We didn't "babymoon" per se before the birth of child number one, because we were just frequent travelers and continued to do so. We had been together 16 years (married for 6) at the time.

We have continued to travel a lot, even with our son, who is now 3.

We did take a week trip to Europe - fortuitously attached to a business trip - sans toddler prior to the arrival of baby #2. I actually think the "babymoon" concept, in which you have some time to reconnect as a couple, ends up being more important when you already have kid(s), because you just don't get as much couple alone time, and it's nice to have an excuse to take it.

Anonymous wrote:I hate it when people think that having kids means they can never go on vacation again. You can still go on vacation, even to exotic places, with your children!! They actually travel very well when they're tiny and breastfeeding, and you can stick them in a carrier or backpack while wandering a city or hiking or whatever.

True, but it kind of puts the kabash on nightlife.

I'm not opposed to the concept of taking a vacation before your child arrives or of giving your spouse a nice gift if that's what you want to do. But can we strike these ridiculous words/terms like "babymoon" and "push present" from our lexicon? Both of them make me want to retch when I read or hear them. Do whatever you want to do, no one cares, just stop yapping about it already.

Anonymous wrote:To the PPs who've traveled extensively with kids:

That's excellent for you. Not everyone can afford extravagant trips once they have children, and not every trip is well-suited to including children. It can take more than organization to keep costs down, depending on where you go.

I am the pp who posted after you. Other than the flight costs, I actually find travel with a child to be cheaper than travel without. We don't do babysitters when we travel so we are more prone to have more casual meals and experiences, which save a ton of money. We now also bring food with us for some meals just for convenience sake, but it saves a ton. Even a three week trip to Thailand, with child, was half the price of our baby moon to Jamaica because our interests had shifted to things that are more basic and educational rather than extravagant (I.e, street food over tasting menus that kill a night and a ton of cash, parks over massages, chilling with locals over purchased entertainment). And the travel is now even more a part of the experience as we teach about geography and culture by doing more on the ground transportation, as the longer transportation days provide a nice break for tired tiny legs.

Anonymous wrote:I hate it when people think that having kids means they can never go on vacation again. You can still go on vacation, even to exotic places, with your children!! They actually travel very well when they're tiny and breastfeeding, and you can stick them in a carrier or backpack while wandering a city or hiking or whatever.

Newsflash: A "babymoon" is a romantic vacation that a couple takes to focus on their relationship before the baby arrives and requires large amounts of their attention. Travel with children is not a "babymoon." I'm not opposed to travel with kids, but that is an entirely different type of trip, and not responsive to OP's post.

Together 10 years, married 7 when I got pregnant. Of course I took a baby moon, same as I would take a vacation any other year, just that time I was pregnant so we negotiated the planning/timing around that.

But honestly, pregnancy was more limiting to me than traveling with a small child has been (at least after the two nap per day period was over). We limited flights for the first two years because it seemed like a waste of money with the double nap time constraints (and there is no way I would ever risk my child's life by not buying a seat for her). But, at five, she has been to New York (many times), Vietnam, Miami, Panama, Costa Rica, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Savannah, Kentucky, ski trips, beach trips, and a ton of other trips. Kids actually make travel more fun and interesting if you have the right attitude.

To the PPs who've traveled extensively with kids:

That's excellent for you. Not everyone can afford extravagant trips once they have children, and not every trip is well-suited to including children. It can take more than organization to keep costs down, depending on where you go.

We were married for two years when I got pregnant the first time. We had two "babymoons" to Costa Rica and Eastern Europe (Prague, Vienna, Budapest). The Costa Rica trip was planned pre-preg, so an accidental babymoon. For my second pregnancy, we'd been married five years. We just went to Puerto Rico for a few days, because we're limited by childcare issues.

Absolutely.
We have two kids (older one is 6) and since they were born we have been to LA, San Diego, New York, Peru, Mexico, France, Italy, Switzerland, Finlande, Spain. Kids are great travelers (especially with an ipod full of fun cartoons) and they love it. You just have to be organized to keep cost down.

I hate it when people think that having kids means they can never go on vacation again. You can still go on vacation, even to exotic places, with your children!! They actually travel very well when they're tiny and breastfeeding, and you can stick them in a carrier or backpack while wandering a city or hiking or whatever.

We were together for 3 years, and then married for 1 year, and we had our babymoon in Hawaii. Best trip ever. Way better than the honeymoon. I can't wait to go back. But now we have two kids and are poor.

I was 7 weeks pregnant when we got married; we'd been together for five years and the pregnancy was fully planned. That nixed our grand plans of scuba diving in Thailand, so we had a honeybabymoon to the Cayman Islands. We'll just have an awesome trip sans kids in 18 years or so.

9:14 here again. However, if there is somewhere you'd like to go as a couple, and you have the time/money, do it now. It will be years before you can make plans like this without having the additional logistical issues of either what to do with your kid(s) while you're gone, or how to integrate the kids into the trip.

Well, we were living in Korea with the Army when I got pregnant, and we wanted to be sure to do some traveling while we were there and before the baby made it difficult. So I guess we had a "babymoon," but I had never heard of that and that wasn't the reason we went.

We had been married three years, and we took two trips of about a week each (give or take a couple of days): Thailand and Japan.

It seems there is a lot of talk about babymooning lately...

If you took one/will take one, how long were you married (or a serious, committed, living together couple) before you got pregnant?

We did not take a babymoon--we only dated about a year before we married, and then were only married 9 months when I got pregnant...so our honeymoon wasn't really that "long ago" when we had the baby.