A baby in a backpack
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Sleeping

4/1/2014

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It's one of the first questions people ask. Where does she sleep??
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When she's not falling asleep in her car seat, she, for the most part, sleeps in bed with us. Either between us if the bed is in the centre of the room, or beside us, if the bed is against a wall. 
We have been co-sleeping or sleeping on a mattress on the floor with her beside us on her own mattress since she was born, so the idea of sleeping with her between us, isn't a biggy for us. 
We did buy a "my first easy bed" and used it for a bit, but decided that we couldn't justify the space in our backpack for it. She is a roller, and we didn't trust her to not roll under beds.. And we all know how often guesthouses clean right under the beds don't we...
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We have also heard about super lightweight portacots, and other travel beds for babies, which, I guess if you really weren't comfortable sharing a bed with your baby, or if you were only travelling for a short time, or to only 1 or 2 places, would be great options. But for us, constantly on the go and trying to live out of ONE backpack for all three of us, it just wasn't going to work.
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The wonderful thing about SriLanka is that a lot of guesthouses have 2, or sometimes even 3 double beds in a room. If you push them together, there is more than enough space for everyone!! Or even just pushing the 1 bed against the room and sleeping baby against the wall is a spacious and safe option. 
Another trick is to use wash nets. We have 4 wash nets for our clothes. One for mum, one for dad, one for Gypsy and one for our underwear and swimwear. Using wash nets not only keeps our clothes organised and compressed in our backpack, but they also double as protective pillows to stop baby from accidentally rolling off the bed!! Try it! They are super handy!
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high chairs.. Yes or no.

3/11/2014

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A list of whether high chairs are regularly available in the countries we have visited.

Taiwan - NO
Japan - YES
Thailand - NO
Fiji - NO
Australia - YES
Malaysia -YES
Sri Lanka - NO
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Baby food in different countries

3/11/2014

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In general we have found that the types of baby food available are very different to what we would normally get at home..
In Fiji, you pretty much can't buy baby food! Everything is made fresh! Which sounds wonderful! BUT, it's swimming in sugar..
We were wondering why Gypsy liked it so much, then we walked into the kitchen one day...
Luckily she also loves her fruit!! She ate alot of fruit after that fateful sugar filled day...
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In Japan it was a bit easier. You can atleast get plain rice, tofu and miso soup everywhere and the flavours are quite simple and gentle on a child's palate. Noodles, spaghetti, rice dishes, bread, savoury breads and premade baby foods (with pretty healthy sounding ingredients) are available pretty much everywhere.
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In Malaysia baby food was a bit harder to come by. You can find some pre-made stuff at myden and other supermarkets, but that was about it. Gypsy was 1 yr when we were there and we found she enjoyed some plain rice porridge for breakfast and roti for lunch. Luckily she loves her rice so we usually had fried rice for dinner. 
As much as the restaurant owner will tell you there is no chilli in the dahl or curry, ALWAYS try it first as we found that only 1 of them was actually chilli-free.
Fruit is super cheap and fresh and easy to find. 
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In SriLanka it's actually pretty easy to feed a toddler. Premade baby food is non-existent except for rice cereal which you can find everywhere, and a small selection of packaged stuff at the super expensive import supermarkets.
BUT, Srilankans LOVE babies and will go out of their way to make food for you! Just say those magic words "for the baby" and they will run out back to whip something super fresh, super healthy and super chilli-free up for you!
Winning foods we have found so far include: dahl, paratha, snacks (deep fried lentils), hoppers, string hoppers, ada, kothu, fried rice, and of course, the beloved papadum!
You can also buy bananas, papaya and, most importantly, yoghurt at about 15metre intervals along every street in the country! 
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Even fussy miss Gypsy is always full!
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    Travel tips

    We are often asked if backpacking with a baby has been difficult, and if we have any tips. So here we will review different products we have loved/hated, and some general tips that have worked for us. 
    As always, feel free to ask questions aswell!!

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