Travel Will Never be the Same
This is how I looked after 12 hours of traveling - including at 4:00 a.m. wake up, an hour drive, two flights totaling over eight hours and taking care of an almost toddler:
What you can't really see in the picture are two additional bags - a duffel and a diaper bag. We don't travel light (anymore).
But you know what? Despite how attractive I look in the picture, ;) it honestly wasn't that bad. This wasn't Clara's first time on a plane. We flew to Pensacola, Fl about two months prior. That was that bad. But there were a few things that contributed to that...
1) We made it a weekend trip. This is my first piece of advice - the second that baby comes outta ya, there are no more weekend trips. Weekend trips are for hip, young, childless couples who are able to be spontaneous and cool and what not. We weren't even like that before we had a baby, so how we thought we could make it work after a baby is beyond me. By the time we had recovered from our flights on Friday afternoon, we were back on the plane Sunday morning. Clara was not a fan.
2) The flights (two each way) were so short that by the time Clara got comfortable enough to sleep, it was time to land.
3) I went in with the thought "How bad could it really be?" I should have listed this as mistake #1...because you know what? It *can* be that bad. It can be exhausting and your baby can cry half the flight (if not more) and you can get bad looks from other passengers and you can have a 45 minute layover with a poopy diaper (hers, not mine) in the busiest airport in the world and have to change terminals and your husband can get stuck in the tram door. It can be that bad. Prepare for the worst, my friends.
So after that trip, we learned some things. And we were better prepared for this cross-country trip. While I am still super nervous to fly with her ALONE next month, cross-country, I know we will survive. Here is a list of the things that I learned...because having taken two vacations with one baby, that clearly makes me an expert. Just like having an 11-month old obviously qualifies me to write a mommy blog that 4.75 people read.
1. Check the car seat. It's free with Alaska Airlines. I am not sure if it is with Air Tran (who we flew the first time) but she was in her infant seat then and it was easier to slid onto a handle of a piece of carry-on luggage before we gate checked it. But if you can check it for free with the rest of your baggage, it's totally worth it, especially once they reach the convertible car seat stage. The airline should be able to provide a large bag for your to put it in - unfortunately, on our way back, they were out of bags. I was rather annoyed but the car seat came back fine.
2. Put all your liquids/gels/etc. in one bag. This sounds like common sense but it's a piece of advice I ignored for our first trip. I thought that I wouldn't want to waste space in the diaper bag with a bunch of medicine, food, etc. that I may or may not use on the flight, but would want in our overhead carry on just in case. But then I was "that mom" in security digging through three separate bags to try and find all the liquids for them to test. And it's hard to do that while trying to slyly wipe the sweat that is dripping down the small of your back. It's not a pretty picture.
3. Related to the above, allow extra time at security. Having a baby probably only added about 5-10 minutes max, but you never know. And I'm one of those "OMG it's two hours until our flight we should be checking in RIGHT NOW and I am starting to sweat and omg what if we can't board exactly 30 minutes prior omgomgomg" OCD anal types. You know the people I'm talking about...they have frizzy hair and are trying to wipe sweat from various parts of their body.
4. Wear your baby. If you're not into baby-wearing now (which in my totally unbiased opinion, you should be because it's awesome and it gives me TWO HANDS) get on that shizz before you travel. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when Clara is too big or won't tolerate being worn anymore...I guess she'll just have to walk and I'll actually have to direct her and expect her to listen. Yikes. That's a scary thought...so I just stick her in the ergo. If you want to bring a stroller for your destination (gate check it), you can use that to push some of your carry on items while wearing the baby. For our Florida trip, I took her off to walk through the x-ray machine because I thought I had to. DON'T DO IT! Combine that with the liquids over 3.4 ounces and the sweat and it's just a bad idea. Just walk through the x-ray machine wearing your baby...they will have to run a strip over your hand to make sure you don't have something illegal on them, which adds a couple minutes to your time but it's no big deal. The ergo also helped on the plane because I could wear her, put her hood up to block out the light, and bounce up and down to get her to sleep. Bonus: My neighbor got a great view of my bouncing ass and my calves got quite the work out. TRIPLE WIN.
5. Get a new an exciting (and quiet-ish) toy for the plane ride. We purchased a fake toy cell phone. She still prefers to lose her sh!t over ours so we have to hide them from her, but this was a nice substitute. Bonus was that it had a fabric hook on it so I could hook it on her link toys so if she threw the toy (99% probability of this happening) I had the other end of the links and hopefully it wouldn't hit the person in front of us.
6. Snacks. Snacks. Snacks. (To the tune of SHOTSHOTSHOTSHOTSHOTS Patron on the Rocks because I am mother of the year.) Goldfish. Graham crackers. Nutrigrain bars. Although don't try to be all hippie and "Look at me, I'm a crunchy mom" and buy the organic version of nutrigrain bars because they crumble all over everything and it's not fun. Clara still loves those pouch food things and sucks them down like a bottle, plus they are all healthy and everything and it might balance out the cracker/carb buffet I listed above. Snacks make babies (and mommy) happy and they can take up a good portion of the flight.
7. We did not cloth diaper on this trip...we really don't CD on vacation at all. I'm a hippie but I'm not all "Ok cool I'm going to take my kid camping and clean her diaper in the river" hippie. You have to draw the line somewhere. Pack more diapers and wipes than you think you will need. Pressure changes do something to a baby's (ok all humans) system. Enough said.
8. Ask when you check in if they have any empty rows. For each of our five hour flights, they were able to get us the entire back row to ourselves. Yes, the seats don't recline and there is a lot of noise - you have to decide for yourselves if this will be worth it or not. For us, it was. We could sit in the aisle and window and let Clara stand on the floor in front of the middle seat and play. She has a tough time sleeping in new places so the extra noise made me nervous, but it wasn't much different than when we had an aisle and middle seat closer to the front.
9. This probably goes without saying but bring a "lovey" or blankie or something from home. I really think this helped Clara go to sleep.
10. Most parents also know this, but something to suck on for takeoff/landing. Our Florida flights is where I got really pissed at the world that I was not nursing anymore...this would have helped with her ears but also going to sleep. If you aren't nursing, a bottle, paci or sippy cup. I'm going to be honest when I say Clara didn't even seem to notice her ears, the only time she got really upset was when she got really tired and wasn't asleep.]
11. If all us fails, tranquilize 'em. No judgment here. After our Florida trip our pediatrician recommended it and I questioned it for a long time (because I like to pretend I'm a real hippie) but I eventually tested it on her one day (just to make sure she wasn't one of those kids who goes crazy on Benadryl) and it had no effect whatsoever on her. So, not worth it for us.
12. I know this isn't an option for everybody, but if you can - board room. I had some passes from our Alaska Airlines credit card and my dad gave us some too, and we had a long enough layover in Seattle on the way home to go in there. We made Clara a little room to crawl around against a corner window (aka trapped her in) and she was able to move around while we enjoyed free food.
And because my kid is the cutest, here are some pictures of our travel....Posts coming up: Alaska trip, and my BFF soulmate.
But you know what? Despite how attractive I look in the picture, ;) it honestly wasn't that bad. This wasn't Clara's first time on a plane. We flew to Pensacola, Fl about two months prior. That was that bad. But there were a few things that contributed to that...
1) We made it a weekend trip. This is my first piece of advice - the second that baby comes outta ya, there are no more weekend trips. Weekend trips are for hip, young, childless couples who are able to be spontaneous and cool and what not. We weren't even like that before we had a baby, so how we thought we could make it work after a baby is beyond me. By the time we had recovered from our flights on Friday afternoon, we were back on the plane Sunday morning. Clara was not a fan.
2) The flights (two each way) were so short that by the time Clara got comfortable enough to sleep, it was time to land.
3) I went in with the thought "How bad could it really be?" I should have listed this as mistake #1...because you know what? It *can* be that bad. It can be exhausting and your baby can cry half the flight (if not more) and you can get bad looks from other passengers and you can have a 45 minute layover with a poopy diaper (hers, not mine) in the busiest airport in the world and have to change terminals and your husband can get stuck in the tram door. It can be that bad. Prepare for the worst, my friends.
So after that trip, we learned some things. And we were better prepared for this cross-country trip. While I am still super nervous to fly with her ALONE next month, cross-country, I know we will survive. Here is a list of the things that I learned...because having taken two vacations with one baby, that clearly makes me an expert. Just like having an 11-month old obviously qualifies me to write a mommy blog that 4.75 people read.
1. Check the car seat. It's free with Alaska Airlines. I am not sure if it is with Air Tran (who we flew the first time) but she was in her infant seat then and it was easier to slid onto a handle of a piece of carry-on luggage before we gate checked it. But if you can check it for free with the rest of your baggage, it's totally worth it, especially once they reach the convertible car seat stage. The airline should be able to provide a large bag for your to put it in - unfortunately, on our way back, they were out of bags. I was rather annoyed but the car seat came back fine.
2. Put all your liquids/gels/etc. in one bag. This sounds like common sense but it's a piece of advice I ignored for our first trip. I thought that I wouldn't want to waste space in the diaper bag with a bunch of medicine, food, etc. that I may or may not use on the flight, but would want in our overhead carry on just in case. But then I was "that mom" in security digging through three separate bags to try and find all the liquids for them to test. And it's hard to do that while trying to slyly wipe the sweat that is dripping down the small of your back. It's not a pretty picture.
3. Related to the above, allow extra time at security. Having a baby probably only added about 5-10 minutes max, but you never know. And I'm one of those "OMG it's two hours until our flight we should be checking in RIGHT NOW and I am starting to sweat and omg what if we can't board exactly 30 minutes prior omgomgomg" OCD anal types. You know the people I'm talking about...they have frizzy hair and are trying to wipe sweat from various parts of their body.
4. Wear your baby. If you're not into baby-wearing now (which in my totally unbiased opinion, you should be because it's awesome and it gives me TWO HANDS) get on that shizz before you travel. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when Clara is too big or won't tolerate being worn anymore...I guess she'll just have to walk and I'll actually have to direct her and expect her to listen. Yikes. That's a scary thought...so I just stick her in the ergo. If you want to bring a stroller for your destination (gate check it), you can use that to push some of your carry on items while wearing the baby. For our Florida trip, I took her off to walk through the x-ray machine because I thought I had to. DON'T DO IT! Combine that with the liquids over 3.4 ounces and the sweat and it's just a bad idea. Just walk through the x-ray machine wearing your baby...they will have to run a strip over your hand to make sure you don't have something illegal on them, which adds a couple minutes to your time but it's no big deal. The ergo also helped on the plane because I could wear her, put her hood up to block out the light, and bounce up and down to get her to sleep. Bonus: My neighbor got a great view of my bouncing ass and my calves got quite the work out. TRIPLE WIN.
5. Get a new an exciting (and quiet-ish) toy for the plane ride. We purchased a fake toy cell phone. She still prefers to lose her sh!t over ours so we have to hide them from her, but this was a nice substitute. Bonus was that it had a fabric hook on it so I could hook it on her link toys so if she threw the toy (99% probability of this happening) I had the other end of the links and hopefully it wouldn't hit the person in front of us.
6. Snacks. Snacks. Snacks. (To the tune of SHOTSHOTSHOTSHOTSHOTS Patron on the Rocks because I am mother of the year.) Goldfish. Graham crackers. Nutrigrain bars. Although don't try to be all hippie and "Look at me, I'm a crunchy mom" and buy the organic version of nutrigrain bars because they crumble all over everything and it's not fun. Clara still loves those pouch food things and sucks them down like a bottle, plus they are all healthy and everything and it might balance out the cracker/carb buffet I listed above. Snacks make babies (and mommy) happy and they can take up a good portion of the flight.
7. We did not cloth diaper on this trip...we really don't CD on vacation at all. I'm a hippie but I'm not all "Ok cool I'm going to take my kid camping and clean her diaper in the river" hippie. You have to draw the line somewhere. Pack more diapers and wipes than you think you will need. Pressure changes do something to a baby's (ok all humans) system. Enough said.
8. Ask when you check in if they have any empty rows. For each of our five hour flights, they were able to get us the entire back row to ourselves. Yes, the seats don't recline and there is a lot of noise - you have to decide for yourselves if this will be worth it or not. For us, it was. We could sit in the aisle and window and let Clara stand on the floor in front of the middle seat and play. She has a tough time sleeping in new places so the extra noise made me nervous, but it wasn't much different than when we had an aisle and middle seat closer to the front.
9. This probably goes without saying but bring a "lovey" or blankie or something from home. I really think this helped Clara go to sleep.
10. Most parents also know this, but something to suck on for takeoff/landing. Our Florida flights is where I got really pissed at the world that I was not nursing anymore...this would have helped with her ears but also going to sleep. If you aren't nursing, a bottle, paci or sippy cup. I'm going to be honest when I say Clara didn't even seem to notice her ears, the only time she got really upset was when she got really tired and wasn't asleep.]
11. If all us fails, tranquilize 'em. No judgment here. After our Florida trip our pediatrician recommended it and I questioned it for a long time (because I like to pretend I'm a real hippie) but I eventually tested it on her one day (just to make sure she wasn't one of those kids who goes crazy on Benadryl) and it had no effect whatsoever on her. So, not worth it for us.
12. I know this isn't an option for everybody, but if you can - board room. I had some passes from our Alaska Airlines credit card and my dad gave us some too, and we had a long enough layover in Seattle on the way home to go in there. We made Clara a little room to crawl around against a corner window (aka trapped her in) and she was able to move around while we enjoyed free food.
And because my kid is the cutest, here are some pictures of our travel....Posts coming up: Alaska trip, and my BFF soulmate.
Graham crackers = baby crack.
Crossing my fingers this lasts!
Making us an extra special gift in her pants on the plane.
View from the plane coming into Alaska
We made it to AK!
Seattle board room
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