Things To Consider Before Flying With Your Baby

Hello and welcome! We are the Travel Family Academy and my name is Maray. If you are into learning how to effectively and efficiently travel with baby and toddlers, make sure you hit the subscribe button as we share weekly and daily content that helps you plan, prepare and master traveling with little kids. But let's jump right into it. Today we're going to talk about all the things you need to know about traveling with babies, specifically for plane travel. Today we're going to discuss all the things you want to consider when you're thinking about jumping on the plane with a baby and toddlers. So let's jump right in. Best ways to keep your baby entertained. I know if you're planning on traveling with your baby, one of the things that's in your mind is, how am I going to keep this child entertained? So if you have a little baby, this is a question that you have maybe having depending on how active your baby is. But if you have a toddler, you definitely have this question, especially if you're planning a flight. So if you're doing a flight that's like two hours, three hours, and you plan your flight around your baby's nap time, then you will get lucky. And if you have a child that's under one year old, you're also going to be really lucky because likely they sleep three, four times a day. So there are a lot of options for you to be able to book a flight during their nap time. But if you have an older child, a more active baby, or you just cannot find the flight in their nap time, here's how to think of entertainment. First thing you want to keep in mind is that a baby and a toddler, especially ones that have never been on a flight before, will find absolutely everything about flying exciting, right? It's all brand new. So before you load up your bag with like a bunch of stuff to bring for the flight, think about the age of your child. If your child is younger than six months, you need to bring nothing on the flight with you. Your baby will look at things, find the colors, the noise, the music with the flight is taking off, all the people walking around and you so exciting they will not have time to play with anything. They'll be so tired from all the excitement of the airport and getting there that they probably will not even like be awake through the flight. But if you have a toddler, a little bit older child, I would say over one year old, you definitely want to bring some toys. You want to bring some toys that your child is already used to playing with and that you know they're going to enjoy. But you also want to bring a wow factor in case they're having a rough time. This could be a nice surprise. And how do you make sure a toy is brand new, but also something they already like, right? So here's what we do. We buy a toy specifically for travel a week or two weeks before flying. So usually what I do is I get something that's specific to flying. So either a little plastic plane or a wooden plane or a book about going to the airport or going on a trip or a little traveler toy, a stuffed animal, something that is just for the flight that you know your child is going to enjoy. I take it out two, three weeks before a flight and I let them see it, enjoy it, have fun with it. Then I hide it and then I bring it out on the flight. This works like a charm because you already know they like this toy. They already associate this toy with adventure because it's what it is and it's been introduced to them already before. And it's a surprise because they probably forgot about this toy or haven't seen it in a while. So this is how you can ensure you keep your toddler entertained and also have something new for them on the flight. Stick to one or two toys. Usually even now that my child is almost three years old, what I like to do is I bring one toy, one bulky plastic item. I try to have as small as possible and I bring a book and coloring. So one activity that is sort of calming but also entertaining like coloring or stickers or something like this. And then one activity that is a little bit more engaging like for them to play with. Usually an educational toy, a toy that has more than one part but doesn't have a lot of little pieces. And obviously we also use tablets. So a lot of people are like no no, no tv, no screen, no nothing like that on the flight. But I like to think that when we're flying everything goes because when I'm flying I do things that I normally don't do at home. I'll watch three movies in a row, I'll have a beer at 10 in the morning, I'll eat the crappy food that I normally try not to eat. So why not for the toddler or the baby who is having a hard time? And if they're having a good time you will also be having a good time and so is everybody on the flight. So if that's okay for you bring a phone and let them use it. One tip about this that I will tell you is make sure you try to play the games or the movies or whatever it is on your tablet or your phone before you get on the flight. So you know how a lot of things are stored on the cloud? Well if you don't play them often enough when you try to play them if you have no wi-fi they won't play. This happened to me already once and I know this may seem silly maybe I'm the only person who made this mistake but I had all the movies, the games, everything ready. This is a very long flight. It was a nine hour flight and I didn't check before the flight and as soon as we boarded the flight I tried to play the movie and it was not loaded. It was on the cloud. So obviously this led to a horrible situation on the flight but we had to get really creative. Luckily for us this plane did have the screen right in front of our seats so she was fine but it's just something for you to keep in mind that you don't want to be like you know relying on this movie so they're going to be watching and then you get to the plane and it's not available. So keep that in mind for your next flight and do not overthink entertainment. Oftentimes your child just wants to connect with you. They want to learn what the experience is, what is happening, what are all those white fluffy stuff outside the window. So don't disregard interacting with your child for the flight but if you're looking for some other entertainment I hope this was helpful. Next topic we're going to cover today is car seats. So we have a whole video dedicated to car seats. If you are interested in learning all the tricks and tips and all the do's and don't do's of traveling with a car seat on a flight I suggest you check out the description. We'll include the link for that video in there but just to give you a little bit of that sort of planning process what you want to consider when you're thinking of flying with your baby when it comes to car seats is is the car seat allowed to be on the flight with you? Will you check your car seat on the counter at the beginning of your airport transition or at the gate right before you board? Will you be needing your car seat at your destination so do you need to bring it with you and how complex will it be for you to actually take this whole thing through security? So a lot of people have this really like cheap and light travel car seats the or some of the variations but if you have a heavy car seat and you're going to like a resort for an entire week maybe it's not worth to bring a car seat just for the shuttle maybe it's better for you to find the shuttle that already comes with a car seat. So just some of the things you want to think about but before you jump on like buying tickets please please please take a moment to try to think about what you're going to do car seat wise because you will need them in most countries especially for very little kids. It's going to be something that you're going to be stressing about if you don't have it and you end up needing it and it's something worth planning ahead for because you may have to buy a traveling car seat a traveling car seat bag car to roll around the airport etc etc so just something for you to think about. The next thing that you definitely should be thinking about when you buy a car seat is I mean when you're bringing a car seat is make sure this car seat is FAA approved. Most car seats in the United States will be FAA approved you can see this when you find the sticker either on the headrest or at the base of the car seat it should say it's usually written in red there's only about one or two car seats in the U.S. at the moment who are not FAA approved but it's just something for you to keep in mind because the last thing you want is to go ahead and buy a new car seat for travel and then it's not approved by the airline so you can't even take another flight. Moving on to the next thing we want to think about packing okay so I know a lot of us like to buy those cheap tickets and just travel with a backpack or some of us like to bring everything with us and that's totally fine whatever it is that you're going to do just double check with your airline how much is it going to cost you to bring extra luggage with you how much carry-on are you allowed to bring and always know that your bag of food does not count towards your carry-on so if you have only an item a personal item or an item and a carry-on or a checked bag regardless of the fare you have bringing a bag of food for your baby does not count towards your carry-on allotment especially if it's food for the baby so just make sure you know that and you plan in advance how much you're going to bring with you it's so uncomfortable to get to the airport and have to end up figuring things out shifting weight or paying a bunch of money because you have a baby right there and the last thing you want is to throw so plan ahead of time think about how much you're bringing with you book your bags in advance and most importantly be ready with your carry-on bag on what you bring if you don't know this yet we have a free checklist you can download the link will be out of below in the description but we have a checklist you can bring so you never forget anything on your carry-on because let me tell you it is a very different thing to have a carry-on bag or a food bag with everything ready for your child for any emergency a bathroom run a diaper explosion and last minute i'm hungry i don't want to eat anything else you have right situation versus having a bag up in the plane you have to get up move the whole plane the seat belt sign is on you can't access the bag oh my gosh there's poop everywhere you know if you want to be sure you have your carry-on sorted and ready to go let us know send us a message or just click down below in the description we'll have a free checklist ready for you but always make sure you know exactly what is inside of your carry-on bag your diaper bag and that you have everything you need for the flight portion and arrival portion with your baby remember your flight is not just the moment you're in the plane you should plan for your flight day from the moment you leave the house all the way until you arrive your accommodation or at your destination because all that transit time that we often don't think about is when things happen when a lot of cars shaking and there's a diaper explosion when it takes a little bit longer than we expected because there was traffic and now the baby's thirsty and we don't have water etc etc just make sure you plan for that the next question that everybody wonders is can i bring formula and milk through the airport again this goes into the planning of what's going to come with you in your carry-on and what you're going to have along with you but make sure you pack enough milk or formula for your baby if you are breastfeeding this is going to make your whole transition your whole traveling process so much easier but for a lot of us that's not the case make sure you bring enough milk and or formula to prepare with your baby we have articles and videos on how to bring the milk and breast milk and the breast pump and all that stuff we also have a lot of information on how to prepare your formula before the flight during the flight and what to do so make sure you head over to our blog which is travelfamilyacademy.com and we have tons of articles to help you plan this through just know that you are allowed to bring as much breast milk and as much formula as you like even if it's more than your allotted 3.4 ounces or 100 millimeters so just make sure you bring enough of that with you because the last thing you want is again a hangry baby on a traveling situation how do you handle a crying baby on a flight we have a lot of content for you to be able to plan this out obviously thinking of entertainment and thinking of food are two things you can do that to prepare yourself for that if your baby is well fed likely they won't be crying for hunger if your baby you know your diaper their diaper is changed they're not this uncomfortable likely they won't be crying for that reason the next thing is to plan for sleep and handle the sleep for the flight if you don't know about this yet we have a workshop that teaches you exactly how we get our baby to sleep on every single flight it's a very simple but very hard to come up with on your own three-step method that we have devised for this you can find the link for that workshop on our description as well this workshop is ten dollars it's going to be the best ten dollars you ever spent we teach you exactly how we've managed to get our baby to sleep in over 100 different flights once you've already had the sleep covered food covered the comfort the diapers or the bathroom situations just know that there is not much more you can do obviously there are things you can do and there's a video that we have as well for ear pressure for takeoff and landing just make sure they're chewing on something drinking something eating something but besides all these things besides trying to distract your child besides making sure they're comfortable they're rested etc there's only so much you can do one thing that's always helped me when it comes to these moments right of exposure when your child is freaking out and you just don't know what else to do is i like to remind myself that we were all children and so even if you have a person giving you a weird look or making you feel uncomfortable try to zone that out and i know it's easier said than done but concentrate on your child because this is an opportunity for you to teach your child what it's like to be on a flight and what is the right course of action to take on a flight so if your child cries and you freak out and you give all this attention and all this craziness because of what's happening your kid is going to feed off of that energy if instead you stay calm you try to assess a situation with a calm mind and try to offer all the different things that you can to make sure they're comfortable and all their needs are met your child is going to perhaps still be uncomfortable unsure screaming or whatever because this is all brand new and they don't know what to do with themselves but they're going to see this situation in this reality as something that is the norm and something we can overcome together versus a reason to freak out this is going to slowly be teaching your child that on a flight we relax we watch movies we read books we play silently with our toys and we enjoy the flight right and that's what we want remember that room wasn't built in a day so children learning to love flying learning to behave in a flight the way that we expect them to behavior right like behave well it's not something they're gonna know from the get-go sometimes we get lucky and kids just love flying but sometimes it takes a little bit of effort so just know you're doing your best if you've prepared everything you can and still your child is crying take a deep breath and just remember that you're doing the best you can and that everybody on that flight has been a child too probably has had children or has had friends that have children so they'll understand don't worry about them concentrate on your baby and just breathe you got this you can do hard things one thing that i love doing as a last resort especially if your baby doesn't like wearing headphones is music my child alaska does not love having headphones on all the time she goes through periods where she likes them and some where she doesn't what i do is i play music really low obviously i'm not gonna do this at three in the morning if we're you know on a night flight but if we're taking off and she's feeling like antsy or anxious and doesn't want to watch anything i'll have her play some music i'll try first with the headphones but if not i'll play it low on my phone this normally has a calming effect on her your child might like something different just remember what sort of thing they enjoy doing at home that makes them calm down and that's usually something that's going to work on the flight as well another thing to keep in mind when you're flying with babies and toddlers is the airport again most of us like to think that flying with kids is all about the flying flying flying and that's fine but remember that your transitional period your flight your travel day begins the moment you leave the house plan for the airport time there's nothing more valuable than allowing yourself enough time on the airport so you can run around play with your kid grab a snack go to the restroom change that diaper with leisure find the family restroom go to the lounge and relax go shopping whatever it is almost anything is better than running through an airport all stressed out dragging a child behind you it is the worst scenario do yourself a favor plan extra time at the airport like i know nobody wants to leave vacation two hours earlier than they have to i know nobody wants to be at the airport for an extra hour buying overpriced drinks and i'm at the airport with a kid what am i gonna do all that time get them running get them walking around play some fun games dance i don't know take a photo shoot by the windows anything but you're already there you're not stressing and then when you're not stressing your child is gonna feed off the energy the moment you get to the airport automatically your stress diminishes like 15 to 20 just because you're already there your child feeds off this energy i promise you it's gonna make the difference get to the airport early that's the next question that a lot of people have when it comes to flying or one question that you may be wondering is strollers what i suggest you do is that you plan a day around your city not too far away maybe a road trip maybe something just nearby to a museum or whatever with the stroller that you're planning on taking for the flight and then taking with you as many bags as you plan and as loaded as you plan for flying my favorite feature about flying with strollers flying with my toddler and taking a stroller along on the flight not that i'm taking the stroller flying with me is using the stroller as my cart let's face it my child is usually wanting to be on top of me or running around or doing something but that stroller is holding all of my luggage until i get on the flight so things to keep in mind does the stroller hold enough weight does it carry properly or do i have to be looking at it so it doesn't fall backwards does it have a big enough storage basket is it easy to maneuver think about slippery airport floors think about going in and out of airports on and off the escalators sometimes you have to go on the escalators because the elevator is broken so how easy to maneuver is the stroller how much compartment does it have for storage is it comfortable for sleeping because your child may fall asleep you have a delayed flight etc is it easy to maneuver with one hand remember you're going to get to this gateway on the flight to board and you're going to have to put this away if you're alone with a child you're carrying your child you're wearing your child plus all the luggage and you're folding the stroller to leave it on the side make sure it's comfortable to fold and it's easy it's one hand so that you can be you know taking care of take the stroller out for a spin it's what i would suggest and my last tip when it comes to flying with babies is consider taking a carrier i'm a broken record when it comes to this but if i could wear my baby through life i would because it just makes life so much easier you need your hands especially when you're traveling with a kid so what have i missed i'm sure i'm missing some topics let me know let me know in the comments below what else you recommend for brand new parents that are thinking of flying with their babies and having all the questions what questions am i missing that they may have and what suggestions do you have let us know in the comments don't forget we drop a video every single week with all sorts of questions and topics regarding flying and traveling with babies and toddlers if you have a specific question or a suggestion that you'd like us to talk about let us know in the comments send us a dm or find us on instagram at travel family academy it was lovely chatting with you and i'll see you next week my name is marie and we are the travel family academy see you soon