kmedina
Loves all things Disney
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2011
Your son will be 5 months old? I've seen children left in the nursery while in port, but never quite that young! And even then, the most I've seen a 1 year old left wasn't more than 2-3 hours.
That said, it is ultimately up to you. I will say that it's uncommon, and for families leaving their youngest on board without a means of direct contact, the least they do is designate a friend or family on board for that duration. But there could be people here on disboards who've done this with no problems!
I know this was a response to an old question, so the OP probably will not see this response. For anyone else who may be curious, I will respond. I've been reading this thread for days though (and I love it). It was nice of the CM to provide feedback while she did.
My son was five months old on his first cruise and exclusively breastfed. I barely left him anywhere for any considerable amount of time before the cruise, so I was nervous. He did not really accept a bottle of my milk from my husband or my MIL. I always joked that he liked his milk straight from the tap. We booked 5-6 hours in the nursery to go to Atlantis. I pumped the night before but I was only able to get enough for one bottle. I knew he started nursing every 90-120 minutes from when he last finished.
I nursed him right before I dropped him off and left them the bottle. We ended up leaving the excursion much earlier than we planned thanks to the low supply of backup milk, and because we missed him. I got back right around the 3 hour mark (although I am sure there are more details that were fresher when I wrote them in the report in my signature if you want to look it over). He was fine. Not only did they amazing staff get him to drink the entire bottle, but he seemed very content.
I nursed him in the nursery for his usual long period (part of the reason I had trouble pumping was because he nursed so slowly that I had a "slow stream." His nursing sessions typically lasted 45 minutes to an hour when he was younger (not that they ever got much shorter when he was older). He still had time left on his nursery session when I was done, so I met my husband and older son on the deck to go swimming with the rest of the time. Being in there to nurse also gave me a bird's eye view of how wonderful the staff is.
It was a fantastically awesome experience overall. I loved cruising with a five month old. It was a Dream. We did it again when he was 1 year, nine months and it was much harder. Granted, we took him on every excursion on that cruise, so we never left him on the ship without us that time. He will be almost 3 1/2 on our next cruise. Although, I want to leave the boys on ship for one port like we did the first time, my husband does not. Thus, we are taking them everywhere with us this time as well. As long as no one tells me zip lining is an amazing experience I cannot miss, I will not whine too much.