33 hour journey

[Fibe]

Ok, in three weeks my son and I (without hubby) are travelling to Oz to my parents - London, Singapore, Sydney, Adelaide - 33 hours door to door. I have read all the threads I can find, and have picked up some good tips, however most seem for older babies. My son is 6 months. Plane leaves at 10 pm. I asked for a basinet, but BA have told me they can not guarantee it . Any tips gladly received.

Basic questions are: Do you take the buggy up to the plane, or do you check it in with your luggage? How do you re-steralise bottles, and find "once boiled water"? Any food tips?

fibe - have not read the whole thread.. my dd was 8 months old on our first trip to aus.. used evian water for her bottle - used steri bottles (disposable) and premixed formula so I could jettison it on the way along with jars of food... you are legally able to take in one months worth of baby formula when you arrive in Aus.

Ask BA for extra assistance - tell them you are travelling alone with babe - I just called them everyday to request the basinette.

Take buggy up to the gate - SIngapore airlines put buggies under at boarding time and they are at the plane door when you disembark - we had it at our stop over ( 1 1/2 hrs) in Singapore.

the cabin crew offered to heat dd's bottles for us but she was fine for room temperature.\
gave her water on take off and landing for her ears.

Took a spare shirt for dh and I to change in to if we needed. Did not use anything like phenergan etc - however we did have night flights out of both Heathrow and Singapore - she slept all the way HOWEVER - about 2 hours after the journey - at home and grandma's she was very unsettled and crying etc - think it was just the travelling and her ears readjusting etc.. so be prepared for that to happen - it may not...... could have just been overwhelming for her to be met by all these people at my mum;s when we arrived.

If your babe sleeps in a sleeping bag - we just put dd in her jammies and sleeping bag when we got onto the plane.. helped settle her.

hth

Take a sling or front pack - then you can have a wee when you need one.

Don't bother with a buggy BA just lose them and you deffo don't get them back before your final destination anyway. Buy a cheap one there.

No idea about the formula - sorry.

My ds did a similar trip at 6 months and all the other babies were older and we got first dibs on the skycots. There was a woman next to us travelling with a 23 month old and they did offer to reseat the childless woman who got the aisle seat next to her. This girl refused (wanted extra leg room) and then took 2 sleeping pills and basically blocked in the woman with the toddler for the whole 13 hours. (Except that we got up for her so that she could use the loo and did a spot of baby sitting!) So I would ask for a aisle seat!

Ask in advance for assistance at the airports. This means different things in different places, but it's worth a try.

On Quantas you get a merino wool blanket, which is good at blocking the light. Oh, at Singapore they didn't change the cot sheets in the cot next to us even though it was going to be a different baby, so you might want to take your own small sheet.

Tell them you have a baby with reflux and they will give you loads of cloths.

Take a whole bag of nappies - my ds went through 5 between Christchurch and Sydney!

Be bolshy with other people in the toilet queue if you have a filled nappy situation. One woman wouldn't let me jump the queue one place, prefering me to wait for 3 more people to use the other toilets with no changing table. By then the poo had oozed out and she got a lovely smear on her white jeans as she pushed past me. An "accident" of course!

It never fails to amaze me how some people have "baby blindness", forgetting themselves that they were once little too! What annoys me is that it is the little person who suffers most, not the parent.

Thanks for advice - I was going to take buggy, but now thinking it's not a good idea!