Flying with 9 month old

[mummybythecoast]

Hello
FTM looking for some advice ahead of baby’s first flight; we’re planning on taking our own car seat and buggy (Baby Zen YoYo) as hold items. Is it a good idea to get a car seat cover? And I think it’s possible to get a backpack case for the Yoyo to help protect it in the hold - is it worth it? I gather they’ll take the buggy from you at the gate. We’re flying Tapp air - any other advice or tips appreciated. Baby is formula fed so need to navigate that too.

Thank you!!!

I would be nervous about putting a car seat in the hold because baggage handlers can be rough with luggage and there's no way to know if it gets damaged or not. If checking it in then I'd make sure it's very well wrapped!

We have an almost 10 month old and travel a good bit, we normally just rent a car seat from our car rental company (also not ideal I know) and bring along a small collapsible stroller. So far they've always taken the buggy off us at the gate but where we get it back has varied - sometimes right off the plane and other times at the baggage carousal so a baby carrier is a must! Formula wise we just bring our own powder plus a whole bunch of aptimal ready made bottles for ease when we're out and about.

Babyzen yo-yo - we take on board as hand luggage. We bought the bag but don’t use as it takes up space empty and means we can’t use rucksack with it anyway. The yo-yo has a cloth bag thing and handle on pram when folded anyway so we put in that.

if you book baby own seat. It’s called comfort seat. You can call and book one, and then car seat can be taken onto flight. Baby sits on your lap for take off and landing but then you can use car seat in between.

then nothing has to go in hold

Babyzen Yoyo fits under the airline seat in front of you, so we just take it on as hand baggage. The car seat I was worried about, but we bought a bag from Amazon for about £20 and padded it with nappies and muslins. You take it to oversize baggage and they load it separately as a delicate item. It's arrived fine both times.

We recently flew with our baby, she was eight months old, we took our pushchair this time, maxi cosi lila that the baggage handlers kindly destroyed. So when we landed in Spain until we could get a trolley we had to carry a baby, car seat and a broken pushchair, not ideal. Then we had to bring a broken pushchair back and carry our car seat around the airport after security, fun.

We ordered formula to pick up from boots after security, as we’re lazy we took our perfect prep with us. We also ordered steriliser tablets, nappies, suncream etc to collect from boots. As it was a short flight for us we premade a bottle for the journey just before we left and we had also timed a feed that day to be given just before we were due to leave.

Make sure you take a change of clothes for at least one of the adults, if she is sick, has a poo explosion etc its unlikely you’ll escape with clean clothes!

Thank you all for your responses so far.

@Simonjt I’ve been wondering about taking the perfect prep! 😂 How did you pack it?

@Caspianberg would be fab to keep car seat with us as then avoid the unknown handling but I think we’d have to pay for a seat to do this and we’re trying to avoid that. Tho maybe some airlines allow you to do that without paying?

@mummybythecoast - yea you definitely have to pay for own seat, it’s a whole seat. Occasionally I guess flight isn’t full they might let you, but I wouldn’t guarantee.

For us the cost of Ds under 2 own seat has been priceless as then there’s somewhere for him whilst we eat or rest. it’s not easy to book though as you can’t online directly unfortunately.

but you could get bag and check in car seat, and take babyzen onboard as hand luggage. The pram is handy to have to arrival as some airports you have to wit to luggage to get it back with can be long queues through security