Traveling with an infant

[Clipsfan]

I am going to be heading to Sweden in about 10 days from Los Angeles with my 4 month old daughter. So far, our biggest trip with her was a 6 hour car ride to Northern Cali and I'm a little worried about a 20 hour trip with two legs. Does anyone have any tips they can share with me for traveling with a little one?

Thanks!

[allenmurray]

Be prepared to buy a drink for everyone else on the plane. Maybe two. Maybe a lot more than two.

[-jk]

Benadryl ;)

-jk

[weezie]

Benadryl ;)

-jk


Yeah, mix it into all those drinks and the rest of the passengers will sleep like....uh.....:confused:

[hughgs]

I am going to be heading to Sweden in about 10 days from Los Angeles with my 4 month old daughter. So far, our biggest trip with her was a 6 hour car ride to Northern Cali and I'm a little worried about a 20 hour trip with two legs. Does anyone have any tips they can share with me for traveling with a little one?

Thanks!

What is your daughter's present schedule in terms of wake-up times, naps, and bedtime? At 4 months I assume she's not crawling, but is she sitting up on her own or does she need help? Finally, is she starting to eat mushy foods?

[rthomas]

doggie downers

[diablesseblu]

I am going to be heading to Sweden in about 10 days from Los Angeles with my 4 month old daughter. So far, our biggest trip with her was a 6 hour car ride to Northern Cali and I'm a little worried about a 20 hour trip with two legs. Does anyone have any tips they can share with me for traveling with a little one?

Thanks!

I did a lot of flying with my daughter during her childhood. Her first flight was at three weeks and we did lots of long haul trips.There are some ironclad rules for easing the experience for all.

#1 -- Leave yourself lots of extra time for everything. I always did this when traveling (daughter is now 30). She always remembers our trips as a fun adventure...... probably because I was not stressed.

#2 -- If there was a significant layover or time before departure, I occasionally invested in a day pass at the club of the airline I was flying. It was always worth every penny for the quiet, the clean restrooms etc., the snacks, the easy access to updated flight info & changes.

#3 -- Make sure your daughter is suckling on a bottle during the ascent/descent phases of the flights. This will help with possible ear issues.

#4 -- I always had good luck with flight crews. However, was told explicitly that was because they saw me actively caring for my daughter and not trying to "tune out" her needs. That sounds crazy but people are astonishing by how tone deaf they will try to be to their own kids. Flight attendants would often volunteer to spell me a bit....I think because I was cognizant of them and the other passengers.

Will post more as my memory is "jogged".

[Clipsfan]

Thanks for the tips (actually helpful ones, not of the "apologize to everyone else and buy them drinks" kind :) My daughter is still breastfeeding (no real food yet) and can't really sit up yet, but we supposedly have a bassinet on the longer leg. We're still working on her sleep patterns, but my wife and I both pay too much attention to her if anything (don't tune her out) so we'll be seeing what we can do to make her trip as easy as possible.

Anyway, thanks for the recommendations!

[hughgs]

Thanks for the tips (actually helpful ones, not of the "apologize to everyone else and buy them drinks" kind :) My daughter is still breastfeeding (no real food yet) and can't really sit up yet, but we supposedly have a bassinet on the longer leg. We're still working on her sleep patterns, but my wife and I both pay too much attention to her if anything (don't tune her out) so we'll be seeing what we can do to make her trip as easy as possible.

Anyway, thanks for the recommendations!

Things should be relatively easy for you. First, diablesseblu's advice about not stressing is pretty important. Second, you should try and follow the exact same routine on the plane that you do at home. One thing that I think would help is if you had an idea of your daughter's sleep patterns or if you established them now.

To discover her sleep habits you can simply make a chart with the hours of the day down the paper and the days of the week across the papr. Fill in those times then your daughter is sleeping. I think the rule of thumb is that at 4 months infants could only handle 2 hours of awakefulness before becoming overtired (ref. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child; Weissbluth). Once you have her sleep schedule I would set a watch for your local time and then stay with her schedule.

[Clipsfan]

Things should be relatively easy for you. First, diablesseblu's advice about not stressing is pretty important. Second, you should try and follow the exact same routine on the plane that you do at home. One thing that I think would help is if you had an idea of your daughter's sleep patterns or if you established them now.

To discover her sleep habits you can simply make a chart with the hours of the day down the paper and the days of the week across the papr. Fill in those times then your daughter is sleeping. I think the rule of thumb is that at 4 months infants could only handle 2 hours of awakefulness before becoming overtired (ref. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child; Weissbluth). Once you have her sleep schedule I would set a watch for your local time and then stay with her schedule.

We do know her schedule and will probably try to get her to sleep at her regular times (as possible). One issue which we will have to deal with is that there is a 9 hour time difference between home and where we're going and I don't know what we'll do about that. Getting a baby who is just starting to think about sleeping through the night to adjust to a 9 hour time difference sounds daunting.

[cf-62]

Thanks for the tips (actually helpful ones, not of the "apologize to everyone else and buy them drinks" kind :) My daughter is still breastfeeding (no real food yet) and can't really sit up yet, but we supposedly have a bassinet on the longer leg. We're still working on her sleep patterns, but my wife and I both pay too much attention to her if anything (don't tune her out) so we'll be seeing what we can do to make her trip as easy as possible.

Anyway, thanks for the recommendations!

I know that as a parent, you think that a suggestion that you buy your fellow passengers drinks is facetious child-hating tripe.

HOWEVER, there is a nugget of truth in there that is more succinctly detailed in another post.

I know you've said you guys ae real attentive, but traveling parents have a tendency to tune out whining, excessive crying, etc. Whether they're trying to train their child to be self-reliant or simply don't deal with any and all crying activities, this is a recipe for confrontational disaster on a flight, regardless of the length. A flight is not the time to try to get a crying child to learn things. Tickle them, bounce them, feed them constantly, whatever you need to do to minimize breakdowns. Make any diaper changes immediately. Something else parents seem to get immune to are messy diaper smells.

While I can tell you some quite "amusing" stories of diaper changes in the seat next to me (or on the aisle), I appreciated those efforts much more than the mom who determined that it was only another 30 minutes until they were in the terminal and let us all experience the wonderful odors of new parenthood for a half hour, which invariably leads to 20 to 30 minutes of non-stop crying, too.

As somebody mentioned, flight attendants (and passengers) are more tolerant when you are tending to your child, keeping them calm, trying to stop the crying when it occurs, etc.

I also like the idea of buying access to the airline club. It makes your life much easier. Depending on where you're connecting, though, you may be limited from the european club connection. For example, if you are flying from RDU through Heathrow on AA, the Admirals Club in Heathrow is not accessible to you before your connection, which kind of makes the whole membership thing moot. So make sure you can get access to the BA or SAS club with your USA side club purchase.

I think you said you had a bassonet (sp?) reserved (i.e. a third seat) for the longer of the legs. Might I suggest you go ahead and get a third seat all the way through. If you don't you WILL have somebody sitting next to you on the flight -- and on a long flight, you can guarantee that one -- or both of you -- will become quite annoyed with the setup.

Understand the check-in rules for the airline you're flying. AA holds the first 2 rows to keep families together -- until the day of the flight. GO EARLY to get these (like when the airport opens). Delta tries to keep rows in the BACK of the plane open, but Delta doesn't assign seats until you're at the gate for many flyers. I avoid Delta when I fly WITH others, as we usualy do NOT get to sit together.

Most airlines (except for Southwest) no longer allow families to automatically get on board before everybody else. If you will need extra time, GO ASK THEM for early boarding, don't expect that they'll offer it.

Finally, understand that you WILL get a lot of stares -- every time your baby cries, when you walk into the club, when you sit next to somebody with a lap baby, etc. Develop a thick skin, because you're going to get them. Road warriors don't like traveling with kids of any age, and they aren't very polite (or subtle) about expressing their displeasure.

I hope you enjoy your trip. I'd love to go there.