travelling to australia with 11 month old-travelling for 6 weeks-tips?

[pod3030]

hi there, dp,myself and my what will be 11 month old dd will be going on an adventure to oz in october for 6 weeks, hoping to hire a camper and do some exploring, sometimes hoteling/b&b ing it. we're landing in sydney and staying for a few days, then heading off to relatives in tasmania for 5 days then it's whatever after that. just wanted to hear from people who've done long haul flights with little ones, tips, advice etc. thanks

Ooh now....I went to OZ with my DH when my DD was 2 months old...we stayed till she was 11 months. It is VERY hot in October...getting hotter and hotter as you get towards Christmas. That's the main issue really....hats are very important as are long cotton sleeves...plan to take long sleeved tops, and bt plenty of high factor sunscreen to take as I found is hard to find any.

The flight is interesting...as I said DD was 11 months on the return long haul and it was a bit of a mare but people are helpful....take a little bag of toys and hope for the best!

thanks! x

I'm just back from 4 weeks visiting my family with my six month old and had a total ball. I'm very jealous!

In terms of sunscreen, it's not quite true that you can't buy high-protection sunscreen there. Australians take sun protection incredibly seriously, but by law sunscreens can't be labelled as higher than SPF 30+. Anything you see that's labelled 30+ will probably be at least the equivalent of the SPF 50 you get in the shops here.

I'd also look into a full sunshade for your pushchair - it made a lot of difference to us, particularly in terms of naps in bright sunshine.

Be prepared for the weather to be quite changeable in October. In some places it'll feel like a hot British summer but in others (particularly Tasmania) you may encounter some quite cool weather. It's a funny time of year but I always think April and October are the nicest times of year to visit, weather-wise.

Our (very tall) nearly 7-month-old only just fit in the bassinet on the plane on the way home but it's worth requesting the seats with a bassinet anyway. DS loved sitting up and playing in the bassinet which was a godsend during meals. They allocate the bassinets based on the ages of the babies so you may not be lucky if there are lots of smaller babies.

We invested in a couple of packs of novelty-shaped post-it notes for the flights (we had a couple of internal flights as well) and they were brilliant stuck all over the seat in front, the tray table, Daddy, etc. I'm not sure what age you can get headphones for babies/toddlers but DS was entranced by the TV screens. The downside was that they were touchscreens and he kept changing the programme!

When driving around, we did a lot of our longer-distance driving after bedtime which helped.

To be honest the flights weren't as bad as I'd expected but I went in with the mentality that it would probably be awful and we would just have to survive it! The baby jetlag afterwards was pretty awful (we are still dealing with it four days after getting home) but interestingly DH and I dealt with it much better than usual, I suspect we're better at dealing with disrupted sleep these days!

11 month old on that flight? I recommend Class A drugs, but only for the parents, of course

We flew DS1 from Brisbane to London via a night's stopover in Japan when he was 11 months old. He was just 'hard work' on the 8 hours to Japan, slept sporadically in Japan, then screamed pretty much continuously for 10 of the 12 hours of the Japan/London flight. Hell on a stick. Thank GOD there was just about no turbulence so DH and I took turns carrying this howling baby around the plane in half hour shifts, and luckily it was full of smiling Japanese people, not MNetters with their judgy-pants drawn up under their armpits (which is where mine would have been if I'd been the audio recipient of DS's 'carrying on'...)

However, we then flew him, then 4 and DS2, then 2, Brisbane to London and it was 'OK' , if bloody hard work. I recall overflying Romania just after dawn, watching distant thunderclouds and thinking 'thank GOD, nearly there, only FOUR HOURS to go... as I desperately pulled the last 'little games/toys/diversions' out of the 'special backpack'!

I flew to Sydney with DD when she was ll months - on the way out I was on my own with her since DH was already out there with work.

TBH I found that at that age she was fine. We paid a bit extra to get one of the bulkhead seats that has a drop down shelf that you can put a carry cot on. At 11 mo she was too old to be left to sleep in that as she could have climbed out but it was great to have somewhere to sit her so that she could play for most of the time without being on my knee.

Toys she has never seen before would be good.

Certainly up to a year old I think is easier than travelling with a toddler. The following year when she was nearly two we took a one hour flight to Jersey and it was a nightmare

We did an 11 hour flight to South Africa with a 10 month old. It wasn't as bad as I thought. Agree with others re lots of little and quiet toys. Books were good too as dd never seemed to get bored of 'reading' them over and over. My dp put about 4 cds worth of nursery rhymes on my iphone and I played them at very low volume (with the speaker held right up to her) whenever she appeared to be getting really crotchety and she'd calm right down and sit and listen.

Take nursery rhyme cds for driving too - they work wonders provided you don't go mad listening to them.

For me it was more the logistics of getting food and drink on to the plane and having it in the right bags for the right times so we didn't have to keep going into the overhead lockers and fiddling around to find it all. Lots of wipes for spills and dried mango for take off and landing (she chewed on it and it distracted and stopped her ears hurting). I'm sure you'll be fine.

thanks peeps, eeek! xxx