I took my daughter to India for her first birthday ceremony. Here is a checklist of things I had carried on the trip.
-- Make sure you take your baby's one year vaccinations before you go on the trip. Discuss your trip with your pediatrician atleast 3 weeks in advance.
- Toys !!! Pack toys for the flight journey alone. You dont need any toys for the stay in India. My daughter had tooo many new things to explore and too many people to engage her :)
- Pedialyte freezer pops will be good to have if baby is refusing any food and not feeding milk also. Helps to keep baby hydrated. I don't like them personally as they have too much sugar content and artificial coloring. However I carried them in case I had to use it in flight.
- Diapers and wipes!! The quality of diapers are not so good in India and you wont have time getting them there with your packed schedule! Its best to pack enough diapers from here for the entire trip. Please carry enough wipes too.
- Pack lots of cotton full sleeve dresses. I covered my daughter from neck to toe during the trip. It helps prevent insect bites and also save the skin from sun. I did not use any baby sunscreen on my daughter.
- If you plan on head tonsuring for your baby it is good to schedule it as soon as you reach India. I scheduled my daughter's head tonsuring the first week we were there and it helped prevent additional sweating due to the density of her hair! Make sure the knife used is washed in dettol and just apply sandal paste on the scalp after the head tonsuring.
- Food:
-- For the flight journey and for temple trips its always a good idea to carry some organic gerber/earth's best food jars and some finger food(rice crispies and corn puffs). Take more than required...you can return the jars if you didn't have to use it all.
-- Always carry lots of yogurt! My daughter ate a lot of yogurt during the trip ...... too much heat I guess!
-- When at home, I gave her mostly lots of fruits (banana especially) , idli, dosa, vegetable/dhal soup, pongal, sevai, upma, curd rice and chappathi. Somehow she did not want to eat her usual rasam and paruppu rice.
-- I kept giving her sips of water at frequent intervals throughout the trip. Also its good to let your baby suck on a bottle/feed milk during flight take off and landing.
-- The stroller was useful only for the flight journey and we didn't take it along anywhere in India.
-- Carry all the usual baby medicines - Nasal drops, Infant thylenol, Infant Ibuprofhen, Gripe water, Baby shampoo and moisturizer, Baby vicks and diaper rash cream.
-- Carry enough bottles/ sippi cups with you.
-- Even if you are breast feeding your baby its best to carry some formula from here in case of emergency.
-- To sterilize the bottles I used a big rice cooker.
-- Baby monitor !!! I did not take it but strongly feel it would have helped a lot. If we put the baby down to sleep in a closed AC room we might not hear the baby's cries from the living room. The downside is that you need adapters for the monitor to work but it is safe to have it if setting up other monitoring techniques like a skype session or a phone call ( they are all charged btw) does not work well.
Hope this helps! Have an awesome trip. My daughter loved every moment in India and she misses her grandparents and all our relatives very much !
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