Anna Shepard and her son at Caserio del Mirador in Alicante's Jalon Valley, Spain
Baby Owen takes it easy on his first ever holiday
After I had a baby, I couldn’t help thinking that going on holiday wouldn’t be fun any more. It would be just like normal life, except with new worries about sunburn and mosquitoes. No more lazing by a pool with nothing more to worry about than what to eat for supper and whether to apply a fresh layer of suncream. Instead our little bundle of worry would come too, and with him a gruelling routine of feeding and nappy changes.
It’s enough to put parents off bothering altogether, or at least to lower their expectations. We decided to test the ground with our seven-month-old in Spain, only a short flight away. One tip from friends was to choose a babyfriendly destination that would provide as much gear as possible. Given that it took me several days even to make the list of things we needed, these were wise words. Half of what I packed ended up being weeded out at the last minute when we realised, to our relief, it would all be waiting for us in our apartment.
So proficient is Caserío del Mirador, a family-run country house in rural Alicante’s Jalon Valley, at dealing with babies, it provides everything from buggies and baby monitors to cots and changing mats. Each of the five private apartments has its own basket of toys and books. In the kitchen, there are plastic spoons and plates and even a blender to make baby food. You hardly need to bring anything. Except, of course, the baby.
In the weeks before we left, I had accumulated hundreds of flight-related anxieties. Would his ears explode during take-off? How would he cope with being imprisoned on my lap for two and a half hours? What if I had to change his nappy mid-flight? In fact, I needn’t have worried. My ears played up more than his – he seemed not to notice take-off or landing. He was lulled by the white noise of the engines and promptly fell asleep both ways (and a discreet nappy change in our seats, by the way, would not have been a problem).
Making the experience even smoother, our flight attendant was delighted to have a baby to look after and passed him a stream of plastic cups and spoons to play with. It was also reassuring to know not only that we could use our pushchair right up until the moment we boarded the flight, but we were able to collect it on the landing strip the other end rather than lugging our baby in our arms to baggage reclaim.
