You’ve packed the essentials – staying within your luggage allowance – and you’ve made it to the airport with time to spare.
High fives all round!
Now there’s just the small matter of staying cool and collected while you navigate security (a test even sans child), surviving the flight every first-time-travelling-with-a-baby parent dreads, and making your family holiday memorable for all the right reasons…
AT THE AIRPORT
SECURITY
Vital for safety but, my goodness, what a drag! Bleary-eyed travellers, impatient staff… Hardly the starting whistle for a jolly holiday. Nevertheless, there are steps you can take to ensure you and your brood swiftly get through to the comparably serene Duty Free mall:
- Pack your 100ml liquids into a sealed clear plastic bag BEFORE you join the queue, then bin anything over the limit…
- …Except baby food, expressed milk, sterilised water and formula. It’s best to check with your airline in advance, but it’s generally acceptable to carry on board liquids for baby in excess of 100ml as long as the measurement is marked on pack or visible on a feeding bottle.
- Wet wipes may flash up as a liquid, so to avoid any hold-ups take them out of your bag and pop them separately in the tray along with your keys, belt, iPad etc.
- Pushchairs need to go through the scanner too, so be prepared and collapse yours as you near the front of the queue, transferring baby to a sling or carrier if you have one.
- Factor a toilet stop into your route to gate. I can put money on Teddy filling his nappy at any inopportune moment, so a quick change just before boarding gave me peace of mind and him a dry ride at least until we were airborne.
- Have a little shuffle: gather into one bag everything you think you’ll need to hand during the flight, then keep it under the seat in front once boarded. Saves scrambling in the locker while others attempt to take their seats.
IN FLIGHT
Those people you used to clock in the airport lounge and will them to sit anywhere but the 10 rows bookending yours…? You are now those people.
Taking off to the overture of a screaming baby ranks highly in the figurative list of Things Most Likely To Irritate Fellow Passengers – and it was our biggest concern when travelling with Teddy.
But you know what? Babies do cry. If yours has a meltdown, they won’t be the first. And if anyone is bold (read: insensitive) enough to pass comment, you could invite them to have a go at silencing the swell.
That said, setting in place a few precautions could help to avoid both crescendo and confrontation:
- Feed at take-off and landing to avoid sore ears.
- Keep them entertained. Teddy slept for the sum total of 17 minutes on our early morning flight while Mr R and I slumped on our caffeine crutches, so distraction was the name of the stay-sane game. I’d read that revealing a new toy once in the air was a well-tested trick, so we bought two for good measure. But nothing compared to the mind-boggling intricacy of the tray table latch. I suppose I should be glad Ted isn’t so materialistic.
- Make friends with your neighbour – especially if you’re wedged window-side as you’ll likely need to disturb whoever bagged the aisle seat a few times so you can get up for nappy changes. Taking a break from the table latch, Teddy moved on to staring intently at the man seated next to us, which was an easy (though our new friend might say uncomfortable) ice breaker.
- Checked in? Make yourself at home! Living out of a suitcase for a week perhaps isn’t the best option now you’ve a jumble of tiny vests, swimsuits, nappies et al to rummage through. But if spending time organising things into drawers isn’t your bag, I would recommend sparing just two minutes to set up a changing station: mat, nappies, wipes etc all parked together in one place. Because lingering over a dirty nappy in 30C+ heat carries quite a stink.
- You’re happily settled on the beach, but it’s nap time and baby can’t seem to drop off. Pop them in their pushchair, throw over a cover to block out the light (we used a SnoozeShade, which I rate highly), then push them up and down the boardwalk. The gentle vibration of moving back and forth over the wooden slats worked wonders for encouraging Teddy to sleep. Cobbles have a similar success rate, if you’re inland.
- Much of the joy of a holiday lies in leaving behind the humdrum of day-to-day routine. But when travelling with Teddy, we’ve found maintaining some semblance of his usual eat/sleep/repeat habits to be the best way to ensure he stays content and Mr R and I relaxed. While in Greece, his bedtime pattern followed a similar schedule to that at home – bath, followed by a feed, then sleep. Whereas he’d usually go in his cot, instead we put him in his pushchair and headed out for the evening, sleeping Ted being a (very welcome) third wheel to our dinner dates. Softly does it when transferring from pushchair to cot at the end of the night, though…
Travelling with a baby (part 1) – a vlog
Travelling with a baby (part 2) – what to pack
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