Does anyone have any tips for surviving a long haul trip to Australia

[ShellyS]

Hi all

Been to Oz quite a few times as OH is an aussie but we are venturing on our first trip with DD soon.

Does anyone have any tips for surviving the trip with an 8 month old?

I have booked the bassinet which is one load off my mind (although I have heard it is still first come first served at the airport with this so am planning on getting there extra early)

How will I get round the liquids rule with regards to her bottles? I stopped breast feeding two weeks ago so she will be purely bottlefed when we go.

Any other tips will be greatly appreciated.......I'm quite worried about it actually!

Thanks guys!

Find the largest permittable carryon bag and:

Take powdered formula and you won't have a problem - they'll have bottled water on the plane and will be happy to heat a bottle.

Take plenty of food/snacks.

Take 3 changes of clothes for him, and one for yourself/DP!

Take enough nappies to last you roughly 12 hours longer than the planned duration of the trip (in case of delays). (Also take more food, formula etc than you need).

They were okay with the formula when I went in 2007 - I had to taste what was in teh bottle but the rest was ready made up stuff in the small cartons and they just let that thru. But cabin staff usually v helpful and let me get milk out of the fridge and warm it up by adding hot water from the coffee machine thing.

If you get the bassinet then hopefully it won't be too bad - mine slept really well at four months.

Just treat it like a military campaign - have change of clothes, wipes etc in an easily accessible place.

good luck!

You'll be fine. It's easier to fly with a baby than a toddler. I flew on my own NZ-UK with dd when she was 7 mo (on way there) and 9 mo (on way back). There's two of you, so share the load and make sure you get a break. Take changes of clothes. I had nappies but we were provided with them by airline too (Singapore Air).

If you phone the airline they will tell you their rules about formula etc - you may be able to take the ready made cartons on or take bottles and taste it. Ask them if they provide baby food - they did on my flight but I took a couple of jars too. You should be OK on the bassinet if pre-booked and you get there early. Try to get some sleep while your dh looks after the baby for a while - the worse thing for me was having virtually no sleep as dd wouldn't sleep long so I only dozed.

There are other threads about this if you search the archives, with probably lots of other advice! Good luck.

Can you order readymade cartons from Boots airside for the first leg? They won't allow them on the second leg but it would get you through the first bit. And as I said on the other thread, pre-boarding one adult who can get all the paraphenalia sorted and in place, and then boarding with the baby at the last minute is sometimes a better option than sitting for 40 extra minutes on the plane.

I flew last November and the milk cartons were ok, the security people are usually fine with baby food and drink. We booked an evening flight around 6pm so my 11months old had time to look around and then sleep. We also had a 3days stop over in Singapore on a way there. We did't have one on the way back and it was very tiring. I would definitely do a stop over on both legs.
As was mentioned above, don't worry, it'll be fine. Just wait when they start walking and protesting at everything. That's time to worry about a longhaul flight!

Pre-order formula at airside boots. Singapore do not have a problem with cartons of forumla as long as you show them you have them.

If you can take a night flight. We did 12 hours on a day time flight to Singapore with DS who was also 8 months. That was the longest of my life. He slept 40 minutes the entire flight.

The only good point was that he slept with us when we arrived and didn't have any jetlag.

We're just back yesterday though as all knackered!