than to have a sarong over here like a tent, and she spent the entire drive talking to and playing with some of her teddies quite contentedly.

Other days aren’t so easy. The older she gets, the harder long distance travel is becoming. Just because Gypsy has been on the road almost since birth doesn’t mean she enjoys staring out of a car/bus/train window for hours on end. Unfortunately.  Like every other parent we are having to get creative in how we keep her entertained.  Thanks to Dr Google, there are no shortage of ideas out there.


Here are some that have worked with us (in no particular order):

※　Books – Having a few books is always handy. Aside from reading the story, we play hide and seek with the pictures. I put my hand over one of the people/animals/colours on the page and she has to remember what it was and vice versa.

※　Flash cards – We have both ABC picture cards and general word cards. We do a lot of role playing with the cards. Gypsy will tell me one of her bears is hungry so I will find a food card to feed to it. We will get them pretend changed, put them to bed, cook, play with different animals etc. We also count how many cards/ red cards/ cat cards. Flash cards are hours of entertainment!

※　Role-playing – Sometimes I will bring a plastic plate to the front and let Gypsy pretend to drive as well. Other times we will role-play with her bears. We will create ficticious scenes outside – “did you just see the big purple giraffe playing with the elephant?” etc.

※　Phone-calls – If you have reception, letting your toddler call Nanna or Grand-dad is a great way to get 30 minutes of driving under your belt! Let them babysit virtually!!

※　Photos – Gypsy loves looking at photos. Sometimes she will flip through them on my phone or the ipad, but usually we look at the photo album we made her with a selection of pictures of places we have been and friends and family. It’s a nice way to reminisce and encourage her memory development as well.

※　Stickers – a piece of paper and a sheet of stickers is enough to keep any toddler amused for a good half an hour!

※　Hide and seek – It’s amazing how putting a sarong over your head and saying “where’s mummy?” can entertain a toddler for literally hours! Obviously when you get tired (and trust me you will) it’s perfectly okay to encourage her to hide and then find her toys by herself.

※　Chopsticks – When we want to listen to some adult music we give Gypsy some chopsticks and let her drum along! It’s great for developing a sense of rythym too!

※　Toys – Every day Gypsy is allowed to bring 4 toys to her driving seat. Sometimes she brings bears, other times dolls, other times a bag, sometimes some blocks. This way we get to rotate her toys and get creative with our role-playing!

※　Receipts – Gypsy is loving rolling pieces of paper at the moment so I make sure to always keep a stash of receipts in my purse. She will carefully roll the receipts one at a time and hand them to me for me to unroll. We have also started experimenting with folding and I’m thinking to start some simple origami with her in the not too distant future.

※　Songs – Singing songs, especially songs with actions are awesome. At the moment we are loving “row, row, row your boat” but the crocodile verse. The crocodile can be anything – a mummy crocodile, a little crocodile (little screams) a kangaroo, a dog (woofing instead of screaming), anything that you like. Screaming is fun!!

※　Snacks – Sometimes snacks are your best friend. I usually have 2 types of snacks on me. A packet of Tiny Teddies biscuits are great for nibbles when she needs a distraction but is still happy to keep driving. A mix bag of sultanas, dried fruit, chocolate wafers, biscuits, nuts, or a few pieces of chocolate is the emergency snack. For those times when all of a sudden she just can’t go a metre further. Having a mix bag of snacks is a great option. Especially if you put it in a non-see-through bag or tupperware and let her put her hand in and pick out 1 thing at a time, guessing what it is as she does. It can be hours of entertainment!

※　Ipad – Sometimes, you just need technology. We don’t have a TV so playing games on the ipad is like Christmas to Gypsy. It doesn’t happen often, we prefer to offer her 10 minutes as a reward rather than out of desperation. But, sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. I won’t pretend we haven’t given it to her for longer than 10 minutes either. Sometimes, everyone just needs a break. And it’s times like those that we are sooooo glad we bought an ipad. Hahaha

When we were looking around for a camper van to travel Australia in, one of the most confusing and frustrating parts was trying to understand how we could legally travel with Gypsy in it.  

At first we thought we needed to find one with 2 rows of seats so Gypsy could sit behind us,, which mind you is near impossible. Even in the "coaster" style vans the back seats were just bus seats and didn't have anchor points.
 
So after a lot of research, when we discovered that it was in fact legal for her to sit in the front seat IF there was only 1 row of seats we were relieved! Finally there was a light at the end of the tunnel. We were beginning to think our only option was a car with a caravan which was not going to be practical for us.. 


With this new information at hand we started looking for motorhomes and camper vans with 3 front seats. Only maybe 1 in 10 motorhomes/campervans has 3 front seats. And even if they do have 3, most of the time they don't have anchor points. No problem we thought, we will get one installed! easy!?!

No..

It's actually super expensive to get an anchor point installed. We were quoted "anywhere between $500 and $1000 depending on whether we need to replace the seat as well."

Oh wow..

That's a lot...

So when we found NED, with his 3 seats and anchor point, we were understandably excited! And to be honest, it was probably the deciding factor in purchasing him.

And so, Gypsy sits in her child seat, in the front seat with us! It works for us. 

I don't want to enter a debate about whether you should put your child in the front seat or not, everybody is entitled to their opinion and i'm sure some people wouldn't agree with our decision to do so. But this article is about explaining the legalities of seating so that others can make their own decisions.

When it comes to parenting, I'm pretty sure that getting your child to sleep is one of the aspects that most parents don't relish. I used to laugh hysterically at the "Go the F*ck to sleep!" book, but now, it makes perfect sense. I could have written that book for myself.

Putting a child to sleep is tough, no matter where you are. That being said some children are awesome with sleep! Gypsy unfortunately isn't one of them..

I'll be fair, she's not too bad. We have been travelling with her since she was 7 months old so she is used to sleeping sandwiched between us, or against a wall, in a new bed every night. Well, atleast, she used to be. For some reason when she hit 2 and she realised that if she went to sleep she had to stop playing, she started to fight it, like all kids do. Add to that the whole sleeping in a different bed every night part and she started becoming a bit more difficult to put down.

Then, a friend sent us a bottle of her new "sleep tight" aromatherapy mist to try and wella! Our sleeping baby is back!

We started out by putting a spray on her pillow as part of her bed time routine. We even let her spray it. We talked about the smell (it's GORGEOUS by the way), and how calming it was. We didn't want to put too much emphasis on it, but after a couple of nights she woke up and declared "mummy i slept pretty, because the bed smells pretty!", or a version of that in her toddler mumbo jumbo talk. 

Since then, everytime we change beds we just have to spray the pillow and she knows exactly where she is sleeping. Even if we spray the pillow when she isn't in the room, when it is bed time she will find the "pretty pillow" and declare it to be hers. It has really helped us to help her understand bedtime a little bit more. 

And the added bonus is that even though it's not on my pillow, I still get a smell of it too. Yay!!

And the added added bonus is that she seems to be sleeping deeper and for longer. I'm not sure if that is because of the beautiful and calming mist itself, or just because she feels more in control of her sleeping area, but either way, i'm certainly not going to complain!!

Contact Liz at Stanthorpe Zensations and give it a try yourself!!
Oh and she has a whole other range of amazing products as well for mums and dads too!!

It’s never fun when your baby gets sick. But it’s even harder when you are overseas. Fevers are completely normal for young children, and most of the time they mean nothing, but when you are in a country, or have been in a country that not only has malaria but also dengue fever, that extra little twang of fear creeps in. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve googled the first signs of nasty fever related conditions..

 

That being said, without the safety blanket of a 24 hour medical clinic just around the corner, rashes/fevers, pretty much everything has to be treated at home first. Hence our 5 kg medical kit. Luckily for us, Gypsy, and both of us actually, are pretty sturdy creatures. Baby panadol and Nurofen are our best friends. And we are also grateful for the baby vitamins and antibiotics as well.

 

One big advantage to being overseas though is the ability to buy almost any medicine over the counter without prescription. We have a very well stocked medical kit!

 

Just before New Years, Gypsy came down with a super stubborn fever of 39.9C that neither panadol nor nurofen would budge. It lasted days and she also had a nasty cough. We took her to a local doctor, but really, it was just an old man standing in a 1m x 1.5m dusty room with a stethoscope. He scribbled some words on a piece of paper and we took it to the chemist conveniently next door and walked away with a bunch of medicines. He diagnosed her with an Upper Respiratory Tract infection, which given the cough and fever seemed logical. No blood tests, no asking of prior medical history, no caring that we were in a dengue fever plagued area just last week. Nope.

It was pretty scary when her fever came up again that night and we suddenly found ourselves with a super sick and lethargic baby, with no mobile phone reception in the middle of a power blackout. The closest hospital was several hours away on roads that are more pot-hole than cement. Should we take her in a tuktuk, in the cold, on such a bumpy road to a hospital which is also more like a single room with lots of other sick babies crammed into it? Or do we trust the “Doctor” and keep her dosed up on meds and hope everything is better in the morning? For the first time ever we both questioned “what the f*&k were we doing?”. But then her fever broke, and she started to get better. The power came back on. We all slept and woke up much happier. We also realised that we wouldn’t have been any less worried had we have been in Australia.  Our concerns wouldn’t have been any different. We would have still taken her to a doctor in the afternoon like we did, and we would have still questioned whether to take her to a hospital when her fever didn’t come down.

 

Maybe the naysayers are right and we shouldn’t travel with a baby. But then again, there are babies in other countries too. And it’s not just Gypsy who we worry about. If Roh gets a fever my reaction is the same. Getting sick is a part of life. But it’s such a small part of life compared to all the amazing experiences we have been able to share with her. That said, we aren’t going to take her somewhere where we know is in the middle of an epidemic. But we also don’t want to avoid going anywhere from fear of her or us getting sick. After all, there’s even dengue fever in Australia now!

 

Maybe we are bad parents. I’m sure some people think we are being too reckless. That what Gypsy really needs is a house and stability and blah blah blah. But there’s no right with parenting. You will always be wrong in somebody else’s opinion so you just have to do what feels right for you.

 

And showing our little girl the world feels right to us. Although it’s sooo much easier to say that now she is well again.

 

I’m sure 99.99% of parents have wondered why their baby/toddler is so fussy when it comes to eating, whilst every other child seems to devour their vegetables with a side of salad.

That doesn't’ change when you are on the road…

In some ways I guess it’s easier because you don’t have people constantly asking you what she eats/doesn’t eat and making you feel like you are a failure, or like your child is on the brink of malnutrition.

The fact is, toddlers are fussy.

They go through patches when they will eat 7 full meals a day, then they won’t eat anything for a week.

It’s concerning!! But as long as you understand that it’s normal, and strive to atleast offer you child healthy food regularly, it doesn’t have to be any more stressful because you are travelling than it would be at home.

Gypsy, I’ll be honest, is an extremely fussy eater. She always has been and I desperately hope she grows out of it.

The one consistency with her is breakfast. She LOVES her porridge. And it’s super lucky for us that you can buy oats anywhere and that (knock on wood), so far we’ve never had a guesthouse/restaurant refuse us use of their kitchen to whip them up for her in the mornings.  So, as long as she is having one super healthy meal a day, I guess it’s not that bad..

Sometimes we will give her oatmeal for dinner too..  Because we are bad parents like that.. lol

Although you don’t have the flexibility to be able to hand cook delicious toddler meals on the road (unless you stay somewhere with private kitchen – couch surfing and Air BnB are awesome for this), there are surprisingly a lot of baby-friendly foods on regular menus.

In SriLanka/India/Nepal, babies eat rice with dahl. Gypsy loves her plain rice but unfortunately refuses dahl..

Chapati/ Naan breads are also a hit and easy to find.

Bananas and fruit are plentiful, cheap and delicious.

On tourist menus you can always find French toast, pancakes, omelettes, French fries, spaghetti, fried rice, fried noodles etc.

A lot of times we will just get some toast or plain bread and make a sandwich.

Or we will ask the restaurant to boil some plain vegetables.

So whilst it is hard, we honestly don’t think it’s that much harder than it would be anyway? Well, that’s our experience anyway.  What do you think?

OUR MEDICAL KIT

Because we plan to travel for so long, we do not take anti-Malarial medications - they simply are not practical for the long-term traveller who comes and goes from malaria zone to non-malaria zone. Instead we travel with Malarone (a Malarial treatment or prevention - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atovaquone/proguanil), and Malarone Junior (as prescribed by our travel medicine doctor) which we can take if needed to while we get to a hospital.


The medicines for Gypsy are medicines we were prescribed by our travel medicine doctor to cover all general bases whilst on the road. 
If you run out, Malaysia, Thailand the Philippines and Sri Lanka, are amazing for buying replacement supplies - they are of good quality, are cheap and you can buy pretty much anything over the counter (6 rupees (4cents per valium anybody?)


And yes, we know our medical kit is HUGE - it weighs close to 2 kg, but we have been travelling for a long time and have used almost everything in it (except for Malarone thankfully!!) And it NEVER hurts to be over-prepared, especially when travelling with a baby.

In response to some questions I have received, here is a list of what we travel with.

Previously we traveled with a backpack and day pack each.
This trip we have managed to compress everything into ONE big backpack and 2 small day packs. Pretty good seeing as we gained an extra person!

That being said there are several items we simply cannot live without (in no order of importance):

*  Silk sleep sheet - we simply could not live without these. They are amazing when you are sleeping in a dodgy guesthouse (silk is virtually impenetrable to bedbugs), perfect to throw over you if the fan is a bit too cool, great for those guesthouses that you need to provide your own sheets for etc etc.. the uses are limitless! As we have Gypsy with us now, we have upgraded to 1 double sheet, and 1 single sheet. So it can either be her vs us, or mum and bub vs dad. Either way, we are all safe and clean!

* Sleeping bag - Ours are Denali Pod 200 - a tiny tiny 800 gram sleeping bag and it has been amazing. I know, a sleeping bag in Asia?!?! But seriously, you NEED it!! Asia can be really hot, but it can also be really really cold. Not to mention those bus trips where the AC is turned up to arctic!!

* Camera - We used to have an Olympus waterproof camera but have now upgraded to a Canon G12. Having a good camera that suits your needs goes without explanation. We also travel with an underwater housing for it and a spare battery.

* Thongs - The ultimate travel foot wear. AKA Jandles, Sandles, slippers, flip-flops...

* A computer - Cliche as it is, we know "flash-packer" and all, having a computer has been AMAZING! We started out without one and bought a cheap little ASUS in Malaysia and have not looked back. For space, as well as weight, we have a Macbook Air. Most places in the world these days have wi-fi, including Asia. The computer has been amazing to: book flights, research next destinations, write emails, blog, keep track of your money, internet bank securely, make bookings, backup photos, watch movies, listen to music, skype family and friends for free, and a million other reasons. Even in places with no wi-fi it certainly has not been dead-weight. If you are only going for a short time, an ipad or tablet, and some spare sd cards for your camera could also work well. 

* Refillable water bottle - There are water refill "stations" all over Asia and having your own bottle is a great way to reduce costs (refills are practically free) as well as to reduce your plastic footprint. It has many other practical purposes such as to make instant soup in, drink tea, use as a hot water bottle, use as weights after a few months of excessive eating etc etc..

* A sarong - Another cliche but extremely practical. Throw it over you on a cold bus, hang it up on a dorm bed for privacy, use it as a towel, use it as a dress/skirt, bathe in it when bathing in public rivers etc with locals, use it as a scarf, wrap it around your head to protect you from the sun, use as a mosquito screen, use it as a baby change mat, use it to cover up when breastfeeding in public etc etc

* A notebook - Essential to keep track of your money, write notes, get new friends' contact details, let bub draw, take note of bub's new milestones etc etc..

* Medical kit - Obviously it's pretty important to have a medical kit but if you travel like we do, make sure it has atleast a basic anti-biotic, malarone(anti-malarial), bandaids, panadol and emergency supplies enough to suffice you for a couple days in case you are that far away from a hospital. There isn't much in our medical kit we haven't used at least once. 

* Laundry powder (in a 500 ml water bottle) and scrubbing brush - Washing machines are really hard to come by and getting people to do your laundry for you can cost you a small fortune. And sometimes things go missing or get damaged. Handwashing yourself is pretty easy and quick, not to mention cheap! We also have an elastic clothes line which has been pretty handy.

* Wash nets - Wash nets are the perfect way to keep your backpack organised. We have 1 each. 1 for Roh's clothes, 1 for Rob's clothes, 1 for Gypsy's clothes, and 1 for our underwear and misc objects. It makes packing SO much easier, makes finding things SO much easier, the nets can double up as pillows or cushions, can be used as a barrier to stop bubs from rolling off the bed during naps, and the net also allows the clothes to breathe so your bag doesn't end up stinking. 

* Toiletries - You can buy everything you need on the road. We only travel with the bare essentials - soap, tooth brushes etc, moisturiser, sunscreen, insect repellant, razor, nail clippers etc. 

Other miscellaneous items and baby specific items we have:

Bath/shower time

Gypsy LOVES water and especially loves bath time. Unfortunately however, it is really really difficult finding bath tubs when you are travelling unless you have a very large budget. And even then half the time the bath tubs aren’t quite as clean as you would hope..

We normally just take her and her toys in the shower with us. We usually tag-team it so that if I go in with Gypsy, I will then pass her out to Roh who will dry her and put a nappy on her while I shower myself. Then he goes in and showers while I dress her, or viceversa. Which works well, but after a week or so of only showers, we could tell that Gypsy was really starting to miss a bath and being able to splash around. So a couple of times we sat her in a sink and let her splash around there! One of the guesthouses we were at brought us a bucket oneday for her to play in, and she loved it. So we decided to buy her one of her own... Luckily we have a tuktuk so travelling with a bucket isn’t so much of a big deal for us! It’s been quite the investment actually. Sometimes, on particularly hot days, it’s her own swimming pool! Sometimes it’s where she likes to hide her toys. Other times, it is her bath before bedtime. It’s also where we do our hand washing! It’s really been great.  

But it has made me really start to wonder what we will do when we go to India after here as the bucket is definitely too big and bulky to come with us. I’ve found a couple of foldable baths online (I actually nearly bought this one before Gypsy was born!) and am hoping I can find something similar in India. If you too have a water baby, and you have the space in your luggage, it might be something to think about bringing something like the "flexibath" pictured below with you. Otherwise, maybe not all, but I’m sure most guesthouses will have a bucket you can borrow (but give it a good clean first.)   

We are big fans of cloth nappies and were hoping to be able to travel with them aswell. We took them to Japan with us, and found that, even though we had access to a washing machine daily, because cloth nappies can’t be put through a dryer, that having to wait for them to dry before we could move on, by which time we had a heap of wet and soiled nappies again, just wasn’t practical…

Also, in most of Asia washing is done by hand (even if you  give your washing to a hotel to do, about half the time it is done by hand), so using cloth was even less practical. So unfortunately we left our cloth nappies with nana and have learnt to embrace disposables.. 

Knowing we were travelling to Sri Lanka first I did some research and learnt that nappies were not only expensive, but also hard to come by, so we decided to bring as many with us as we could. We ended up filling an entire Coles blue cold bag!!! And I’m glad we did. Whilst they are easier to find than I expected, unless you buy from big supermarkets (Food city or Santosa) in cities, you can only by them in packs of 4 and more times than not, they won’t have the size you need anyway!

So, as annoying as it is to have to travel with an extra bag just for nappies, we try to keep it as full as we can. Wipes are even more expensive (AUD$7 for a pack of 80!) and hard to come by so definitely bring some from home!

As for brands, Pampers are virtually everywhere. In fact, the word for nappy in SriLanka and in Malaysia is simply “pampers.” Talk about brand power.

We have found that the pampers here are not only really expensive but actually not that great quality..  Whereas the cheap Taiwan imported nappies we have only found at Food City on occasion, are actually really good quality! Go figure!

Another thing to keep in mind is that sizes really change. Gypsy was in crawlers or smalls in Australia, and is now suddenly in large! The mediums just were too small. So it may be best to buy a 4 pack first to check the size before spending a small fortune on a 38 pack.

As for other countries, in Fiji we found nappies to not only be really expensive, but unless you bought the expensive, good quality ones, they were terrible and constantly leaked! We found it easier to just let her go nudie in a pair of swimmers for most of the day, and just rinse them out as needed. 

The quality and variety of nappies available in Japan is amazing! It’s even easy to find biodegradable of semi-biodegradable nappies too!

In Malaysia nappies were maybe a fraction cheaper than in Australia but also of a pretty good quality.

My advice:

No matter how long you are going for, do some googling and find out about nappies in your destination. 

If you are travelling to Sri Lanka for only a couple of weeks, and carrying an extra bag won’t bother you too much, then I would suggest bringing your own. And your own wipes too. If you are travelling for longer, maybe bring a supply with you to fall back on, or for night time use while you experiment with what is available locally.

As for change facilities… Quite simply, they don’t exist. In Japan you can find baby change rooms, and in larger shopping malls in Malaysia and even Colombo you can as well. But apart from that, no… 

We go by the adage, “do as the locals do” , so in Australia or Japan we sought change-rooms. And here in Asia, we simply change Gypsy wherever we are, whether it be on a moving bus, or a restaurant floor. If you can remember to bring a little change mat with you it’s obviously a little more hygienic. We have also become quite adept at changing her on the other’s lap, and also while she is standing. (Infant beds on airplanes are super handy as well!)

In Asia, a child is the most important part of any community so no one will blink an eye at you changing them (or nursing) wherever it is necessary to do so. Strangers will even offer to dispose of the nappy for you! It might take a while to get used to at first, but it really is such a beautiful and natural way to raise a child.