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Germany with a 9-months old - need comments on my itinerary...

Posted by (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) on

Hi All,

I'm planning a trip to Southern Germany in mid-April and would appreciate some advice. My situation is a bit unique as not only I'm bringing along my 9-months old daughter, my wife is about 5 and a half months pregnant too. As such my plan is to stay at one place for a longer time instead of hopping from one place to another. Here is our itinerary :

10 Days trip to Germany
Day 1 : Flying in via Frankfurt. Rent a car and drive to Rothenburg. Make a quick stop at Wurzburg along the way. Sleep at Rothenburg.
Day 2 : Explore Rothenburg.
Day 3 : Drive to Munich and make a quick stop at Dinkelsbuhl. Sleep at Munich.
Day 4-6: Explore Munich & surrounding areas i.e. Hohenschwangau.
Day 7: Drive to Rhine Valley & sleep at Bacharach.
Day 8-9: Explore Rhine Valley & surrounding areas.
Day 10: Drive back to Frankfurt.

As you can see I think this is reasonable, and not too ambitious. Any thoughts/ideas/advices/suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Danke!

Posted by
658 posts

There are one or two practical issues you may wish to address.

The first is that you MUST inform the airline that your wife is pregnant. At that stage in her pregnancy most airlines require a doctor's certificate stating that she is medically cleared to fly.

The next is that a nine month old child can often suffer severe discomfort and no small amount of ear pain as the cabin pressurises and de-pressurises. The usual trick of pinching your nose, closing your mouth and blowing; or sucking on a hard candy sweet isn't really an option, so you need to have liquid child pain relief in your hand luggage. Disposable diapers are a useful thing to pack in hand luggage as well.

Then you need to book a child seat for your rental car.

After that the rest is up to you.

Posted by
299 posts

I am not sure of the distances but I would suggest the following: if your wife will be six months pregnant, she will be towards the end of the happy time and may be needing bathroom breaks more frequently than even your daughter! Most airlines I have checked require medical clearance after 36 weeks -- she should be fine but it wouldn't hurt to have a letter stating when she is due and describing any interesting factors in her pregnancy, just in case she needs to consult a doctor during the trip. Make sure that your daughter has a bottle or something to suck on and swallow for landing. Apparently take off isn't as hard on their ears.

Congratulations by the way and good luck with having the kids 13 months apart!

Posted by
3 posts

All - thanks for the feedback & I really appreciate your concerns. My wife will be 5 1/2 pregnant when we arrive in Germany on mid-April. We had a trip when she was 6 months pregnant last time around, and while we know this time it's going to be much more of a challenge with the 9-months old kid, we do plan to take it very easy :)

Instead of going to Rothenburg on the 1st day, maybe I should drive somewhere nearer i.e. Rhine Valley, which I believe is about 70-80 km away from Frankfurt. From there, I can go down to Munich, and then make my way up to Frankfurt again via Romantic Road.

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