Flying with my 6 month old

[NicolaSeal]

Hi all,

In July, I'll be flying to Menorca with my little girl to visit my dad. As it'll just be the two of us, does anyone have any tips to make the travel as painless as possible. My daughter doesn't do well with sitting still on my lap for longer than 20 mins (and I doubt she'd fall asleep on my lap) so I'm really nervous about surviving the 2 hour flight!

Any advice or tips would really be appreciated.

Many thanks.

Definitely make sure she has a soother (or bottle if she doesn't do soothers) for take off and landing. The eustachian tubes aren't fully developed yet, so the pressure changes can be really painful without having something to suck.

If you haven't booked yet, then try and time the flight to co-incide as closely as possible with nap time - you might be lucky . If you've booked for a time she's likely to be awake, see if you can maybe stretch out her usual awake time so she's just getting tired before the flight.

Do have a few rattles / books / toys / nibbles for her - however, the in-flight magazine pictures are also good for a bit of distraction.

If she's trying to get-up / down - then let her sit at your feet if it's not too bumpy.

Don't stress too much if she's a bit noisy - I know it might seem long to you, but a two hour flight is fairly short - different matter if you were heading to Australia!

Good luck and hope it goes well.

Agree with moon on the bottle or dummy but obviously if you are bfing do that instead .

I use FlyBe a lot and if the flight isn't full they leave the seat next to me empty so that we have a bit more space (and probably so that noone complains about having to sit by a screaming child!). It might be worth asking if your airline can do this. Have a good trip.

Oops - yes, and what JiltedJohns said too .

at Moon. Once took a flight with DS when he was one and was bfing. The man in the next seat had been really rude and awkward. DS had a habit of repeatedly stretching his legs out when he was feeding at the time so I made sure his feet were in the direction of the bloke's ribs . Feeding DS worked a treat though and DS went to sleep for the 2 hour flight .

It will be fine, specially as it's only 2 hours. If your DD is bf, drink lots of water (yourself) and keep her in the breast for as long as you can :) If she's not, take bottles, dummies and teethers.

Take a few small toys and give one at a time. Maybe download a few baby apps on your mobile to keep her entertained. DS loved to watch his own videos on my mobile, quite useful when he was bored.

And bring a sling or baby carrier. It will be useful to get on and off the plane, carrying bags (take a rucksack if possible) and baby. You'll probably have to go through immigration before you get your buggy back, so it's useful to have hands free.

It may be a bit over the top for such a short flight, but maybe a change of clothes for you as well?

Once you get to baggage reclaim, grab a trolley to transport your hand luggage, case and the buggy, you won't be able to manage them all even if the baby is in buggy and hand luggage is over your shoulder. Good suggestion to use a sling for boarding/disembarking/immigration and baggage reclaim.