If you’re wondering whether it’s worth it, or at least tolerable, to travel thousands of feet in the air with your under-two-year-old sitting, laying and gymnasticking over your lap, read on. We not only survived two such adventures so far, but we managed to eke out some relatively pleasant experiences.
Lap infant vs. purchasing a seat
I won’t spend too much time in this post weighing the pros and cons of buying your little one his or her own seat. There can be merits to both. We opted for the free route. Baby was going to sit in our laps for the journey.
Food for infant air travel
We’ve flown with our daughter when she was six months and 13 months. The food strategies for each of these trips changed slightly because of her age.
Formula and breastfeeding
When she was six months old, we packed clean, empty bottles and a can of formula, banking on the ability to buy water once through security. I wanted to reduce the amount of liquids TSA would be inspecting.
Once we cleared security and settled at the gate, I bought a bottle of water at the nearest kiosk. I had portioned out the correct amount of formula into the three bottles beforehand. My next task was filling a cup with the specified amount of water and pouring it into the prepacked bottles, shaking them up until they frothed and bubbled appetizingly. We accomplished all of this by casually leaning over a suitcase in the middle of the waiting area at the gate, looking, I’m sure, like totally normal, expert mixologists.
Air travel with powdered formula was refreshingly simple. We were combo feeding at the time, so I was also breastfeeding. I surreptitiously nursed baby once at the gate and once on the plane and evaded any dirty looks or other complications, as far as I could tell.
Whole milk and breastmilk
For our most recent trip, when baby was 13 months, we took a different approach. She was finally drinking whole milk– a boon to our wallets.
This time, I filled two bottles with whole milk, knowing I’d have to purchase more after landing but not before getting on the plane.
In the same little cooler, I included a small ice pack and one four-ounce bag of frozen breastmilk squirreled away from my nursing days. Granted, this bag was not necessary, but I included it in order to prop up baby’s immune system through its battery of travels.
The Bottles of Milk food approach was also pretty easy and did not include measuring and mixing things like displaced mad scientists.
Snacks
Though snacks weren’t a huge forcus of our trip when baby was six months old, it was a major component in my planning when she was 13 months.
For a one-year-old, snacks can also serve as entertainment. (Important! See Play section.)
I packed a snack cup with Cheerios, and this was a delicious hit for the first half hour while we were waiting on the runway. The snack cup, expertly designed, had soft slits covering the opening so that the contents wouldn’t pour when tipped upside down but could still be extracted by tiny, careful fingers. It has little handles for baby hands to grip. I still marvel at this progress of humanity.
The other snack items we brought flying were food pouches– sometimes they include an entire baby food meal, and sometimes they are filled solely with applesauce. My daughter is delighted by these edible wonders and tries to squeeze her own pouch each time. Remembering a poignant learning experience in which the pouch had exploded all over the back of our car, I sagely and calculatingly controlled the flow of the smoothielike food, and it was an overall pleasant transferral of nutrition.
Sleep for infant travel
Sleep is a huge travel consideration, because if baby sleeps, so do the parents. Things are generally more happy all around when sleep has taken place.
We brought baby’s Hatch sound machine for sleeping during the actual vacation part of the trip, but it needs to be plugged into an outlet, so it was a no-go on the plane. Plus, it’s big.
That’s why a portable sound machine would be a very useful item to bring while flying with a baby. We didn’t have one of those handy things, but baby still managed to catch some z’s going both to and from our destination!
On the first flight, I was able to lull her to sleep in my arms. I cradled and rocked her while repeatedly whispering “shh” like the ocean waves crashing against the craggy shore. Or like a Kindergarten teacher attempting to wrangle her class through an assembly.
My built-in sound machine (“shhh….shhh…shhh”) helped carry my sweet baby into Dream Land. Or maybe she was just that tired. This technique is one I learned from Taking Cara Babies.
As far as how baby slept once we got to our destination (Pennsylvania), we were lucky to be lent a 1980’s playpen. I audibly gasped and complimented the cutting-edge, Reagan-era pairing of teal and light pink walls of the pen. The mat was the same as our modern-day version– a trifold square of discomfort. These mats don’t seem to have any padding or anything resembling a bed, so I brought a fitted sheet containing a thin layer of soft batting to ameliorate this. Though we had a tricky first few nights, baby slept whole nights and even daytime naps in the 80’s playpen on the puffy sheeted mat.
Potty for infant travel
Though the airline allowed us to bring a free-of-charge diaper bag with the lap infant, we still had to be judicious about what would make the cut in this piece of luggage. Between the Hatch, puffy fitted sheet, five outfits, and her bottles, the diaper bag was practically bursting.
Because of this bulky diaper bag situation, I opted to pack five diapers to get us through the first day or so of travel until we could buy more at our destination.
Most of our flights, in the two trips we took, did not require an inflight diaper change…except the one.
While flying to Pennsylvania, it became clear a change would need to be implemented. I briefly considered trying to grapple with the situation on the floor by our seats, but this would be ludicrous. We already had two backpacks and a very pregnant-looking diaper bag half squished under the seat in front of us, half spilling out into the row.
With assistance, I scooped up my daughter and grabbed a single diaper, pack of wipes and trifold changing mat. We headed to the rear of the plane, where a kind flight attendant pried open the little lavatory door. I never knew where or how one could perform a diaper change on a baby on a plane, and I was about to learn something.
“Where can I change her, please?” I asked the stewardess, feeling stupid, examining a room barely big enough for one person to turn around in.
She flicked a handle, and a plastic platform swung down over the top of the bowl. I thanked her, noting this interesting secret compartmen as I flopped my supplies down (changing mat on the table, diaper and wipes on top of the sink) and slowly laid my daughter down. The table spanned the width of the bathroom, and baby seemed to wedge in just right, hair tickling one wall, toes tapping the other.
After performing the change, using a profuse amount of wipes and attempting to wrestle the changing table back to its upright position with one hand, we emerged from the little lavatory stronger, cleaner, and more educated than when we entered. The inflight diaper change had been a success.
Play for infant air travel
Traveling by plane is a unique and special time where you get to be squished in a tube with lots of strangers and allowed no more than a teeny square of room for which your energetic baby to navigate and generally exist in. The pressure was on to ensure others would not be shooting us death glares across row 20.
We deployed several strategies to keep baby happy and entertained. I’ll start with the freer or near-free options:
Peek-a-boo
This classic game has stood the test of time. While baby is looking, hide your face with your hands, a hat, or any other item, and then reveal it suddenly with a dramatic expression. Repeat!
Chase the Cheerio
If baby seems to be getting a bit crabby or bored while snacking on Cheerios, you can spice the experience up by taking a single piece and zipping it through the air engagingly. Draw imaginary squiggles and zigzags with the Cheerio, add some cool sound effects you make up on the spot, and finally, with a flourish, pop that cereal into baby’s mouth. Impressive!
You’ve Got a Friend in Me
This activity was entirely baby-led. She would simply beam to the person across the row from us, disarming them completely with her expansive, near-toothless grin. She would stretch out her little fingers and try to touch this awesome new friend. How did I end up with an extroverted child?
Some toys we brought that entertained baby:
Books (especially a peek-a-boo book where sliders reveal exciting farm animal illustrations!)
Montessori toy: This toy, which I call the doodad, contains numerous fun play features. My daughter was obsessed with a single feature– the button that can be pressed and flicked to the next hole.
Toy remote: We didn’t utilize this on the plane, because it’s rather loud and musical, but it was frequently used and enjoyed on car rides.
Transport for infant travel
We bought a simple, lightweight umbrella stroller for the recent trip. It was worth it just to be able to wheel baby around the airport with little effort. This thing folds up sleeker than a camping chair and was allowed (by our airline, at least) to be gate checked free of charge. When we had some time to kill at the gate, we took baby for a spin in this stroller. Sweet!
We also brought a baby carrier on the trip. It was so nice using this to take baby on hikes! I totally recommend bringing some sort of age-appropriate baby wearing device while traveling. (I personally preferred using wraps while baby was six months or younger, and a carrier with straps for when she was older.)
Preparing for and enjoying family travel
It pays to take some time to plan for meeting a baby’s needs while on a trip– especially when flying. But sometimes there can be surprises that jumble even the best-laid plans. It’s all part of the travel experience, I guess. And I’m pretty sure readjusting expectations for oneself as a parent is a prerequisite in the parenting experience as well. Godspeed if you have to change a diaper on a flight or prevent your baby from petting strangers. Make some memories!
