Travelling to Montreal/Toronto Canada, by myself with my 7 month old daughter in April 2009. Any tips?

[caugirl]

I am travelling to Montreal by myself with my 7 month old daughter in April. Any tips on:

Airline
Take off/landing
Things to keep her occupied
Can I bring a car seat?
What kind of pram/stroller should I use?
Jet Lag

She currently uses a DUMMY at times to fall asleep, as she doesn't always use it I was thinking about discontinuing its use. Would that be a good idea before or after this trip?

Feel free to add any other tips I may have forgotten.

Thanks in advance

airline - well we usually go cheapest, so can't help you there!

takeoff - landing - are you still breastfeeding? that's the best thing to do with equalization, otherwise just something to suck on.

occupied - dunno - flappy books, something to squeeze?

car seat - will depend on the airline

pram/stroller - do you mean what should you use when you are there? can you borrow one when you get there? Most airlines will take buggies, so maybe just take your own

jetlag - unfortunately with a 7m baby you won't be able to do much about this. We do this trip to the east coast regularly and now that my kids are older I try to get them to stay up as late as they can once we arrive and get used to the time difference. It's 5 hours.

Re jet lag, I took DS at 4.5 months to the west coast of the US - 8/9 hour time difference - they're behind us (we were in Alaska for part of the time). Jet lag wasn't a problem there, as for us it was worse the other way. He slept through dinner on the first evening then woke up briefly and still had a good night's sleep, but it took months to get back into a good sleeping pattern back home.

yes, jet lag is always worse when you're flying east

I'm v - I love Montreal. Last time I went was pre-children and the jazz festival was on. Fantastic........

We've done quite a lot of flying with our children. Probably the most comparable was when we went to Japan and our twins were 7 months old. I actually found this a relatively easy age to travel as they weren't mobile and slept a lot.

Airline - Went BA to Japan and they were v good. Singapore excellent (but not that route probably). They should give you a bulkhead seat and cot (worth checking when you book).

Pushchair - we've taken doubles and singles. They usually take it off you on the aeroplane and put it in the hold and give it back to you when you get off. Sling may also be useful if you use one. You can take a car seat and use it if you want to book a seat for her. Can take it anyway presumably and not use it (but I've no experience of this).

Definitely keep the dummy. Sucking on take off and landing is good (can also feed then as well).

And I've always found their jetlag has been much less than mine. In Japan they only had about one unsettled night whereas it took me ages to sleep properly.

Can't think of anything else. Have a great trip!