Wife Without Borders: Baby Free in Krabi

Our number one rule in traveling with kids has been to book accommodation that has a door separating our sleeping space from our child's sleeping space. This obviously gets more complicated as you add more children to the mix, and as a rule, it's been harder to find in Asia. Culturally, most families here all sleep in the same room. Even wealthy families will have a 4 bedroom house and yet, everyone piles into one room/bed for bedtime.

Anyway, the point is, its hard to find resorts/hotels here that have a great set up for American style sleeping arrangements. We've gotten more lax about it with Forest because he's 6 and if he wakes up we can just say 'go back to bed'. Juliet doesn't quite get that concept, so if she's woken up, it could potentially be a big ordeal.

In the hazy newborn days we booked a trip to Krabi over Forest's Fall break. Jon booked a villa at Phulay Bay (Ritz Carlton) thinking a massive villa would easily accommodate us. Flash forward to the week before the trip: I have a flu like illness, Juliet is waking several times a night, and Jonathan is in CA for 10 days. I look up the floor plan for our 'villa' and discover it's just one room. And I panicked. I just knew there was no way she would sleep well in a room with the 3 of us, and I was so sleep deprived I was ready to call the whole thing off. We tried to get a refund on our room, but no dice (that's a thing here- NO REFUNDS on anything!).

Jonathan returned jet lagged and exhausted a day before our planned departure. I was a total zombie by this point and had zero intention of traveling to the Ritz with my suddenly sleep averse 3 month old. So at the very last minute we decided that one of us would go to Krabi with Forest and one would stay behind with Juliet. And at the very very last minute we decided it would be me that took Forest. Which was crazy since I'm still breastfeeding, but like I said- sleep deprivation renders me incapable of logical thought.

So I packed my pump and my bathing suits and off we went. (P.S. Juliet slept 12 hours that night....her first time sleeping through the night in 2 weeks. But I still think it was the right call because the room had 2 beds smooshed together and then the pack n play 2 feet away from the 'family bed'. We are not that family.)

The journey there was easy breezy- an hour flight and a 40 minute car ride. Because we were staying at the Ritz, we had a swanky van to escort us to the resort that had MASSAGE CHAIRS. Plus fresh squeezed OJ and a refreshing cold towel that smelled like lemongrass. We fancy.

Forest sees the fresh juice and cold towels and exclaims 'My favorite!'. So super spoiled.

We hadn't told the resort our last minute change of plans so they really did have things set up as well as possible for Juliet with a baby tub, pack n play and bottle sterilizer. I told them to leave the bottle sterilizer bc I was still pumping 5/6 times a day while we were there. Our room was gorgeous with a private pool and outdoor bathroom. They had put 2 king sized beds together since we had Forest and it was the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in.

Outdoor bathroom. Our outdoor space was 4 xs the size of our indoor space.

villa entrance

The resort itself was remarkably beautiful and since the weather was much cooler than Bangkok we spent as much time as possible walking around and exploring the lovely grounds.

Walking down to the pool was a breathtaking experience. This was Thailand as I always imagined it- gorgeous beachfront vistas with jagged islands jutting out of the sea.

Unfortunately the resort didn't have a swimmable beach but they still provided sand toys for building sand castles.

The beach was not the nicest, and you can see tire tracks from the frequent 4x4 trucks that were constantly driving by and ruining our sand castles.

We stayed for 4 nights and for the first 2-3 days I was still getting over my flu-like cold. We mostly just bummed around the resort ordering room service, swimming and taking walks.

We had fun imitating all the 'instagrammers' at the resort who spent 30 minutes taking pics in one spot and getting frustrated at the 6 year old who had the audacity to actually use the swimming pool and therefore photobomb their shot.

Forest charging ice cream to the room

Feeding the fish every morning.

private pool time

The instagrammers have vacated the beach swing! Make a run for it!

On our last day we took a long boat to Ko Hong island which was incredible! The boat ride was fun and not very long at all. Ko Hong is a national park with a small entrance fee (I think 300 Baht (about $9) for me, 100 for Forest).

The sand was like silk- pristine and white and the water was a gorgeous aqua. The islands book ending the beach were out of a dream.

The Tsunami and jellyfish warning signs were a little disconcerting.

Jonathan unwisely made me watch '72 most Dangerous Animals of Asia' on Netflix where I learned about box jellyfish that had instantly killed several people on the beaches in Thailand in recent years, including one young British child. Forest had also learned about box jellyfish from Octonauts and was trepidatious about going into the water. I was definitely not the right parent to talk him through it. (For those of you who don't know me- I have a legit phobia of sealife whereas my husband is an avid scuba diver.)

Eventually we decided we were probably ok swim in the shallower areas, we came up for a gameplan if we heard the word 'Tsunami' screamed, and we relaxed and enjoyed our little 4 hour field trip to Ko Hong.

For our final evening we ordered room service and Forest finally let me pick the movie- Moana- which he thoroughly enjoyed.

Our trip back was a little more stressful because I was trying to bring back 5 days worth of breast milk. I had tried calling the airport to ensure I could carry this on board sans baby but couldn't get in touch with anyone who understood English enough to give me a confident answer. I finally found a written policy online that said you could bring a large quantity of breastmilk on board the plane even if traveling without a baby, but when we actually got to security they said 'the policy changed' and you had to have said baby with you to carry it on.

Luckily it was in a cooler bag and they let me go back and check it. I was still panicking at the prospect of all of that hard work literally going down the drain, but when we touched down in Bangkok it was still chilled! Phew. Our driver met us with an ice box so I put the milk on ice immediately and managed to save about 25 bottles worth of milk!

In summary: Krabi is gorgeous. Phulay bay resort is a dream- but better for honeymooners than families (and great for instagrammers!). Traveling for 5 days away from your breast-feeding baby is complicated. Solo uninterrupted quality time with your 6 year old is priceless. As is 4 nights of uninterrupted sleep.