How do your travel by plane with a 14mo old?

Hi Guys,

I am planning on taking my DD to see my parents overseas soon. She will be 14 months old. We've done a one hour flight with her on my lap and she seemed to have no problems with cabin pressure on her ears.

This upcoming flight is 7 hours. Does anyone have suggestions on what I should do?

What options do I have regarding seating? How does baby seating work anyway? She'll be too big for a bassinette and too big to sit on my lap for 7 hrs... Should I pick a night flight so she sleeps for most of it?

Any advice would be great.

tia
neuri

hmmm i haven't done it before, but if it were me i'd be getting her her own seat... an hour is one thing, but 7 hours of holding her on your lap etc, well i know with my dd there is just no way she would go for it, she'd have a fit.

i'd also be timing it for when she is awake, cos i know with mine, if it was night time and she was ready to have a sleep, but wouldn't/couldn't, it would make things ALOT harder due to her being cranky and overtired, IYKWIM, whereas during the day she is generally happy and okay...

anyhoo good luck, (brave) people do it all the time so i'm sure you'll be fine!!

Hey Neuri

You will be fine! Just be prepared to feel like you are on that plane forever! Just joking!

My DD is that age at the moment so I'm trying to imagine what would work for her if I was in your situation..hmmm..PLENTY of snacks that's for sure..sultanas are great because they keep them occupied for a while...books..portable DVD player? (if you are allowed)..boobies if she's still bf!..toys..and of course she'll sleep some of the way I'd say.
At this age my DD loves to be semi independent and enjoys sitting on seats all by herself. Not sure if it helps to know that or not.

My friend is going to overseas with her 14 month old soon, for an even longer flight then yours. And I think she has stretched the truth about how much bub weighs so he can have the bassinette! But I'm not sure what other seating options you have, but I'd definitely give the airline a call.

Like Emma said, I think timing the flight to suit bub will help a lot too.

Good luck!

DH and i flew with DD at aged 16months to europe last year (total 22 hours plus flying plus stopover and transits etc) We left syd on a night flight, had bottles ready with water she could drink whilst taking off/landing plus dummy/and B.f whenever she wanted it, we took own snacks, like fruit sticks, heinz bars, cheese sticks (the ones not needed to be in fridge), tubs of fruit, as the airlines only had baby food with was pureed stuff which she never ate even when she was a baby. had a bag of mixed toys to rotate thru out the flight (mini doddle sketcher, finger puppets, new books, play phone etc) she was to a little too long for the bassinette but it gaves us some time where she wasnt in arms so we too could nap for short periods, and was at the maximum weight for it too but they let us use it. (u will prob have 2 make a request with airline for one)
we had her on our laps, DH and i took turns cos if u want a seat u have to pay the extra, there's a seatbelt extension u will need to use takeoff/landing & when seatbelt light on. u can take a pram to the gate where u depart (i guess it depends who u fly with) and they check it on under plane last thing and then bring it to u @ exit when u get off the plane, u might have to wait a few minutes for it at the arrival gate. wait til the last moment to get on plane, pack extra clothes - can get hot or cold on flight, layers good, extra nappies etc. we found DD took a while to get to sleep even tho our flight left at 9.30 pm and she would normally been asleep but then slept fairly well, even if we didnt, cos when she'd stirwe would wake to make sure she was safe in bassinette or change position in our arms. good luck. sorry for long reply, Hope this helps

If i only had to take ONE thing it would have to definately be an ERGO Baby Carrier - hands down!!! You can carry your baby on your front, hip or back very very comfortably! It will support children up to 18kgs which is about the equivalent to a 4 year old!!

I have travelled A LOT with my children and it has always been a breeze..... just pop the little one on my back and then i have hands free to deal with tickets, luggage and the older child!

The ERGO range also has a back pack and front pouch that cleverly clip on to the actual carrier to increase teh capacity of what you can carry hands free! Check it out - definately worth it!

It is a totally brilliant design - by a fellow mum (of course) :dance:!! I was just sharing on another post that i just saw that the Babes in Arms website have 20% of the Indigo ERGOs at the moment.....

We just got back from a 9 hour international flight on Thursday. DS # 1 is 4 and DS # 2 is 15 months. abbadabbadoo has some great advice. Only the night flight was HEAPS better for us because they both slept the whole way back. Going over was diificult. This was a day flight. They were both sick on the plane so definately take a few changes of clothes. There are 2 seats on the plane that have anchor points for baby car seats so we booked that seat and for the day flight DS # 2 sat in his car seat. We had to pay the child fare for the seat though. I would definately pay the extra and get a seat for DD. It will be a lot cheaper than your seat and give you heaps more room. We took snacks and new toys and we also took an ipod touch that had their favourite TV shows on it. We had them drinking or sipping for both take off and landing and that all went smoothly. I also took DS # 2 favourite blanket to sleep (which was good because the plane was freezing) as this was a familar thing for sleep time. He doesnt use a dummy so if your DD uses a dummy make sure you don't forget it. We bought the quicksmart stroller and they let us put that in the bag and take it on as carry on. Check when you check in though is you have this because the size of the bag is slightly bigger than the allowed carry on size. A hit with toys for us was one of those things that light up and spin when you press a button. I don't know what they are called but they are really bright and spin around. You see them at shows. Well DS # 2 loved this and spent a long time working out how to press the button in and played with it. It is really hard to tell how they will be on the plane. We didnt have such a good day flight but the night flight was great because they slept. I think we were very lucky though that they didnt get overtired otherwise it might of been a bad night flight. If I think of anything else I will post again.

Just one question. Are you travelling on your own or is there someone else going with you?

Hi again,

Thanks very much for your replies. Gives me lots to think about! I will def. pack a mountain of snacks and toys.

Lukesmum, I'll be traveling on my own this time. You're not going to believe it, but on that one hour flight we actually left her nappy bag in the terminal by accident! My DH was insisting on running off the plane to look for it but they told him to sit down and behave himself because we were already moving. By some divine intervention, I had her dummy in my pocket and she was carrying her blanket, so it wasn't too bad in the end though I was nearly in tears at the lost nappy bag :doh: We did get it back on the way home thank goodness.

Seriously, I don't know how you guys (and other parents) do it. Especially with babies that can't sit still for a second. DD kept kicking the back of the seat in front of us. The poor dude kept turning around to give us evils :rolleyes:

I will fork out for a child fare so she can have her own seat. If they let me have a bassinette, then better yet. She's a big, heavy bubba and long too, so we'll see how much I can stretch the truth. She hates sleeping upright, it's gotta be flat or nothing.

I read about brining your own car seat, but I suppose the flight crew will help to install it? Eeek...I will have to juggle a wriggly DD plus carry on plus car seat. I am wondering if she will be walking by then...I'm guessing probably!

Ahhh. Fun times traveling with kids innit? :P

neuri

I asked if you were travelling on your own because of the car seat. I don't think I would take the car seat if I had to do it again on my own because it would of been impossible to carry that, plus the carry on bag plus DS. It is handy though to give you a break. You can just strap her in and she can't run around. Will she watch TV? Call and make sure you have a screen on the seat she will be sitting in. They have kids movies and shows that she can tune in to. DS doesnt leave the headphones on so he can't hear it but he is more impressed with the bright pictures. I also took panadol on for them. The dr said to do this in case the pressure started hurting their ears. I didn't use it on the way back but DS was really fussy on the way over, crying a lot which is not like him so I gave him some panadol and he went to sleep not long after. I don't know if it was the pressure or not though. Another thing I did was on landing to get him to stay strapped in and calm I gave him a pen and a piece of paper and he scribbled on it for the whole landing. Just have to make sure she doesnt put the pen in her mouth. If you are on an international flight, which I am guessing you will be on have all your embarkment, disembarkment cards filled out straight after you check in as well as the landing cards for the particular country. You might not even get a spare minute on the plane to do it and if you do it as soon as you check, you will be more relaxed and then you can get straight of the plane and go through immigration without rushing to fill in forms.