Food Tips When Travelling With Babies

With the vacation season on us, holidays and beautiful destinations beckon! Travelling with a baby or a toddler has its own set of challenges, with a major one being—what to feed the baby during the journey. What you carry and how you plan the meal for your baby largely depends on the mode of travel you choose. You could be:

• Travelling by road
• Travelling by air/train
• Travelling abroad
• Staying at hotels

With so many variables in the picture, it is natural to feel worried and overwhelmed. But read on to find out how you can easily make sure your child has nutritious meals while traveling.

How To Choose Meals For Your Baby During Travel

The criteria for the foods you carry for your baby’s meals while traveling would depend on the following factors:

1. Ease of preparation and handling: Foods that can be prepared without much fuss and fed to your baby easily
2. Hygiene of ingredients: When you carry ingredients yourself you are sure of their hygiene and safety
3. Nutrition: These foods would provide nutrition too and not just fill your little one’s stomach

Meal Ideas For Your Baby When Travelling

Based on the above parameters, here are some tips, categorized age-wise:

For 6-9 months old

1. Fruits:

   Easy to carry fruits like banana and cheeku can be easily mashed and fed with a spoon to your little ones. They are not messy, too

2. Infant milk powder:

   If your child is already on formula milk, then these could be really convenient while traveling (carry hot water in a flask) or staying in hotels

3. Pre-cooked cereals:

   available in the market of good brands like Gaplu ragi malt, Cerelac, Pristine 1st bites, Wholesum foods Ragi sattva, etc. These are convenient to use as all they generally require is hot/boiled water to prepare

4. Pre-cooked cereals from home:

   Homemade cereal mixes like roasted suji/semolina, oats are a great option

5. Home-baked goodies:

   If you bake at home, goodies such as muffins, biscuits, dry cakes, laddoos, and burfis are also easy foods to carry

6. Packed milk/yogurt:

   You can carry small tetra packs of milk. Sealed tetras packs don’t require refrigeration but once opened, they need refrigeration. These are much safer and hygienic than any other milk available. Similarly small packs of curd/yogurt can be carried for short distance travel or bought from a reliable place, while travelling or staying away

10 months onwards

Once the child is closer to a year, you can start him on things like citrus fruits and whole wheat grains etc. So, apart from the above mentioned foods you can offer a little more variety to the child. This includes:

1. Fruits:

   Apart from banana, cheeku, you can carry oranges, kinnu and grapes (mash them a little while feeding)

2. Home baked Biscuits/muffin:

   When baked with whole grains, these could be a baby’s cereal alternative, which they enjoy

3. Paranthas/Pooris:

   You can carry plain parantha, poori, theplas etc. which may last up to 12-24 hours. Add a bit of salt and ajwain while cooking so that there is flavor in them

4. Bread:

   Toast a bread on tawa using butter to keep it soft. Wrap in an aluminum foil and this can be fed to the baby on a short journey

Things To Keep In Mind:

1. Get your child accustomed to these foods 2-3 days prior to travelling. As new food introduced while travelling or in a new place, will not be accepted by the child easily
2. You can also carry with you hot water kettle/ vacuum flask, a small hot plate/induction plate, a hand blender if you plan to stay away from home for a long duration. Carry zip lock pouches of dry grains—roasted suji, some rice or khichdi mix—that can be easily prepared on induction plates
3. Small bottles of sugar, salt, and some disposable cutlery, knives etc. also come handy during a journey
4. Carry lots of water or buy bottle mineral water only of a reputed brand
5. With milk, too, make sure you buy tetra packs, or carry your own. Slightly older children can be offered flavored milk as well in case they are fussy about the taste of tetra pack milk

With a little planning and preparation, travelling with a baby is great fun. We hope you have a wonderful trip!

Did you find this blog on food ideas while travelling with a baby, useful? Please share your tips with us in the comments section!