While travelling with a baby it is preferable to equip yourselves with handy meal options to keep them full on the go.
Travelling before baby turns 6 months old is ideal ; as all you need is to breastfeed / formula feed .
For babies 6 months and beyond , carrying travel friendly meal options is recommended.
While on-the-go you need to work out two things : first is what to feed while in transit to your destination whether it is by road/ rail/ flight and secondly what to feed while staying at your travel destinations.
Here is the ultimate travel meal solution for your Infant / Toddler :
Meals To Be Packed For Journeys (Flight/Road/Train)
While in transit , following snacks are the least messy and healthy options for take-away. Keeping boiled water in a thermos for preparing or diluting food is also recommended.
- 6 months onwards
1. Homemade Cerelac : Dal/Rice : Click here for Recipe and method of preparation
2. Roasted Sooji : can be easily prepared as a porridge by adding hot water and keeping it covered for 5 minutes .
3. Bananas
4. Avocados / Peelable Fruits like Kiwi
5. Amul Cheese slice/ Cheese Cubes
7.Boiled Mashed Potato
8. Homemade Purees in Reusable Food Pouches
9. Baby food puree by Happibo / Heinz / Gerber / Happytot : Available in various flavours
- 9 months onwards : All of the above and the following foods can be given .
1.Plain Parantha / Stuffed Parantha
2. Pooris (soft)
3. Muffins
4. Pulao
5. Thepla
6. Homemade Oatmeal Cookies : Click Here for recipe !
7. Organix Finger Foods Baby Biscuits (7 months +)
8. Cookies by Slurrp Farm (12 months +)
9. Gerber Cereal Puffs (12 months +)
- 18 months onwards : All of the above + the following foods
- Granola Bars
- Banana chips
- Potato Chips / Sweet Potato Chips
- Rice Crackers
- Dried Prunes / Cranberries
- Raisins
- Grapes
- Oranges
- Makhana packaged snacks
- Homemade roasted makhanas
- Coconut water in tetrapacks
- Slurpfarm cookies
- Oats bar
- Gerber cereal puff – blueberry
- And some gerber purées for emergencies.
Meal Options While Staying At The Destination : Hotel/ B n B
At the destination wherever you stay; in a Hotel / BnB , there are various options available which can be safely given to your baby.
In a standard hotel room usually an Electric kettle is provided which can be used to prepare Homemade cerelac, oatmeal, sooji porridge. You can use ready to eat packaged purees by Happibo / Heinz / Gerber / Happytot in case of unavailability of hot water / kettle. These do not require refrigeration.
During my last vacation I made use of the standard multi cuisine breakfast spread at the hotel and daily loaded my carry bag with fresh bananas / pancake/ idli/ parantha/frozen yogurt for the rest of the day. Most standard hotel restaurants provide oats/ rice/ pulao /idli /upma/ vermicelli/ dalia/ curd/ boiled or fried potatoes/ boiled eggs / omellettes etc. in their kids’ food section . If these are unavailable , you can request the restaurant to prepare the same for your baby without spices.
- 6 months onwards
- Homemade Cerelac
- Oatmeal (available internationally)
- Roasted Sooji
- Bananas (available internationally)
- Avocados / Seasonal Fruits (available internationally)
- Mashed Potaoes (available internationally)
- Sooji Upma
- Idli
- Yogurt : Plain or Fruit (available internationally)
- Paneer
- Cheese (available internationally)
- Soups (available internationally)
- Baby food puree by Happibo / Heinz / Gerber / Happytot : Available in various flavours – I personally used Happibo and Heinz for my twins and they were a hit!
- 9 months onwards : Besides the food list mentioned above, the following can be given.
- Plain / Stuffed Parantha
- Vermicelli Upma
- Pancakes (available internationally)
- Hash browns (available internationally)
- Boiled Egg (available internationally)
- Omelette (available internationally)
- Dosa
- Dhokhla
- Macaroni/ Pasta (available internationally)
- Hummus (available internationally)
- Peanut butter (available internationally)
- Curd Rice
- Pulao
- Fried Rice
- Noodles (available internationally)
- Poha
- Muffins (available internationally)
- 18 months above : Most of the kids’ meal options provided in hotels and restaurants can be given provided it is made less spicy. Besides, all the above options are also available.
- Banana shake
- Suji/ Semolina Upma
- Baked curd / Mishti doi
- Idli
- Hash browns
- Epigamia yogurt
- Pooris
- Uttapam
- aloo paranthas
- pancakes
- scrambled eggs.
- bananas
- porridge
Tips from my personal experience during the last vacation with my twins :
- Try to stock on homemade stuff in majority but for emergency purposes keep 1-2 packaged puree / baby /day.
- I took along Homemade Cerelac, Oatmeal , bananas, cheese slice and Parantha.
- I used Happibo & Heinz purees and Organix biscuits.
- At the restaurants I fed oats, idlis, scrambled eggs, pancake, upma, pineapple rice, curd rice, bananas, dalia porridge, vermicelli upma, hash browns and potato wedges.
- It definitely helped me that my twins are used to such foods at home as they are regularly included in their meal plan and I would like to use this opportunity to emphasise that this is why we should shift babies to usual foods as soon as possible because in the long run it helps us in these special situations where providing purées may not be feasible.
- I would also like to add that my twins were toothless at the time of travelling and still were able to chew with their gums. This is because they practice chewing regularly at home , but if your child is used to purées – do not try to introduce chunkier foods while travelling . Use the food options mentioned above under 6 months + category .
- I used Pigeon disposable bibs , Farlin spoons and Tupperware Container while travelling .
- For Bottlefeeding I used Farlin Formula dispenser , Dr Brown Bottles and Boots Bottle Sterilising tablets.
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