Flying to NYC with 12 week old

[ALittleChilli]

I've recently had my first baby and I'm trying to work out if it's feasible to fly to a close friend's wedding in New York when he'll be 12 weeks old - has anyone done a similar journey and can advise? I know it should be an easyish time to travel (before he's walking, while he's mainly sleeping and eating still etc) but I'm struggling to get my head around the practicalities.

My husband is the best man so he will be going regardless. We've got business class tickets and can just add the baby on (hopefully in a bassinet seat), but the tickets are refundable if I decide not to go. We'd be staying for three nights and the hotel can arrange for a travel cot so we don't need to take one.

We would have a generous luggage allowance, plus extra for baby things, but we would either need to hire a car with a car seat (our seat is isofix only and not approved in the US) or use public transport (slightly tricky as the wedding is not in the city) or book specialist taxis that come with baby seats. We'd probably also need to get a more compact buggy as our travel system is not very compact, and I'm struggling to find a good option for under 6 month olds. We'd also need to work out how to deal with feeding on the plane - we currently combi feed as my milk supply isn't sufficient yet, so we'd need to plan for some formula feeds, and we unfortunately can't use ready made formula as baby needs a special formula that doesn't come in a ready made version.

Am I making a meal out of this unnecessarily? Has anyone done a similar trip and can provide any tips?

Firstly, no you are not making a meal out of this.

Most people wouldn't contemplate doing such a trip unless it was fly home to stay with family.

Transport does seem an issue. Maclarens have from birth lie flat buggies - I had one with a baby sheepskin albeit when my dd was bigger. I would take a car seat from home - ask around someone will have.

Would I do this - no, not for a wedding as I think it will be stressful and I won't have a good time.

Did I do this - yes, with my 4 month dd! But it was my sisters wedding, we drove, we stayed at my parents, they had a room for me to breastfeed at the venue and there was lots of family to help!

Yes it’s easily doable, that’s a good age to fly with as they sleep a lot and just want cuddles! What airline are you looking at? British Airways have bassinet seats in Club World and you can choose them for free at the time of booking with lap infants. I don’t think most of the US based carriers do (AA definitely don’t) and you usually can’t book in advance either so whilst they’re not usually my favourite airline I’d recommend BA this time. I know there’s Virgin as well but they don’t fly my regular route so I have no experience of what they’re like.

I take empty sterilised bottles and cartons of ready made formula, enough for about a day and a half in case of delays, in hand luggage. If you’re on special formula then hot water is going to be challenging. I wouldn’t touch the stuff on the plane where the tanks have never been cleaned. Probably I’d use room temp water, the advice to use hot water is only really a British thing, and having had one baby in the states where they use room temp I’m less fussy so would probably buy a big bottle of Evian post security since that’s suitable for babies and use that to make the bottles. Others might have better ideas though!

Pram wise, I had the babyzen yoyo with newborn pack (not the bassinet). Love it for travel as it folds teeny and goes in the overhead locker.

Isofix is the same as LATCH in the US so you would be able to use your car seat in the hire car. Strictly speaking it’s not a legal seat, since no foreign seat would be, but it’s not dangerous so long as you don’t seat belt install it (US seatbelts work differently). If you don’t want to do then hiring one is a good option, if you’re sure they will provide infant seats. Otherwise send DH on a quick jaunt to the nearest Target or Walmart.

I took my 4 month old on 2 flights to Spain and back a week later. She almost never cried but was inconsolable on those flights.

Can you stay for longer?

Sort the passport asap.

Get a doona buggy and a sling.
Doona is essentially car seat you push around. If you bring the isofix base with you, you sort out two problems in 1.
Stick with town cars. Taxis are flithy.

For formula buy a nuby rapid cool (get the 2 pack) they are a great piece of kir and get formula tubs so its preportioned for the flight

Business is v civilised with basinette and my baby was fine and slept a tonne due to white noise. I recommend feeding for take off and landings. Helps with ear pressure!

I forgot- make sure to feed or give a dummy for take off and landing as the sucking helps ear pressure.

We took DD to NY at 7 weeks just for a holiday - people were a bit surprised but it was super easy.

Thatbage is great for travel. You don’t need to worry about food, they don’t move, and their body lock isn’t set enough to worry about time difference.

You can pretty much pop them in the sling and take them wherever - we spend a whole day in the Met which would be impossible either the kids now.

The subway isn’t super child friendly (tight, not a lot of lifts), so we didn’t bother with a pram and just used a sling. Different if you’re going out of the city though I know.

Inwas amazed by how baby friendly NY was. We got ushered to the front of almost every queue, including the notoriously shit JFK immigration and lots of restaurants.

We got a bassinet on the way out with BA, but American on the way home told us they don’t provide them (this was economy, though).

Enjoy!!

I did this when my ds was around that age. It was fine and everyone was very helpful. The flight was straightforward - he just slept for most of it (easier than the next time at 18 months). We had no issues with jet lag as our sleep patterns were screwed anyway!

On transport - I would get a cheap lie flat buggy. It will come in useful when your baby is older and you don't want a heavy travel system. On the car seat, if yours doesn't strap in using normal seatbelts can you ask around and borrow one from someone who does?

Also, don’t worry about taking too much stuff - we team out of nappies and easily found more.

And one weird tip - hotels hit very confused when we asked for a travel cot, Americans call them a Pack and Play!

Make sure you have a full
change of clothes available for yourself in your hand luggage, just in case baby vomits everywhere.

A passport is the first thing to get sorted. Without that baby isn't going.

That trip would be fine with DS2 at that age. DS1 would have been horrific. So, what type of baby do you have??

I think the passport will be the tightest turn around simply because you will need to get a birth certificate and then get a passport afterwards. I’m assuming it’s 12 weeks from your due date, so potentially you will have a 10 week old.

I think you might be cutting it fine for the paperwork!

I have travelled short and long haul extensively with DS since he was a baby and often on my own with him.

There is no way I would contemplate such trip as planned, your child most likely sleep for most of the flight apart of crying in pain at take off and landing as their ears are far more sensitive to pressure changes than ours. But you will be exhausted, totally jet lagged, with your hands full organising all the logistics of the trip and dealing with an over tired baby who more likely than not would be quite noisy at the wedding or even not exactly welcome, and all this misery just to spend 4 days there??? Just 4? By the time you are over the jet lag and the stress you will be on your flight home.

Go and visit family or nice friends while DH is away but let him go on his own (just this time).

On the car seat, if yours doesn't strap in using normal seatbelts can you ask around and borrow one from someone who does?
American seatbelts work differently to European ones. I don’t understand the inns and outs of it, something to do with the way the belt tenses apparently, but it would be dangerous to seat belt install a non US/Canadian seat. So please don’t do that! Isofix is fine from a safety perspective though, Americans call it Latch but it’s exactly the same. I should add though that using any foreign seat is illegal, and because US seats all have chest clips, it’s visually obvious. I’m sure lots of people do it. I’ve done it the other way around and used by US seat in France.

Cheap light lie flat buggies for under 6 months old do not exist. All light buggies come with the warning not to use with under 6 months old as they and baby are so light it is very easy to tip them over.

I don’t know comfy this would actually be so I’d want to try it out in store first but £65 and apparently newborn suitable:
https://www.johnlewis.com/john-lewis-anyday-everyday-stroller/black/p110235472?s_ppc=2dx_mixed_fashion_BAU&tmad=c&tmcampid=2&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI27631-6NgQMVvYpQBh1VYwdoEAQYASABEgKltfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
If OP can afford flexible business class tickets though there’s probably budget for a YoYo which would be loads better as it can go into the cabin!

I think if I were you I'd get a cheap, basic travel system like a Graco or Hauck, one where you don't have to take the seat off to click the car seat part in. That will be easy to transport everything through the airport and if you buy a seat on the plane for the baby, you might even be able to use the car seat on the plane. (You might want to establish this with the airline before you buy anything!) You can generally take a pushchair all the way up to the gate, though you might need to check the car seat earlier if you go with this option.

You can fit those car seats with a seatbelt and although they aren't officially approved in the US, there is nothing unsafe about using them and arguably you're better off using a local car seat that you know and have time to practice with, rather than trying to get to grips with a totally foreign system when you're at the end of an exhausting, stressful flight.

When you're at your destination, if you don't want to use the car seat for the baby to lie in, you can take it off and put it on the floor and use the buggy in a reclined position.

The seatbelt difference is not a problem, it's mainly an issue the other way around. US seatbelts have two modes: Normal mode for adults to use, where it only locks in an emergency (this is the same as European seat belts) and Locked mode for car seat installation. To access the locked mode, you pull it all the way out until it clicks. Then the seatbelt won't be able to be pulled freely outwards any more, it will only get tighter.

So if you're installing an EU seat in a US car then you just don't lock the seatbelt, because the EU seat isn't expecting the seatbelt to be locked and doesn't need it.

If you're belt installing a US seat in an EU car then you'll have more of a problem because you need to lock the belt for it to be secure, but EU cars generally do not have this feature (a few do.) But the workaround for this is fairly simple; US seats generally allow either seatbelt or LATCH installation, so if the child is under the weight limit for LATCH you can just use that, since it's compatible with isofix, and if they are over this but not old enough to use the car seat as a booster seat, then you can use a device called a locking clip to lock the seatbelt manually.

Something like this - you don't need the base necessarily. It will just be one more heavy thing to transport.

https://www.kiddies-kingdom.com/3-in-1/50518-joie-i-muze-3-in-1-juva-travel-system-shale.html

Or this:

https://gracobaby.eu/uk/eezefold-quick-folding-pushchair#fashion_name=5578

What you'll often find is that these combos don't often appear when you look at a section for "Travel systems" so you want to go to a section of a website that has strollers, and then look for those which are lie-flat and then look at them individually to see which ones can take a car seat attachment.

The websites tend to want to sell you a whole giant package when they think you're looking for a travel system, which is not what you want, you just want a cheap and cheerful compatible duo.

If you want to put more money in you can also look at ultracompacts - many of these also take a car seat. E.g. Silver Cross Jet, Babyzen Yoyo. But they tend to be more expensive and IMO not really worth it unless you think you will have to carry the buggy a lot e.g. when using subway.

It's perfectly possible to take a 12-week-old baby to NYC and I had two guests at my wedding who did something similar, but I'm not sure I'd go to all that trouble for just three days. If you were going to make a holiday out of it, sure, but it does seem a lot of exhausting stress and logistical faff for such a short period of time.

Passport first!
I took 8 week dd to LA, alone- it was great; lots of attention from staff and as pp have said they’re very portable at that age. Didn’t take a buggy just sling.
Trip to NY when she was 11 months old harder, as restaurants didn’t have high chairs and it was too hot to wear her. Ended up buying a cheap pushchair.
Go for it, it’s very manageable.

I'd absolutely do it. The yo-yo baby zen has a newborn attachment, I'm in the SW and you can hire them here so maybe look at that. You'll prob find that you need a lightweight stroller at some point anyway so may be worth investing! We brought a bugaboo butterfly when my daughter was about 10 months and irs a lifesaver.

we flew BA club when my daughter was 15 months it was so lovely having so much room with all of her stuff.

Their name for a regular cot is crib and they are a completely different size, bigger. We hired all the stuff when we lived in the US. Albee’s Baby Store on the Upper West Side. You won’t need to go there in all probability, but they were impressively well used to Brits working at Columbia Uni.

Some of the different words for things are more logical than others. I think a bedside cot is a basinette. Hair grips or clips are bobby pins, not easy to guess. A skipping rope is a jump rope, I prefer that.

One thing higher up this thread that I don’t recall being a thing was that someone said that it’s only in the UK we give warm milk/formula. When we went we were asked everywhere if we wanted milk warmed. However this was before pre prepared cold formula was a thing at all - ie 15+ yrs ago.

Oh and buggy is stroller and nappy is diaper. 15 years ago most of us didn’t know those 2, but now both US terms are used here a bit more

One thing higher up this thread that I don’t recall being a thing was that someone said that it’s only in the UK we give warm milk/formula. When we went we were asked everywhere if we wanted milk warmed. However this was before pre prepared cold formula was a thing at all - ie 15+ yrs ago.

Was that me? It’s only in the UK (as far as I’m aware) that you’re told to add the milk powder to 70+ degree water to ‘kill bugs’. The advice in the US is to use cooled boiled water or distilled water and add the formula powder to that. You still might want to warm it to baby’s drinking preference though. I had my first in chicago, we couldn’t drink the water because of lead, so we’d usually used ready made (Enfamil) bought in 32oz bottles but keep them in the fridge once opened then warm the bottle. Sometimes we’d use the powder mixed with cool distilled water and then yes we’d warm that. Especially if you went out for any period of time in winter whatever was in your diaper bag would be almost frozen so you’d definitely want that warmed once you got inside! It’s not part of bottle making advice though, if that makes sense.

It’s absolutely possible to do a long haul flight with a 12 week old - we flew to Australia with our son at the age (and have flown several times since with toddlers/babies at various ages.)

We had the silver cross jet which is basically a cheaper version of the babyzen yo-yo. It’s great being able to have it on the plane so you don’t have to wait for them to bring it to you when disembarking.

I breast fed but the mum next to me had portioned out formula into a special Tupperware thing and just asked the crew for hot water when needed - looked pretty easy!