Travelling with 16mo advice please!

[m00ngirl]

Hi, I’m a new(ish) mum and have booked our first trip/holiday since baby was born - baby will be 16mo at the time. I can’t wait but am a bit intimidated by the idea and not knowing what to expect. Please can you send me any and all of your advice/tips etc?

Some questions that come to mind…

Do you maintain routine?
Related - can you do dinner out? Get them to sleep in pram? Or have dinner out at like 5pm?
I’m getting a 5am flight out… nightmare with baby?
What will an average day look like? She won’t have all her toys etc (should I pack a couple?)
I expect she’ll be swimming a lot - I’ve booked hotels with pools. Do you pack tons of swim nappies? Outfit on every time she comes out of pool?
Any packing advice?
The trip also involves ferry trips at different points.. any baby ferry experience /advice v welcome.
How do you get taxis etc without a car seat?
What can you give them to stop ears popping on plane? (I breastfeed, no bottles)
Do you pack snacks? Or hope they’ll eat new food?

Really really grateful for any advice, tips etc not just on my Qs but any baby travel aspect at all. Thank you!!! 🙏

We flew to Florida when our youngest was a similar age and she was an absolute dream on both flights (9 hours I think). Lots of new toys/books for the flight and a load of snacks. iPad or tablet is really helpful too. It was surprisingly easy and she was really calm. You get a lot of luggage allowance with a baby for extra things too. We didn’t take a car seat and just got Ubers everywhere (she was fine on a lap although some places do have them for hire too). We took our buggy and a carrier. We didn’t stick to her routine, timezone was completely different too but we just went with the flow

Thanks! EasyJet so no extra luggage except a nappy bag and YoYo… if no routine what happens? Do you manage nice dinners? What might an average day look like?

Yeh 5 am flight is nightmare you will leave home when? 2am? So no sleep overnight for you?
Can you change to daytime flight?
Relax about schedule let him nap in buggy while you eat out

What do you do uk when you take him out?

We don’t do dinner out anymore! But id like to on holiday if possible. Wondering if it needs to be 5pm so we can do bed routine and then we’re locked to hotel room from 7pm… or if we do bed routine and then put baby in pram rather than cot and stroll out in hope she sleeps through dinner…?

I can’t change outgoing flight but I do well with no sleep. Just hope baby copes and catches up with sleep on the plane…?!

All our holidays we've pretty much stuck to UK routine times, but in Europe obviously that's shifted forwards - so dinner at 5 in the UK became 7 in Spain, 9 in Turkey etc.

He'd never have gone down in the pram in the evening, even though he did in the day/on the plane etc. We used screens exclusively for the planes because it was more of a novelty. Otherwise he loved eating out, even though he wasn't much of a diner at home.

I flew to Florida alone with my 19 mth old for a family holiday (extended family who we met up with out there) a few years ago. I was absolutely dreading the flight and staying at an airport hotel alone with him before meeting up with family. But it was a dream compared to what I was expecting! He slept for most of the flight with intermittent iPad watching and lots of snacks. I’d say for the travelling part, pack LOTS of their favourite snacks, they really were a life saver, if they have a tablet download lots of games and tv shows they like and bring toys that you know keep them entertained for long periods of time. Limits on screen time & snacks went out the window for us cos the priority was him not screaming his head off for hours on end. Take a small foldable buggy that can go in the overhead lockers (much easier than struggling with tired child & bags all the way to the baggage belt). As for the actual holiday, I’m lucky cos he’s a pretty chilled kid and he just loved being in the pool, and as long as he had a long morning nap he’d happily stay up til 10pm and was happy being in restaurants as long as I brought toys. If he got tired I’d push him round in the buggy to get him to sleep and he’d just sleep in the buggy. I’d take a reusable swim nappy, much easier and takes up less space, with a swim sun suit thing and hat on top.

This is all helpful, thank you