Tips for a very long flight?

[sunbeam koala]

Hi!

DH, DS and I are venturing down to the warmer weather in Oz in a few weeks time. (yay!) Which is so great because I get to catch up with friends and family and show off our then 5 month old Al.

What I would love to hear about are any great tips for travelling on a plane with a tiny tot.

We've done a short flight with him when he was 8 weeks old and he slept beautifully. But this will be 24 hours flying and I expect we may have our hands full.

I'm all ears here for anything you can think of.

[Tracey]

Deb, I have travelled with Maddison since she was born, she has a full passport & is only 7, actually she has a new one new, so on to her second!
Admittedly it's been only from Melb to Bali or Singapore so no more than 8hours at a time, but there have beenb flights where we had to fly Singapore & wait 4+hours & then on to Surabaya wait 2hours & then Bali! So it has been a full day pretty much just sitting around & waiting!!!
Basically I tried to do as I would at home, feed when she was hungry & more so as aeroplanes can be dehydrating with the A/C etc!!! So if breastfeeding really keep your fluids up!
I found she slept alot more & loves plane trips, has NEVER once cried on a plane.
But basically try to keep him in some sort of similarity that you would at home... Mainly the fluids is important other than that, I guess ya cant really prepare as it will just be what will be!!!

GoodLuck!

[Fi]

We have flown overseas 3 times with Jenna now - twice to NZ and once to the Cook Islands. All up it took us about a day from home to accommodation when we flew to Rarotonga, although the flights were only 3-4 each. (Melb to Auckland, Auck to Raro) But by the time you drive to the airport, park, check in, then stopover times... Blah blah blah!!!
Take lots of bunny rugs, and check out the facilities as soon as you get to new airports. I've been in 3 now that have great nurseries, with cots and dimmed lights. Really great if you have long stopovers.
Bunny rugs are a must - I put them on everything before letting her play on the ground, in the bassinette etc. Also great for putting over the top of the bassinette in case the lights aren't dimmed. Airports are not the cleanest places!!
Book the bassinette seat for the whole trip (do this as soon as you have your tickets). These will hold babies up to about 9kg in smaller planes, and around 11kg in 747's. Even if bubs doesn't sleep, its a place to chuck them when you are eating your meal.
And DONT get stressed if everyone on the plane is sleeping, and your baby isn't. Tough call, but its not like you can help it if they are screaming and the people behind you are trying to sleep. They can just deal with it.
Hope you have a GREAT trip home. If you have a sling, airports are great places to use them! I found my hugabub invaluable every time we have flown.
Fi

[christy]

We are just about to do this a 14 hour flight to the US. But Matilda is alot older so I guess this comes with different obstacles. Fi thats interesting what you said about the bassinet seats going up to 11kg? Matilda's not 11kg yet and they told us that they only go up to 1 year old....hmmmm maybe I'll get onto them today to check it out as we were told she was too young to have her own seat & too old to get a bassinet, but I can't imagine 14 hours with her on our laps!!

[*Ang*]

We have done a few trips with our DD, the longest being from Perth to Hawaii via Sydney...now that was long! She was a bit older at the time, 14 months but we had no problems. I took along new toys to amuse her on the plane as well as some of her favourites, found books to be the best.

Chirsty our dd was too heavy to fit into the bassinet as it goes by weight not age and as we had been told by a number of travel agents that Sydney to Honolulu is a very full flight we actually paid for a seat for her to guarantee one as we also couldn't see ourselves holding her for sucha long period. It was worth it as there wasn't one single spare seat on the plane and it mean't that she could stretch out and sleep which she did. If you can afford too do so that may be the way to do it.

[Aussie_Chik]

We took Tommy to England and onto Rome when he was 5 months old, best time as far as I'm concenred. Still b/f and no solids! Anyway here are some tips we found useful:

- Take a dark blanket and clothes pegs to put over the bassinette as they are located at the front often near toilets which can be quite noisy and well lit. ](*,)
- take a full sized pillow so if bubs is restless you can feed/sleep on your lap. Great for you if you get the chance to use it too!
- Ask the cabin crew to stagger your meals, it's difficult to get to bubs when both of you have a tray on your lap.
- Tommy had a dummy then so we used that pretty regularly as we didn't want to disturb other passengers but if b/fing whack bubs on whenever to help settle, also feed or give dummy during take off and landing.
- Take some blankets or wraps that are familiar to bubs so the bassinette doesn't seem too stra
nge. (They are quite small too, so hope bubs isn't too big). Also take warm and cooler clothes as the temp in the cabin can vary where the bassinette is. I found Tom was hot most of the time.
- Don't count on watching any movies, even if bubs is asleep if you've got those earphones in you can't hear much else.
- Also don't worry too much about the noise from bubs, we found that other passengers were either asleep, watching movies or listening to movies. many people commented on what a good baby Tommy was and even though he was good he did have the odd cry but noone but us noticed. :-$
- Don't check your pram in at check-in, you can holid onto it and it can go on late at the boarding gate. Also have a baby carrier for your stop over as you won't be able to access your pram then. Also ask were ypour pram will come out at the baggage hall. It often will come out seperately with the over-sized baggage.


This is all I can think of for now, but if you have any other q's don't hesitate to ask!

[Fi]

Christy - the bassinette seats are allocated to the youngest babies. So even if you book one, you could turn up on the day and loose it if there is a younger baby on board. I've been told the same about the age thing, but 747 planes definitly have 11kg limit on the bassinettes. They are huge compared to the clip on ones.
Another thing - dont be afraid to ask for bigger pillows rather than having to take your own. We always have been given business class pillows and blankets for feeding and for Jenna's bassinette. The blankets are much nicer, although they do create a bit of static electricity!! ZAP!

[sunbeam koala]

Thanks everyone!

We've booked the bassinette seat and we have to re-confirm it 14 days ahead - which is tomorrow already. I really hope we get one, it will be tough to hold a wriggling bundle of 7.5 kgs the whole way.

I'm breastfeeding so it seems it should make things easier. Provided I get enough fluids too.

Babybjorn - check
Blankets - check

We're not bringing a pram as there is one waiting for us in Oz. But maybe we will bring the car seat. He can sit in it in the departure lounges and we were going to hire one once we were there, so we wouldn't need to.

Good idea about the meals coming at different times Aussie_Chik.

[Aussie_Chik]

We were fortunate enough to travel business class on our trip and found that even though the pillows were bigger that it still wasn't big enough for Tommy to lay across when he slept on my lap.(Quite often i cheated and fed him to sleep :-$ ) But it's up to you i guess it saves on hand luggage if you just use the ones they supply. Also i found the business class blankets to still be quite scratchy and we weren't given any sheets so it was either blanket or nothing. So I definitaely recommend you take something of your own. Best of Luck and Enjoy, it's tiring but definately worth it in the end.

P.S the way there always seems to be better than the way home!!!

[sunbeam koala]

P.S the way there always seems to be better than the way home!!!

I hadn't even thought that far ahead yet.

Business class sounds a bit of alright though. Wish we could be sitting up the front too. Will take your advice on the sheets and blankets from home. And to save on the hand luggage we're thinking of bringing his doona instead of a pillow.

The way it stands at the moment, the list of stuff we'll be carrying for this little munchkin is about 4 times as long as the list we have for 2 grown ups!

[Aussie_Chik]

Yep! They allow you one nappy bag but we found that we had 2 bags for Tommy and One for us - lol!

[Fi]

I just thought of something else, that I only just found out!! Did you know that they will fill up your bottle of water? So if you take a 750ml water bottle with you, rather than asking for those ****y little glasses of water, give your legs a stretch and go to the food area, and ask if they could fill it up for you! Specially if you are breastfeeding, you will need lots and lots of water!
I actually had a 1L bottle last time, and when I asked them to fill it, they just handed me the 1.5L bottle. And thats worked on AirNZ and Qantas now, so definitly something they should all do.
Besides - wouldn't they rather be serving someone water than another beer?
I got sheets a coupl eof times with my bassinette!! They bought out clean ones for me, and made up the bed. It was great But like I said - bunny rugs are the go. I think we carried 3 of them, and about 6 chucky clothes. Oh - and I budgeted 1 nappy every 2 hours. LOL