Flight with a 7 month old

[bluebells1234]

I have posted this on the travel chat too. Hope that’s allowed!

Hello,
I am going away with my baby and partner in February and the baby will be 7 months old. We are travelling to Dubai.

I am stressing about taking milk on the plane. The baby has formula. I have some powdered formula and some ready made bottles to use. Ideally, I’d like to take several bottles of ready made formula for the flights there and back. Ideally I don’t want to put the return milk in the hold as they are likely to explode (this has happened to me several times including an unfortunate event with a bottle of purple shampoo…). If I take the ready made formula in my hand luggage, will the security staff require me to open the bottles? As this would render them useless for our return flight. We are using Kendamil which my partner is sure we can just ‘pick up’ in Dubai but I’m not sure it would be the same as the UK version.

Advice welcome!

Plus any other tips for packing and flying with a 7 month old. My partner thinks we can bus/ tube across London to get to Heathrow but I think we should drive and park…?

TIA

When we went very long haul, we did check in our return ready made milks and they were absolutely fine. I've never had anything explode and I've done a lot of travelling so it's weird that you've had so many issues. I've had leakage from things already opened but that's it. No problem with anything sealed.

Personally I've not had the milk opened at security, but I've heard they may pick one at random. They really shouldn't open more than that.

Have you reserved seats with a bassinet? That will be a big help.

If you have a baby carrier, take that on so if they are awake and bored you can walk around with them.

As for getting to Heathrow, it totally depends exactly where you are. If you can easily jump on a train, that's obviously easier than driving. If it's multiple trains and a hike to get to the station, than perhaps not.