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.

 

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.