Travelling with a 4 month...advice

[Ilovefood15]

Hi ladies,

We are thinking of booking a holiday in for end of September, DS will be 4 months old. Is it hard work, what did you do about bottles? We can't decide whether go just wait until next year when he is a bit older, but we need a holiday lol!

Any advice?

Thanks x

We did. It was a good time to go as he was happy to nap in his pram and would go to sleep in the evenings after the usual routine in his pram. He also wasn't eating solids then so that was less to worry about.

We pre-ordered Formula from boots at then carried it on in hand luggage. Just make sure that when you make it up that the bottled water isn't mineral water - just check the sodium levels. They have a little symbol on the back to make sure it's baby friendly. We took quite a lot of the ready made stuff. You have to open half of what you're taking if it goes through security so it helps to wait until you've gone through.

We did cold water sterilising but take some washing up liquid etc to wash your bottles.

We also flew at 7pm-ish each way so he fell asleep on take off and stayed that way. Try and time a bottle for take off/landing so their ears don't hurt and a dummy helps if they use one.

We used a carrier through the airport until we could get the pram back. Also handy for excursions.

Enjoy! We had a lovely time. If your baby isn't a pram sleeper you may prefer a villa rather than a hotel. We did all inclusive and it really felt like a holiday.

Thank you - that is really helpful x

We took our dd away to stay in self catering accommodation when she was 5 months. It is hard work, but a change of scene really helps and we felt refreshed even if not too relaxed by the end. It helps that they aren't mobile yet so don't have to worry about toddler proofing everything and they aren't desperate to be put down all the time.

I found dd liked the plane noise and so would quite happily nap on me knee as soon as we started to take off, however we flew for 3 hours and by the end of the flight I was glad it wasn't too much longer as entertaining her in such cramped surroundings wasn't easy.

Bottles wise ours can be sterilised in the microwave (mam colic ones) or you can buy travel sterilisers which are very small. I took the little bottles of ready made milk for the flight and just decanted into her bottles when needed, I had gotten her used to drinking it at room temp before we went! didn't have a problem taking them through security - they just took them to a different area to be scanned. Once there we used powder ( we took our own as you could buy it abroad but we were quite remote).

Take your own car seat, that and a travel pushchair up to 10 kg are free to check in.

The only word of warning I would add is that at 4 months dd had the most horrific sleep regression and was waking up almost every hour and was a sod to settle, on the upside if both of you are off work you can at least catch up on the missed sleep the next day.

Good luck

Agreed its a good age as you can just take them in the pram or papoose wherever you go and they sleep or gurgle through it - you can have meals out, do art galleries chill by the pool etc

Check the price of seats vs infant on lap. We did Italy with easy jet and an infant on lap was £20 but the full seat price was only £25 so for the extra we were able to take the car seat onto the plane and DS slept through the flight and we didn't have to hold him on our laps the whole time -well worth it.

we've taken our kids on holiday from 2 months plus. one 4 month old will be a doddle. toddler stage is the hardest.

go somewhere they like babies - eg greece. you will be made welcome everywhere

Agree, tiny baby much easier than toddler. Dreading our long haul with 22mo next month argh. Just take several changes of clothes on the plane - for him, and for you. Poo explosions and extreme possetting are likely (if he's given to poonamis, take a towel to put across your lap while you hold him - really)

Taking milk on the plane - once I finished BF we bought premade bottles of formula (with the lids you can screw back on, not cartons) - trust me, you do NOT want to be mixing milk on a flight, short or long haul. You can take this through if bigger than 100ml but you have to be willing to taste it. Eurgh. I made DH do it. God knows why DD loved guzzling the stuff.

And check what is included in the ticket before you pay for extras - even Ryanair let you bring one piece of baby equipment without charging (or they did last year anyway) - but they don't make it clear, so we paid. Gits.

such a nice time to enjoy your little one pre weaning, take a look at mumnet recommendations, caserio del mirador is a great place to go with a tiny. sterlising gear and bouncers and baby gyms are supplied free of charge. but honestly apart from a few sterlising tablets and an option to get laundry done, anywhere would welcome you.

I took the bottles that had the plastic bag type inserts. That way I just threw out the insert and only had to really wash the nipple bit well. I also took hot water in a thermos. For some reason it was okay to do that flying out, but not coming back. I was on a long haul flight and had the baby bassinet thing. I'm not sure I'd recommend this, as my seat and DS1 seat didn't recline in that row. I ended up grabbing a full row behind us on the flight back and strapping them both into the seats while they slept lying down.

Poor DS1, he was 3, and I remember he kept slipping off the seat while sleeping. A nice lady next to us tried to put her bag under his feet to prop him up, he ended up sliding right off and yelled out in his sleep "I don't want to go on a plane" and bursting into tears.