Media
Chicago Sun-Times
June 26, 2006
LIFESTYLES
Parental Paradise: ‘Babymoons’ are hot trend for expecting moms and dads
If the honeymoon is historically about making babies, the honeymoon is about making time for mommy and daddy. Parents-to-be are seizing on the pre-stork period as a time to flee the nest to beach resorts and country inns where they’re treated to massages, chocolates and Junior-safe sparkling cider. Hotels are pushing packages with names such as the Last Hurrah. Maternity manufactures are offering filmy lingerie for the final pre-family fling.
And what was Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s jaunt to Namibia but an extended babymoon? Last September, Britney Spears and Kevin Federline hit shops, spas and restaurants in Scottsdale, Ariz., for two weeks before Sean Preston’s birth. The getaways, parenting experts say, are as much about rekindling romances doused by morning sickness as they are last-ditch celebrations of lives that are worry-free.
“They need to acknowledge the sanctity of their relationship before the embrace parenthood,” says Pilar Guzman, editor in chief of Cookie, the magazine that seeks to meld parenting with style. A survey by Liberty Travel and on-line parenting resource Baby Center found 59 percent of new parents have babymooned.
As a generation that grew up with divorce, they’re heeding advice to take care of your marriage as well as your baby, Guzman says. More-over, they’re having kids later in life when they can afford to splurge on something like a babymoon. “There’s a real psychological desire for pregnant women to be sexy, which they are,” says Rebecca Matthias, president and COO of Mother Work, whose Mimi and Motherhood Maternity brands are ratcheting up the romance in lingerie lines, selling bump-friendly nightclothes boasting plunging necklines and see-through chiffon. “I mean pregnancy; it’s all about sex,” says Matthias, who calls babymoons “a must”.
The travel industry has capitalized on the perceived need, bundling services and sanctuary into vacations. Babymoon finder.com connects future parents with such trips in Illinois; it lists the Four Seasons Hotel Chicago, 120 E. Delaware, as having an “Expecting’ You” package that includes dinner, breakfast in bed, spa treatments, shopping treatments and more starting at $415 a night. Also, the Lincoln Park Massage Spa, 630 W. Webster, and Eshe Day Spa and Salon, 8 S. Michigan, offer pre-natal massages and more for expecting parents.
In Downstate Alton, the Beall Mansion offers his and her massages, bath salts and robes to keep, starting at $224 a night. When baby made four last year, Steve and Patricia Schapansky decided to take the babymoon concept further. Seeking neonatal nurturing, they headed to the Cliffs Resort in Shell Beach, Calif., with the whole brood, including Sydney, the 21/2, and Kaci, only 23 days old.
“We got a lot of resistance from people,” concedes Steve Schapansky, 36, of Santa Barbara, Calif. But for them, the day-and-a-half trip was about “having a nice, cozy spot to relax and get out stress mode.” Sure, there’s still a screaming baby, but without “all the other things screaming at you” vacuum cleaner, telephone- it was great,” he says.