How you hydrate your baby while travelling or completely depends on the following conditions:
- If she is under six months old and exclusively breastfed, you have found your sweet spot. Just look after the mum’s health and hydration, and the rest will take care of itself. You don’t have to worry about hassles with different water; they are also unlikely to be mobile, so you won’t be worried about them crawling around somewhere that may not be optimally clean, and basically, the whole food/water hygiene issue is simple.OR
- If you are bottle feeding, mix feeding, or have a breastfed baby over six months old (who will then typically need additional liquids), you’ll find you’ll need to factor in when to give your baby water. Of course, you’ll already be used to doing this at home, but when you’re away, you may not want your baby to drink the local water, and as you’ll see below, there are certain times you’ll need to up their liquid intake.
When to give your baby water BEYOND normal frequency.
- Airplane travel is dehydrating for humans of all ages, so up the liquids there.
- Hot countries and tropical destinations mean that again, travellers of all ages should drink more than usual.
What to do if you don’t think the local water is safe for your baby.
In countries where the water is unsafe to drink, (sometimes this is obvious, sometimes this is subjective) you’ll either need to boil water, use Milton tablets
Once you’ve factored in all of the above, don’t stress too much. Just be sensible, be safe, and as we’ve said above, remember that when you’re on a flight (or a country hotter than they are used to), your baby will need more liquids than normal. (So will you!)