Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Holidays

Use our Travel forum for recommendations on everything from day trips to the best family-friendly holiday destinations.

Flying with 4 month old

11 replies

mwro · 04/03/2007 09:28

Does anyone have any great tips for the airport and the plane for a smooth journey? It's a 4 hour flight and my first flight with the baby.

Thanks!

OP posts:
Weegle · 04/03/2007 09:55

Feed/dummy on take off and landing to help with the pressure.

Layers of clothing to easily adjust to the right temperature.

Take far more milk (if bottle feeding) in hand luggage than you think you need in case of delays and also flying makes you (and therefore possibly baby) thirsty.

Take at least 24 hour supplies for baby in hand luggage in case your main luggage is lost - this gives you time to buy supplies if it becomes necessary.

And just don your thick skin and you'll be fine )

exbury · 04/03/2007 10:08

Check the airline / BAA website for the latest on stupid hand baggage regulations to decide what form to take milk in, if you are bottle feeding - BF an advantage as not even airport security can stop you taking your boobs .

Wear "easy" clothes yourself. I once had an interesting moment when security made me take off laced up CAT boots whilst holding a 3mth baby - I was travelling on my own and no-one offered to help.

Change LO as close to boarding as possible and cross fingers that you can get away without changing him/her again - dirty nappies in 'plane loos are not fun!

Definitely feed on take off - mine always went to sleep at that point, which was great.

Take every bit of help / preferential treatment / decent seats / etc offered - it makes everyone else's life easier as well as yours - and take the pushchair to the door of the plane if at all possible - but check where you will get it back at the other end, as it varies by airport.

If you're anything like me, be a lot more paranoid about tickets/passports etc than you would have been pre-baby. I inevitably ended up focused on LO and then panicked when I couldn't find stuff - if you are travelling with your DP make them take charge of all documents - it's just one less thing to worry about.

Lastly - remember that if LO does cry, it sounds a lot louder to you than to anyone else - honestly!

mwro · 05/03/2007 11:32

Thanks so much! I was looking at the BA website and it makes reference to car seats and taking them with you. Surely we don't need to do this?! I was under the impression that the baby just sat on the lap of the parents?

OP posts:
thehairybabysmum · 05/03/2007 11:54

Book a bassinet, a little cot that attaches to the bulkhead in front of you, you can then relieve your lap by putting baby in there.

My ds always seems to sleep well on planes, i think its the noise/vibration (especially this young) so hopefully that will be the case too. Don't worry about normal routine.

Take a few extra babygros too in case you need to change. Tis sods law that nappy will leak or baby will be sick if you haven't got spare.

second extra milk, we didnt have to taste ready made formula that was in a sealed carton but did have to tast the water in bottles when i have taken powder/water separately.

If bf then tis easier but i also took expressed milk (and emergency back up formula) and this was good in a couple of tricky situations (security queues) where we were stood up and would have been difficult to feed. (mind you i was never confident with public feeding so if yuou are then you will prob be fine.)

exbury · 05/03/2007 12:08

I have never understood the take a car seat thing. When I last looked at it, you had to pay for a seat, and there were only certain car seats you could take, which were not the same ones as I would choose for other (comfort/safety) reasons. So we have never done it - but have always taken our own car seat on holiday - check it in, most airlines don't count it on your baggage allowance (I made a bag for ours to protect it a bit) - car hire company supplied car seats are variable in quality and we were offered completely inappropriate ones for DS's age.

Airline-supplied bassinets are good for

sunnywong · 05/03/2007 12:10

make sure your child is up to date iwth all vaccinactions
big metal birds = petri dishes of germs

seriously

thehairybabysmum · 05/03/2007 13:04

yes take car seat for either end but check it in with the rest of your luggage.

mwro · 06/03/2007 16:13

Hhmmmm car seat point interesting. Not sure what to do now. We are going to London (I live abroad) and have hired a car from Hertz and (at the moment) a car seat too. Now worried that the car seat from Hertz might be unsuitable.

A bit worried about having loads of baggage to lug around with us if we take the car seat to as we have a Bugaboo which we are taking with us and that is definitely not an easy buggy to transport!

OP posts:
Mumpbump · 06/03/2007 16:17

Whenever we have gone to France, we have taken a car seat with us for the taxi in England and the hire car in France. We didn't have the option of hiring a car seat, I think, but wouldn't have trusted a hire one anyway - how would you know it hadn't been in an accident? Also, how do you get to the airport (if you get a taxi) without a car seat?

mwro · 06/03/2007 17:04

We'll take our car (with our car seat) to airport and leave it there!

Good point about hire car seats.... seems I have to add the car seat to the long list of things to take with us!

OP posts:
exbury · 06/03/2007 17:54

Hertz in the UK are pretty good, actually - as long as you stand your ground and insist on the one you want (sometimes they go jsut by age and give you a high-back booster for a child who (IMHO) is far too young for it)

France is a bit patchier, S.Africa is awful - friends of ours had to go out and buy another car seat because Hertz didn't have one which they were prepared to use.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page