Kugellager

My wife and I will soon be traveling to Rome with our 9-month old daughter and intend like to "live off the land" as carrying 10 days of baby food and formula gets to be quite bulky. We intend to take enough with us for the first few days then buy food from then on and were wondering if anyone knows the names of brands of food and formula available in Rome and in Italy in general.

I don't know if this will work but this thread could be a useful resource for those of us who travel with small children. Maybe the responders could label their post with a BOLD/CAPS title of the country they are adding information for so it could be easily referenced?

We, in particular, are looking for information for our trip to ROME and would be very appreciative of brand names and language tips regarding baby food found there.

Cheers
];')

Zerlina

Nestle's brands of formula (latte in polvere) are called Nidina and Humana in Italy. There are other, less expensive brands as well.

Michael

When we traveled with our ten month old baby in 1972, we did not use any commercial baby food, but carried a baby food grinder (it's small and light) to grind whatever we chose from our plates. But then we did the same thing at home.

On the other hand, we traveled with a duffel bag of diapers, knowing that at that time diapers were very expensive and pretty lousy, at least in France.

Kugellager

@Zerlina - That is exactly some of the information we are looking for. Excellent!

@Michael - We just started trying out one of those baby food grinders with the idea we would take it with us as well.

];')

hanl

They sell a range of Pampers in Italian supermarkets so you shouldn't have to worry about that, at least.

lavandula

I can add that in GERMANY much of the baby food (Babykost) you can buy is organic due to public demand. Hipp is a well known brand.

If you can't find a supermarket then a Drogerie (chemist shop / drugstore without medications: Rossmann, DM, Müller or Schlecker to name a few) also has baby food, other baby products, sometimes clothing and products for Mum as well, such as teas to stimulate milk production.

Lavandula

Kugellager

I am writing this in hopes my wife will give a more detailed account as she was the one who planned this part of our trip and discovered we could order baby food from the local farmacia.

Note 1: I am only comparing what can be found in the United States versus Rome and that my observations are biased and based on how we feed/care for babies here and therefore my observations/opinions and suggestions my only apply to travelers from the US. I realize we all may have different methods and traditions to feed babies, as we found out in Rome, and I don't intend this to be a critique of Italian child care.

Note 2: Our daughter was also not on solid chewable food at this time and only consuming milk and the beginner jars of baby food. This would be much easier if she was at a chewing stage and we could have fed her portions of our meals.

Actually finding babyfood in jars in Rome was a bit of a challenge as we discovered from a friend that most Romas/Italians make their own babyfood instead of purchasing it. If you have one of those baby food grinders you would find it of use in Rome and I suspect Italy in general. We neglected to bring ours.

You can find jars of baby food in most farmacias but all of it seems to have sugar added, unlike most American baby food. We also discovered a brand of organic (organica in Italian) baby food that did not have added sugar in it. The organic brand can be found in some of the farmacias but can also be ordered from one nearest to where you are staying and they will usually get it by evening, if you order it in the morning, or the next day, if you order it late in the day.

That said, we found that it was easiest to pop into any farmacia we saw while we were out touring around and see what they had. If they had something our daughter would eat we would buy a couple of jars then. They carry some of the same flavors as in the US but also things like rabbit or venison, which our daughter did not like.

We made do and all three of us had a wonderful trip to Rome.

cheers,
];')

Kugellager

A couple of more things regarding my origianl post I neglected to add.

We brought enough powdered baby formula with us in ziplock bags as it was easy to pack.

Diapers were easy to find in just about any supermercato or farmacia if not on the expensive side.

];')