Expecting parents have a lot of lingo to learn. For example, you may have heard about what a great idea it is to have a babymoon with your partner while you are pregnant. But what is a babymoon anyways? A babymoon is a special vacation you take while pregnant with your partner to savor the 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, just a little time to focus on you and your partner is what’s key. If you have other children, your babymoon can be a special bonding time with them before your time is monopolized by your new arrival.
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 and we were able to take our baby to Barcelona at 3 months old, but we had no way of knowing this. There was a real mental benefit to taking a babymoon prior to giving birth, not knowing when you’ll 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.
We decided that for our babymoon destination we would stay within Canada and doing a road trip was the perfect solution. The deciding factor for choosing this babymoon destination was the ability to get travel insurance to cover both mother and our baby in the case of she arrived very early, since our timing for our babymoon was now in the third trimester. This ensured we were fully covered even though we were in a different province, 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 this 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.
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, the idea of hiking for two weeks did not interest me.
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 was perfect for our relaxing babymoon. It 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 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.
6 Tips for Planning a Babymoon Perfect for You
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 plan your trip to be a relaxing babymoon. Fro 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 you will be traveling to another country look 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 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.
In the end what matters most is finding the right destination, trip style and a suitable itinerary for your special babymoon for your family and enjoying your time together! 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.
This post was sponsored by Patient.info. The opinions are completely our own based on our family travel experiences.
Patient.info aims to help the world proactively manage its healthcare, supplying evidence-based information on a wide range of medical and health topics to patients and health professionals. For more advice on travelling while pregnant, please see https://patient.info/planning-a-healthy-babymoon.
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This post was written & edited by:
Celine is the owner of Baby Can Travel. Not only does she have years of experience traveling with babies & toddlers, but she's been helping new parents travel with their babies and toddlers for over a decade.
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.