Just got back from a month and half with our 9 month baby girl and thought I’d write a piece to mainly provide some learnings travelling extensively with a baby that can hopefully help parents, and also share a summary of my long trip as I doubt I will ever get a chance for a long trip like this in Japan again. Benefited from a few baby posts on this sub and would like to pass on new learnings.
**Background/Itinerary**
\- Myself (34m), wife(34f) 5th time to Japan, first time with a baby. We are from Australia.
\- March 14 – April 25. 2 weeks in Tokyo, 2 weeks in Kyoto, 3 days in Mt Yoshino, 2 days Magome/Tsumago, 3 days Kusatsu onsen, 3 days Shima Onsen, 3 days Takaragawa Onsen, 3 days Tokyo to finish off.
\- Focus of trip is essentially 2/3 cherry blossoms and 1/3 onsen towns to finish things off.
**Everything Baby**
To start off thought I’d jump right to the baby stuff. Did we enjoy the trip with a 9 month old? **Yes – thoroughly**. Would we do it again with a baby knowing everything we went through? **No – its overall just too tiring even if fun**. I would personally wait for at least a toddler that can walk/communicate with us/sleep well at night before doing a long trip again. You will get so much more out of your day.
**Baby Formula**
There are many posts in this sub with links that introduce foods and formula, but I found none of them go into any detail about what to actually expect when trying to buy them, and what the food/formula is actually like.
With formula Japan typically has just 2 stages; 0-1 year old and 1-3 year old (as compared to Australia where every 6 month is a new stage/formula). Preparing Japan formula was a learning on its own as they require at minimum 70 degrees Celsius hot water. The formula spoons are also just 20ml each which means an annoying 10 spoons (200ml) each feed for older babies.
The 2 leading and most abundant brands you will find are Meiji and Morinaga (Morinaga Hagukumi). Morinaga is arguably the best and most expensive brand and accounts for 40% of market. Meiji on the other hand has a large advantage – they have a product that has converted their powder into set 40ml cubes that makes life very easy. We just pre kept the cubes in the bottles and simply added hot water. Meiji cubes was our choice for this alone. We brought one Australia formula to ease transition but found no issue with Japanese formula in terms of digestion etc.
**Baby Food**
You will find very limited 5 months food, as Packet/premade food usually start abundantly at 7 months and 9 months. Packet food comes either in a rice porridge base or veggies in a stew/thick sauce base. Wakado, beanstalk and pigeon are the most popular brands in supermarkets and drug stores while going into places such as Babys r us and Akachan will provide even more options. The meat % in premade food is very limited at only 2-4% (majority 2%) even for 9 mth packets and are mostly either chicken or fish based. Basically come prepared if your baby does not like rice!
The nice thing is there are some food packaging where it comes in a disposable small microwavable cup with a small spoon if you want convenience on the go.
There are very limited fruit packet options. We found fruit pouches can ONLY be found in large baby stores like Akachan/Baby R us/Nishimatsuya and are all imported items. The local fruit options come in little glass 80 grams purees which imo do not taste like real fruit…
We have found NIL breakfast grain based baby porridge that we are used to in Australia. Breakie for babies in Japan are simply plain microwave porridge as the main option. I would highly recommend bring your own breakfast porridge powder from overseas if that’s what you are used to.
Overall if your baby can deal with rice based foods, you will have no issues with food in Japan.
**Transport with baby**
A plane cabin friendly stroller is a must + a baby carrier. 90% of city terrain is stroller friendly and the rest can be done by a carrier if need.
Overall trains and subways are no issue, all stations will have lifts but some can be tricky to locate. The lifts are typically small capacity and Tokyo has a lot of tourists with suitcases and local elderly that will share the lifts.
In Tokyo your biggest pain will be transitioning from a train line to subway and vice-versa. The time and effort alone in finding the lift, getting out of a train station and into the subway alone will sometimes make taking a longer route worth, if it means moving or transitioning within one means transport.
Kyoto is famous for using buses to travel within the city while having train and subway lines surrounding the city. Buses are not very stroller friendly as they are just too packed during the day. If you can get on/off at end stops to secure a seat then maybe its ok. We ended up leaving early for a bus seat, and taxi back for some of our Kyoto days.
**Accommodation – Hotels vs Airbnb for a baby**
Airbnbs imo is the way to go simply for the benefit of a kitchen and larger space in general. We preferred staying in futon rooms as it provided crawl and play room.
Hotels rooms are small in Tokyo. The rooms are considerably larger once you go other cities. Even so, not all hotels have cots as I learnt room needs to be a certain size legally to allow a cot and most hotels don’t have one to begin with. The benefit of hotels are they can be more closely located to larger train stops and areas of interest which will same A LOT of travel time with a baby.
Either way the biggest learning is try stay close to a major transport stop (subway or train). Echoing above, transitioning from say a subway to a JR line is the most tiring thing you can do with a baby + stroller.
**Baby/Nursery Rooms**
In Tokyo you will find large baby rooms in department stores and key train stations. Outside of this you may only find a diaper change room that shares with a disabled toilet. I found department store nursery rooms are a hit and miss. The issues most commonly are you might have only 1 room in an entire 10 floor department store, and as such can be quite packed and hard to find. Then again some are very child/baby friendly – for example Sunshine City in Ikebukuro has a huge nursery on EACH floor!
**Trip Report**
Cherry Blossoms
Everyone now knows Japan had some of its earliest blooms ever which I can imagine was very disappointing for many. Despite this what was surprising for me was all the different variety of Sakura available which had slight different bloom timings and are all beautiful! This meant if you went out of your way beyond the most common Somei Yoshino blooms to look for other varieties, you should still be able to catch plentiful of hanami.
**Tokyo – 2 weeks – March 14 – 26**
Our Airbnb was around Oji Station towards north of Tokyo. Mainly caught Somei Yoshino blooms from bud to full.
Shinjuku Gyoen – crowded in key viewing spots, but despite this probably my favourite blossom place I went to. It had so many different varieties and you will benefit from bringing a picnic mat (Go Daiso for cheap) and spending half a day easy.
Oji Station – Asukayama park & otonashi water park. These 2 locations are not popular internationally and I highly recommend if you want to beat the crowd. Asukayama park is on a small hill with plentify of blooms and otonashi water park is rows of blossoms along a little creek. All very picturesque.
Rikugien Gardens – this was a botanic garden of sorts. The main attraction was ONE very very beautiful and large weeping willow. Lots of crowds but still easy to grab photos. I would not go out of my way to go here, but if your hotel is not far it is a worth while spot. Popular among locals, unknown to west.
Ueno Park – had a nice walk of rows of blooms with the pond on either side. Was pretty low on my fav places as I didn’t think there was too much here you can’t get else where with less crowds.
Missed out on meguro river night viewing, inokashira park and yoyogi park which we couldn’t find a day for in the end.
**Kyoto – 2 weeks – March 26 – April 8**
Philosopher’s Path – Hands down my favourite hanami place in Kyoto that we went twice to both catch full bloom and the falling petals filling the steam. Go early to beat crowds, even when we went at 9am at peak bloom there was not much people. Crowds really pick around after 9.30 ish. You want to start at the north end and walk south as the northern start has the more picturesque walk. Can easily also fit a few temples shrines dotted along the way.
Maruyama Park – We found the park to be very nice but nothing you couldn’t necessarily get elsewhere. The nice thing here is try securing one of those elevated red food tables under the cherry trees. I think this is worthwhile unique experience. The food is not cheap, and the table also had a rental fee but you are paying to basically sit under blooms, take your photos and drink alcohol.
Keage Incline – We unfortunately couldn’t finish the climb with a baby, the crowds and it was a hot day!
Uji – Not too many blossoms but the combination of beating crowds and visiting the many tea shops makes a nice half or full day trip.
Kurama/Kifune – beautiful as always. Very little blossoms in Kifune but there was surprisingly some very nicely placed blooms at Kurama shrine.
**Mt Yoshino – April 9 – 12**
Sadest part of our trip as completely missed the boom on all elevations Shimo, naka, kami senbon. We drove to Yoshino shimo senbon and hiked up onwards. With a pram and baby Kami senbon was too hard as there was some very steep inclines so only managed Shimo and Naka senbon where most of the shops are. After 3 days in Yoshino I would say if there is no blossoms, there is very little to do.
The rest wont go into details about as this post is getting too long.
More than happy to answer any questions
4 comments
As a parent visiting Japan for the first time with a 7m old baby in september for 23 days, I will definetely follow your post.
Thank you so much for your feedback on your trip.
Thank you so much for sharing. It’s very helpful. I also have a 10 mth baby, and plan to go to Japan too.
Is there any particular reason why you traveled with a baby that young? Just curious.
How did you navigate nap times with your itenary? Did you find the number of things you could do in a day quite limiting?