[00:00:00] Knowledge is power, and we are all about empowering the mummers of the world. In each episode, we will unravel and interpret the latest research and evidence based practices for pregnancy, postpartum, and motherhood. As mums and researchers ourselves, we have experienced firsthand the overwhelming complexity of information, myths, and those classic old wives tales.

[00:00:27] I'm Dr. Renee White, and this is The Science of Motherhood. Hello and welcome to episode 149 of The Science of Motherhood. I am your host, Dr. Renee White. Thanks so much for joining me today. We have got a Check In Tuesday episode today, which is always bookended each week with a guest episode. You would have heard the amazing Alice last week talk about and demystify reflux.

[00:00:57] If you haven't listened to that episode, jump back into episode 148. We have got an amazing set of guests lined up for our summer holiday, uh, podcast lineup. Just to give you a little sneak peek. We have got, uh, episodes on how to manage your kids, pushing your boundaries. We have got perimenopause and how your diet can play a major role.

[00:01:26] We have got, uh, An amazing international guest, uh, Dr. Magdalena Martinez Garcia. She is going to be talking about the latest cutting edge research on women's brains and how they change during pregnancy. We've got breastfeeding myths busted. We've got fertility treatments, and we also have an amazing episode and we don't normally do these, but we have got a fantastic insight. Uh, Dr. Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini is coming on the podcast and she's going to be talking about her own perspective and personal journey through postnatal depression, anxiety, and psychosis. So that is all coming up in our summer series over December, January, and February.

[00:02:18] I cannot wait for you to listen to those. As always, if there is a topic or a guest that you would love to hear on the podcast, feel free to email us hello@ifillyourcup.com or jump over onto our website ifillyourcup.com um, go to the contact and then you can write a little message in there, or you can just jump in, just jump into our DMs.

[00:02:46] And, um, we mostly play over in Instagram. So at @fillyourcup_ send us a message. topics, guests, anything you want us to dive into. Happy, happy to hear your suggestions. So as I said, today is a Check in Tuesday episode. It is me sharing a little tidbit, a little insight, something that I think is going to make your life brighter.

[00:03:12] Or take the mental load off you, or just maybe a little bit of an educational piece. Like it might be me nerding out on some later science, but in today's episode, I'm going to be talking about staycations. Now, this is something that when we transition from, you know, solo people to parenthood, holidays can be a little tricky, uh, tricky negotiating the needs of our children.

[00:03:43] Tricky from an economical perspective, like finances, like it's expensive having a baby, right? And so I'm going to be talking about staycations. Now my, I'm going to talk from a personal perspective. I love traveling. It is one thing that my husband and I love doing. And before we had our baby, we tried to do as much of it as we possibly could, because we knew that things were going to be a little bit limited once we had our child.

[00:04:10] But we wanted to continue to have a little bit of traveling in our lives. And so I stumbled upon something which kind of, yeah, it, uh, it took the mental load off us in terms of distance we had to travel. It took the mental load of us in terms of, financials as well, because it provided us with an amazing discount.

[00:04:39] And I'll have to say that this is not a sponsored episode. This is me just sharing the love. And if you can get in on the action as well, then let's go for it. I'm going to talk about a particular membership. that I stumbled upon. Now, for all those playing at home, before we lived in Tasmania, we were living in Melbourne and, um, I was an RACV member.

[00:05:03] Now I was an RACV member because, uh, that's who I had like to help me with roadside assistance, if anything happened with my car. But what I discovered also In my naivety, and I never actually capitalised on this at all, uh, before we had children, is that they have an amazing membership to RAC, RACV resorts.

[00:05:30] Now you don't have to sign up as a full blown RACV car assist, uh, member to access this. You can just be a regular member. It's 55 for the whole year. And you get access to their resorts at a discounted price in Victoria, Queensland, and Tasmania. And there's, I'm just looking on their website, one, two, three, four, five, six resorts in Victoria, two in Queensland, including Noosa, which we hit up, and Tassie, the Hobart Apartment Hotel, which we stayed at, all the time, uh, when we traveled here to see friends and family. It's absolutely amazing. And just to give you a little bit of an insight, I just jumped on and I hit up Torquay Resort. It's on an 18 hole golf course, you get dining. So there's restaurants and like lots of facilities. I'm pretty sure there's a pool.

[00:06:43] There's typically playgrounds there because they are totally in tune with what parents need. I just looked up. A weekend. So we are looking at a two night stay in January. So peak season, and you would be saving $220 per night, $220 per night, you would be saving with a $55 annual membership. That's bananas guys.

[00:07:19] Absolutely bananas. So, let me just bring it back, staycations become an absolute norm, I think, for parents because one, you don't really want to be getting on an aeroplane if you don't need to with small children. I mean, that may be your jam, but it's not my jam. Um, I, I didn't really want to be doing that.

[00:07:43] And so like things like trips, day trips and things like that are more conducive. Now, my husband and I, we're not really the camping crew. You know, hats off to you if you are, but that really wasn't our jam. And then also we loved the added benefit of like feeling a bit lux, feeling a bit take, taken care of, shall I say, um, in a hotel situation, it was like, so nice to be able to wander down at breakfast time and go to a breakfast buffet with a small child.

[00:08:19] And the benefit of the buffet is that it doesn't matter if your kid inevitably does not eat what you put in front of them because you've just paid one price. It's not a menu a la carte item where you're thinking, Oh my God, I've just paid like $20 for these pancakes or scrambled eggs on toast. And my kid is just not eating anything.

[00:08:40] Funnily enough, these hotel breakfasts that we went to were an amazing opportunity for us to try different foods with our daughter. It was so, so good. And so, you know, we would have like what we call our safe foods. So she would always have like some toast or some eggs, um, you know, maybe a pancake or something like that.

[00:09:05] But then we would go to like the fruit section. She might try like, I don't know. cantaloupe or, you know, like one time they had when we were in Noosa, they had, um, dragon fruit. We would just put that on the high chair, see what she liked, see if she liked it. So it was a really great opportunity to try different food for her.

[00:09:26] The other thing that loved about these kind of resorts was that they had you know, if you'd had a really long day or you're just feeling really quite exhausted and sleep deprived, the room service was amazing. There was like, the kid's menu was always great. You could kind of hunker down and just order off the kid's menu and like everything would be fine.

[00:09:49] The other thing that I loved was that when we went to Noosa, we got like this gorgeous little, um, ground level apartment. And I think we were there for like a week. And so, I actually ordered Woolies online because it was like a serviced apartment. So we had a whole bunch of food delivered on the first day, kind of, you know, that foundational stuff, some cereal, some snacks, some fruit, things that you can kind of take on the go.

[00:10:19] So we had like, that as a shop done. And then if you wanted to dine in the restaurant, you totally could. It had like a bistro area, all really reasonably priced. It was amazing. The pool was there. And so you can just spend the whole day resort style, but like at a discounted price, like I'm going to go back to, you're saving $220 per night with a $55 annual membership.

[00:10:48] So this I think it's like one of those things where it's like, it's, I'm thinking, is this secret? Like, does anyone else know about this? I can highly recommend. We have stayed at the Torquay Resort. We've stayed at the Cape Shank Resort. We did the Healesville Country Club and Resort, which was amazing because Healesville Sanctuary was right next door.

[00:11:11] My daughter still talks about this and it's like five years postpartum. We went at to the Noosa resort was awesome. They had like this amazing pool and like a little kind of water park thing in there, um, slip and slide and we just absolutely smashed the Hobart Apartment Hotel. I will have to say, The thing I loved about the Hobart Apartment Hotel, and I think a lot of parents could resonate with this, is that when you go to a hotel, inevitably it is very open planned.

[00:11:53] And one of the things I loved about the RACV resorts is that typically they had a room option where The main bedroom could be cordoned off somehow. So at the Hobart Apartment Hotel, there was a door that would slide across. It was a frosted glass door, but nevertheless, you could slide it across, you know, your child could go to sleep at whatever time it is.

[00:12:21] Let's say it's like 7 30. Go to sleep and then you and your partner could be out in the living area, um, on the couch, we would like hook up the laptop without, um, headphones on and we would watch TV. Amazing, instead of sitting in a hotel room all dark thinking, Oh my God, our child's gone to sleep at 7 30.

[00:12:46] Now, what do we do for like the next couple of hours? So that was another added bonus that I absolutely loved. I also want to give a shout out to the kid's spaghetti. My husband absolutely loves the kid's spaghetti. He would always order people like, I think the people thought that we had two kids, one adult, me being the only adult, because my husband would always order the kids spaghetti off the menu, even though there was all like, you know, the grownup menu.

[00:13:13] He loved the kids spaghetti. I don't know what they put in it at RACV resorts, but it is spectacular. And that was the go to for my husband, which was amazing. So, yeah, in in summary, RACV Resorts. It could be your new staycation if things are tight these summer holidays and you're thinking holy moly guacamole how are we going to get away.

[00:13:37] We don't want to jump on an aeroplane. If you're in Victoria, Queensland, or Tasmania, consider getting yourself a membership for RACV. You can save a ton of cash just with a $55 annual membership. It's amazing. All right, everyone. If you end up going on one of these staycations, please DM me. I would love to hear about it.

[00:14:02] I'd love to hear if you love the spaghetti bolognese as much as my husband does. I think it's hilarious, but yeah, remember to jump over, let me know in the DMs in Instagram, fill your cup underscore or jump over to our website, hello@ifillyourcup.com to send me an email. All right, everyone. See you later.

[00:14:21] Bye.

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[00:14:47] Head to our website, ifillyourcup.com to learn more about our birth and postpartum doula offerings, where every mother, we pledge to be the steady hand that guides you back to yourself, ensuring you feel nurtured, informed, and empowered. So you can fully embrace the joy of motherhood with confidence.

[00:15:07] Until next time. Bye!