Travelling Bali with our baby boy – the basics!

Posted On January 3, 2024

Our little boy Thaddeus was 4.5 months when we went to Bali for 2.5 weeks in December 2023. We had many changed travel plans and we all got covid but he was a little trooper. Below is the basics of the trip; covering vaccinations, packing, the flight, adjusting to the time difference, adjusting to the heat, adjusting to the noise and of course, how covid hit us. Hopefully it helps you out if you are planning on travelling with your little one.

Vaccinations

Thad had had his 4 month needles just before we went to Bali, I asked the heath nurse and the doctor if he needed anything else but they both said that that was sufficient.

Packing

Lucky for us, Thaddeus is still breastfed and hasn’t started solids so we didnt have to pack anything extra for him food wise. We packed, and I would recommend;

At least 10 outfits, 3 sleep suits
As many nappies as you can fit,
Swim nappies as these are not easy to find in Bali
Swimmers
Hats
So many bibs cause he is a drool monster after just getting his first two teeth
Sunscreen is three times as expensive in Bali, so make sure you take some.
The carrier, something we would be one hundred per cent lost without.
A blanket for the plane, it’s always cold.
Baby Panadol and Baby Nurofen – You can pack as much baby medicine as you like without going over the limit of liquids you are allowed on flights.
Teething gel
Moo Goo Scalp Cream which I use for any rashes he gets
Pram
Baby Banz earphones
Shusher
Take a small hand held fan if you can, they charged like $10 for them, initially asked for $30 each for them. They’re pretty wild with their attempts to take your money.

I wish I packed some long sleeve shirts for Thaddeus because it would have been nice to cover his arms in the hot sun sometimes. We packed really light, Thad is at the end of wearing 00’s so we planned on buying new clothes in Bali for him – but the only clothes I really found were cute little market quality Hawaiian shirt and matching short sets, Bali singlets and the cutest zebra overalls. I expected to find better quality clothes for a reasonable price but everything nice I found was more expensive than Australia.

We took our pram, it was a last minute decision and we took it basically cause we were spending about 6 hours at Melbourne airport before our next flight. If you dont know, which we didn’t, you can gate check prams. Which means you can use them through the airport and then hand them to the staff at the gate as you board the flight and they chuck them on the plane for you. Otherwise they go in oversized luggage. I have to say Jetstar were pretty hopeless, from Townsville to Melbourne they said they couldn’t gate check our pram cause it was a small airport – okay, fair enough. On our flight back from Bali to Cairns, also with Jetstar, they told us they didn’t gate check prams, then another family had their pram gate checked when we got there so they obviously do gate check from Bali International Airport, as you would expect. We flew from Melbourne to Bali with Batik Air, it was so cheap, we booked it on the Sunday for the following Tuesday and only paid $400 each with 20kg checked luggage. It was an older plane with no screens, but the leg room was amazing, and they gate checked our pram! We’ll be flying with them again.

The downside of having a pram is that it goes in oversized luggage and oversized luggage was literally the last thing to come out after all the baggage was done. So we waited for so long waiting for our pram, but lucky we had nowhere to be in a hurry. Would we take the pram again? No. We used it one morning in Bali and then not again, the streets are too crowded, the gutters are really high, the footpaths are all busted up and uneven. It wasn’t pleasant to use. Also, Thaddeus doesn’t like being in the pram and much prefers the carrier so he would not stay in it for long and then we just had an empty pram to push around. But glad we tried it and worked it out. The pram had a good holiday in the hotel room, next to the cot that we didn’t use!

I hired a Mambo Baby float from G’day Mate Bali Hire, it was $40 AUD for 14 days and a $50 AUD deposit. Apparently it’s expensive to buy a float in Bali, but I didnt check the prices, I did see different floats around, but none of that great a quality for an infant, more toddler sized things. I wouldnt hire it again, they gave me a pink one, which was annoying and they were unable to swap it as they were all out. We hardly used it, maybe five times, so it really wasn’t worth it to us, if it suits you then go for it. The company just drop the float at your hotel and pick it up for an extra $10 AUD so it’s nice and easy.

Flight

I was pretty nervous about flying with the little guy, I was scared of his ears hurting. Before the flight I did some research and found that if baby is asleep it’s okay to leave them asleep. If they are awake and you can feed them, good. If their ears start to hurt, they will whinge and want boob anyway, and not all babies are affected by it, basically as we are affected, they are the same. If they are asleep, its a good idea to offer boob once they are awake, just to pop their ears if needed. So once I read this I was a little more relaxed. Thad was fine on all his flights.

We were meant to fly out of Cairns but Cyclone Jasper was hitting the day before so we changed flights to a few days earlier out of Townsville and had to go to Melbourne and then to Bali. So our 4 hour direct flight turned into a 4 hours flight to Melbourne (1.5 hours waiting on the tarmac in Townsville due to fog in Melbourne). We got in at 2am and slept/didn’t sleep in the airport at Melbourne while we waited for our 7:45am flight which was delayed about half an hour. This was a 6 hour flight to Bali. Thad was so good, he hardly made any noise and so many people approached us to say how well behaved he was, which was nice. He didnt appear to have any troubles with his ears at any stage so that was a relief too.

We took about 5 different toys, including a scarf cause it’s small and easy to pack and just the greatest thing to a baby. I tried to rotate through his toys instead of giving them all to him at once so that he didnt get too bored with things. He sleeps so well when he is held, so on the flight to Melbourne he basically slept the whole way, it was 8pm flight anyway so past bed time. The Bali flight he slept for the first two and half to three hours as well. Love a good contact nap. Needless to say, I got no sleep, but that’s mum life right.

Time difference

There is only a two hour time difference between Queensland and Bali, and I would say we noticed it a lot at about 5:30pm as at home he is generally in bed by 7-7:30pm. He was definitely ready for his big sleep at 5:30pm for the first few days, but by day five, I think he had adjusted to the difference. He slept really well at night, he just slept in the bed with us, we got a cot in the room but we didn’t used it for some reason. At home, he usually has his first sleep of the night in his cot and then comes into our bed anyway so it’s not much difference. I think because we were out every evening and going to bed at the same time, its easier for me to just take him to bed then to put him in the cot and have to get up again for him. He seems to sleep really well when we are both in bed with him, he was sleeping until 4am some mornings, which is unheard of at home. I would say seeing all the new things and the over stimulation definitely helped his sleep, there was so much going on everyday and we live in a small beach town where nothing happens, maybe two cars pass you at the same time once a week. But nothing like the traffic, honking, noisey streets of Bali.

We got to Bali about 3pm and hadn’t had lunch so we checked into our hotel and then walked to have some lunch. We had a big meal and then went back to the hotel, it was so hot so we wanted some aircon. We fell asleep and we all slept for a big 12 hours, which was amazing. Even Thad slept that long with us so he must have been a bit exhausted from the 24 hours of travel to get there too.

The heat

One thing that crept up on us as first time parents I guess, was being aware of how much time the little man can be in the heat. On the first day there, we walked about 20 minutes into Seminyak, had Breaky and a foot massage and then went for a walk and realised it was around midday to 1pm. We got lost and ended up being in the sun for longer than expected. We were trying to find somewhere with aircon to get Thad out of the heat cause he looked hot and sweaty and like it was getting a bit much for him but it felt like it was taking ages. We finally found a restaurant with aircon and ordered some food and got some cool air for the boy. One thing in the heat I tried to do, was constantly offer Thad boob, just to make sure he was drinking enough to keep hydrated as he obviously doesn’t drink water yet being so young.

We ended up planning our days to be leaving early for breakfast, have a look around or whatever we were doing and then be back at the hotel or getting a massage by 11:30-12pm at the latest. It was actually hard to do as you always get sidetracked or find something you want to do. Then we would try and stay in the aircon until around 4pm, it really didn’t start to cool down until about 4:30pm and then it was okay to be outside again.

Adjusting to the noise

We learnt pretty quickly that the noise was making Thad a bit wild, he started yelling loudly and at first we were like, oh this is cute, must be a new thing. Then we realised it was more him being stressed and yelling as a result of loud noises and over stimulation. Luckily we took his Baby Banz earphones, these were one of the most useful things we took on the trip. They were great for walking the streets, especially at night; restaurant’s over there as they often had loud music or were packed, bars, anywhere that the noise was excessive. Thad was sleeping in bars and restaurant’s with no issue when he had these on, they were a godsend. I think without them he would have really had a hard time sleeping and being happy.

After about 5 days of being there we could see that he was adjusting to the noise, he wasn’t as jumpy at the horns that beep every two minutes and he wasn’t yelling out as much anymore. We still used the headphones for the whole trip but as they helped him settle and go to sleep. If we were in a loud area you could see him get worked up, he definitely wouldn’t settle to have some boob and if we didn’t have the earphones we probably would have had to leave and find somewhere quiet for him to settle, or wait for him to be so tired he passed out, but i don’t think an overtired baby is a happy baby. The earphones were also useful on the plane on the way home, the announcements come over so loud and would scare him awake every time, but the earphones stopped that which was great and he had a big sleep.

Covid

We all got Covid in the second week of being there, even Thad. Lawson had it first and was knocked about for 3 days, then Thad got it, then me. Thad just had a fever for about 24 hours, which was a bit scary for us cause he had never been sick before. But he just had some Panadol and Nurofen and that seemed to help him a lot, we just stayed around the hotel in the aircon and kept him out of the water for a few days while he recovered. We probably lost about 5 days of our holiday where one of us was too unwell to do anything. It was the standard covid symptoms, lethargic, sore muscles, terrible fever, runny nose. Glad it’s over!