help! need some advice about travelling with LO, need to buy travel cot, travel buggy - flying Ryanair

[VickyCM]

HI all, we are flying Ryanair to Portugal in a few months and I need to buy a lightweight travel cot for my 9 month old plus need a buggy which is light and really easy - I have an icandy at mo which is way too heavy to take. Any suggestions on the best ones to get? I'm going to take her car seat too. What else do I need? going to preorder some Aptamil from Boots at Stanstead...not sure what else i'll need?! help! and thanks :)

Do you really need to take a travel cot? They are pretty heavy. If you had absolutely no option, you would need a tent like one which sits on the floor and tends to be expensive, although packs very compactly and is very light. Something like under 4kgs instead of 9=kgs for a usual travel cot. Look on Mothercare website to look at examples of ultra light cots.

If it's at all possible to have a cot where you are staying, and you're concerned about the mattress, buy a travel cot mattress from Mothercare, about £30 and place on top of the mattress, but under the sheet. They are only 2.5 cms thick and pack well.

Thanks, yep we have to take a travel cot so going to look at tent like ones...any suggestions for a lightweight good buggy?

Look at the pushchair topic under Products heading.

I think the general advice is don't take a new and expensive buggy as they can get damaged, even if you take it to the plane, you may have to pick it up from baggage reclaim at the other end.

If you like the Petite Star Zia+ you might find it useful to browse Nursery Value on the net, they sell new and reworked buggies. The reworked are like catalogue returns or seconds, but they make sure that they are safe and you could get one for £59.99!

Will you get away with taking all that with Ryan Air?

Will your 9 month old stay in a tent - our daughter used to just crawl out, so was very hard work! Can you definitely not hire a cot? I hire and take my own mattress protector.

As for the buggy, I too have an icandy, nightmare to travel with! But, when my daughter was 6 months, I bought a cheap buggy for just this sort of trip - what a waste of money, because 18 months later I end up buying a maclaren anyway because cheap buggy is rubbish! So don't waste your money, buy a decent one and a travel bag, which are only about £20.

Car seat - again, can you not hire one from the car company?

Which airport are you flying into? Faro was easy, but we've flown into lisbon before and they don't give you your buggy back at the gate when you arrive, you do walk about 2 miles - so if you've got a bjorn, that is worth taking!

You'll pay a fortune in excess baggage with that lot- much cheaper to hire or even buy once you're out there.

Thanks all, I think I am going to get the Maclaren Techno XT as looks the best and will last a few holiday seasons! We bought the Arc and DD loves it so all good there. I didn't even think about the distance from the plane so going to take our sling- thanks so much, really helpful!
Ryanair are pretty good as in you can take a buggy free and the Arc folds up tiny so we can fit it in our case or just pay £10 each way.

Thanks again