Travelling with baby equipment

[MrsSquirrelNutkin]

I'm moving country soon and wondering about all my lovely baby things. My babg will be 4-5 months old when we fly.

I've seen on Instagram people check their car seats in with their luggage, but I thought you shouldn't do this as if they get knocked it damages the safety of them? I don't want to pay for a seat for my baby to sit in it on the plane either as the plane tickets are really expensive. Is it a case of just buying a new one in my new country? Or if the car seat is in a protective bag, is that OK?

And as my baby will be under 6 months, he will still be in his bassinet pram. It's a lovely mamas and papas one so not cheap but I'm worried about it getting damaged with all the luggage! Again, I see on Instagram people buying travel strollers but my baby is too young for these.

Has anyone had any experience of travelling with baby items, are they OK or do they get damaged? Do you do anything to avoid damage, like do I have to wrap my pram in bubble wrap or something?!?

I have flown up and down the world with all our baby equipment. Honestly never occured to me that you shouldn't fly car seats in cargo! I do hand them in with fragile luggage though (because that's where you are normally asked to bring them). Never seen a scratch on them.

That said, we also ended up always needed a car seat/car seats in both our expat country and both our home countries (in the grandparents' car etc) so if you think you'll still want a car seat in the UK you might as well leave this one here and buy a new one there. Depending on where you move to, "there" might not have the same brands and have them at thrice the price...

Our strollers (three kids in) held up okay. They took a little bit of a beating in the end but that's because we were expats and they were flown around a LOT (and shoved in taxis and so on). I suppose you could bubble wrap it if you really want it to stay in pristine shape. However, if you don't wrap it, you can bring the baby to the gate in the stroller and get the stroller back at the plane. I much prefered that!

I think travel stroller are utter overkill, never had one of those.

Of course you'll remember to put spare clothes for the baby in your hand luggage. But euh, maybe a spare top for yourself too. If the baby throws up or has a blow-out, you might be quite annoyed with yourself if the baba is all cleaned up and you are still walking around like that. Ask me how I know ;-).

That's a great age for traveling with kids, btw.