The 9 months when parents are expecting their first child are special. The short time before your first child arrives is the last time you and your partner will have together for a very long time. Many couples try to savor these final moments of peace and quiet by spending time together doing something special.
As my partner and I traveled a lot before having kids, someone suggested we go on a babymoon. My first question was, “What is a babymoon?”
So, What is a Babymoon?
A babymoon is a special vacation you take while pregnant with your partner to savor the final moments before your life changes (for the better!).
Whether this is your first baby or not, planning a babymoon isn’t something you should miss out on. Your babymoon doesn’t need to be an epic adventure, it’s just a little time to focus on yourself and your partner. If you already have other children, your babymoon can be a special bonding time with them before their life changes dramatically with the new arrival.
6 Tips for Planning a Babymoon
1. Choose the Right Babymoon Destination
Do some soul searching and determine what type of vacation will be best for you at this time. If you need extra rest time, make sure to choose a relaxing babymoon destination. For some inspiration, here’s more of the best babymoon destinations around the world.
2. Travel Safety
Before you go on your babymoon, ensure you and your partner consider travel safety surrounding vaccinations or viruses like the Zika virus that you will want to avoid.
3. Choose the Right Timing for your Babymoon
Plan to travel when you will be feeling your best and that is also at the time advisable to travel for pregnant women. Make sure you consult your airline on their regulations for flying while pregnant and check to see if you will need a letter from your family doctor.
4. Obtain Adequate Travel Insurance
If your babymoon takes you to another country, I recommend looking into travel insurance in case the unthinkable happens. In our case, when we looked into insurance options we found that I was covered and any fees for delivering the baby was covered, but there was no mention that the baby was covered.
This was not a risk we were willing to take, especially travelling at 30-32 weeks pregnant. If our baby came early, she would have had to be in the hospital for some time and we would have been left to foot this bill.
5. Consider Food & Water Safety
You want to make sure you can still get all your proper pregnancy nutrition through fruits & veggies without worrying if they were cleaned properly. You also don’t want plan a babymoon trip where you’ll feel like you are missing out on all the local specialties because you are unsure of the safety of the food or are avoiding certain foods.
6. Consider a Road Trip Babymoon Instead of Flying
For our first babymoon, we opted for a road trip rather than endure a long flight while pregnant. This allowed us to stop as needed to stretch our legs and give me a break from sitting. Depending on how far along you will be, this is something to consider.
My First Babymoon
When I was pregnant with our first child (our daughter), we knew we had to plan a babymoon. Though we knew we weren’t about to give up travel, we didn’t know how long it would be before we were able to travel with our baby.
Thankfully, all went well with the birth and we were able to take our baby to Barcelona at 3 months old. I felt a real mental benefit to taking a babymoon prior to giving birth, not knowing when we’d be able to travel again.
I was very fortunate that I felt really good during the entire pregnancy, but we still wanted to make sure we were travelling safely. We originally planned our babymoon during the second trimester, but in the end we travelled when I was 30-32 weeks pregnant.
There were several reasons for delaying our babymoon including work commitments, planned vacation time, weather and the self-imposed limits on how far we were willing to travel from home.
Despite an endless list of babymoon destinations, we decided that for our babymoon we would go on a road trip within our home country of Canada. The deciding factor for choosing this babymoon destination was related to health care and travel insurance.
Given our babymoon was in the third trimester, we were worried about adequate travel insurance in case the baby came early on the trip. Staying home in Canada ensured we were fully covered, we had control of how long our travel days were, and we didn’t have to worry about things like food safety and water contamination.
For our first babymoon, we spent two weeks doing exactly what we love and got to truly focus on us as a couple. Since my pregnancy had been going so well, we were very active during our trip. We spent our time doing hikes around Tofino, British Columbia, we toured around Victoria, went whale watching and even did a bear watching tour from a boat.
We pushed it a bit by doing the 12 km / 7.5 miles Myra Canyon Trestle hike in Kelowna, but by staying well hydrated throughout and slowing down on the following day, I was feeling fine.
My Second Babymoon (with a toddler in tow!)
We loved our first babymoon so much, we decided to have a second babymoon while pregnant with our second child (our son). This pregnancy was very different – I felt pretty awful the entire time. It eased up a little in the second trimester but not much. Add to that chasing around an almost 2 year old toddler, the idea of another hiking-focused babymoon did not interest me. Get me a beach!
Being frazzled new parents, we needed a relaxing babymoon this time. This was a perfect time to take our daughter to a toddler-friendly all-inclusive resort in Mexico. Again, we waited until the second trimester to travel, as is often advised and with the hopes that I would feel better.
Our all-inclusive resort the perfect, relaxing babymoon destination for our family trip. The resort had plenty to do to entertain our toddler and it gave me the opportunity to get some much needed relax time.
The added bonus was the time to bond as a family before our son arrived. Mexican food and water safety can be a concern, but since we were staying at a reputable all-inclusive resort with high quality standards we felt the risks were low.
Wondering where to go? This post has the best babymoon destinations for families or adults only.
A Babymoon – Final Thoughts
In the end what matters most is enjoying your time together. You can improve your odds by finding the right babymoon destination, trip style and a suitable itinerary for your family trip. If you aren’t up for traveling while pregnant, don’t fret – a staycation can be everything you need to have a wonderful babymoon with your partner.
Once your new arrival comes and you feel up for traveling with your baby, come back and see us as we are all about helping new parents travel with their baby.
When you are ready to start traveling with your baby, please come back and see all of our resources for traveling with a baby.
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Celine Brewer is the owner of Baby Can Travel. Not only does she have years of experience traveling with babies & toddlers, but she’s helped millions of new parents travel with their babies and toddlers for over a decade. In addition to writing on her baby travel blog, she has shared her expertise on traveling with a baby or toddler by contributing to articles about traveling with a baby with the Washington Post, USA Today, the Lonely Planet magazine and Pregnancy & Newborn magazine.
Celine also writes about family travel on the site FamilyCanTravel.com, which she co-owns with her husband. Being from the Canadian Rockies, she shares her passion about her home and travel to Banff National Park and area on their site TravelBanffCanada.com.
