Am I mad to consider long haul flight with 1 year old?

[Travelwithtoddler]

I really want to visit Hong Kong or other East Asian cities with my daughter. She is currently 12 months old. She's very active and doesn't like to nap as she's curious about the world. I know it'll be easier once she's around 5 years old but I don't want to wait that long!

Have you ever gone on a long haul flight with a 1 or 2 year old and stayed in hotels? How did you find city breaks?

It’s fine. People do it all the time. Easier when she can be carrier or in pushchair. It’s the jet lag rather than anything else tbh, but you’ll cope.

Note: carrier would be easier in many parts of Asia

Following for tips - I haven't done this but I've booked such a trip. My kids will be 11mo and 4y.

I grew up in that region but haven't been back since before the pandemic - neither of my kids has ever been!

Ps we haven't booked a hotel, we've booked an apartment with airbnb which we think will be way easier (and obviously cheaper)

We flew to Oz for three weeks when DD was 11.5months old.

She started walking while we were there. I knew every inch of the cabin on the way back!

She slept most of the flights, we took books and snacks.

We rented self catering, and a car seat. We took her to Europe in hotels from 3 months.

We have always travelled with both DC. It's not hard. You just need to be prepared.

Will you be doing it totally on your own or do you have a partner? The only thing I found tricky about travelling with a baby that age alone was using the toilet on the plane. There’s nowhere to put them. It’s a tight fit in a sling. And you can’t just leave them outside like you might an older child. If you have a partner, it would be a piece of cake as you can trade off.

I’ve travelled with both a baby and with my dc when they were older. 4-6 was definitely trickier as they needed more actual entertaining and didn’t sleep. My then 4 year old once did 24 hours awake with an 11 hour flight and didn’t sleep a wink. 😩

I’d personally always get a flat to rent instead of a hotel though. So much easier and a lot more flexible and you are stuck eating every meal out.

My idea of hell.

We've gone to India when my first was 1 year old. Again when she was 4 and her brother was 2. It's always been absolutely fine. I was dreading it but they slept most of the time or were calm and content when awake.

We flew to South Africa with a 12m old and India & Nepal with a 26m old. She’s 16 now so this was before smartphones or tablets! You just have to be prepared to play with them the whole time. Breastfeeding was helpful too, and I agree about slings rather than prams.

Selfish as well as mad. That's a long flight for everyone else if your dc is fractious and upset or badly behaved.
Most people don't seem to consider others anymore though, so you won't be alone.

Well presumably the OP knows if her own child would cope. We didn't book our tickets until we knew we had a chilled out and intelligent baby (as in would concentrate on having books read to her/could get engrossed in little games etc).

We took our own baby food, got milk from the air crew etc. Literally didn't bother a single other passenger.

Also we flew to LAx a few years ago and the flight was going onward to NZ. Tonnes of kids doing the full long haul. Some fractious, some chilled out. I couldn't have cared less.

To everyone who mentioned renting a flat - that's probably something I should look into! I'm worried about the horror stories of air bnbs though. Would be easier to have a few rooms and a kitchen to cook in.

@Wishicouldlovemyself you're either child free or have a badly behaved child. Mine only cries if she's tired but she sleeps really well at night, 10 or 11 hours. @Droolylabradors thanks! She loves books and loves playing. There'd be a couple of us to play with/look after her.

My idea of hell

Seconded. Firmly believe life doesn't have to stop when you have children, but this would not be top of my list.

Yes I went to Australia for a month with my 20 month old and three year old.
We all had an amazing time. The tricky bit was the flight - more because it was exhausting and the kids were buzzing at 4am when we finally got there and all we wanted to do was sleep!
Then dinner time. They do eat earlier in Australia but we found it meant our evenings were mostly in the hotel as the kids needed to go to bed. Maybe with one 12 month old they can sleep if you stay out.
We did get the bassinet seats on the plane (front of the section) so the youngest could sleep in it rather than be on me the whole time.

It depends on your 1 year old. I couldn't have done it with mine. Severe reflux and multiple food allergies meant she still spent a lot of time crying at 1 and didn't sleep more than 1-2h at a time. No chance of her sleeping on a plane.

If you are considering it, I would say you almost certainly don't have a child like my daughter so it's probably ok. I trip to the supermarket for a full shop was beyond what I could manage with her so boarding a plan didn't come any where close to what I was considering.

You is the other aspect to consider. I had pretty bad depression and at 12 months was very much in the throws of pnd .... The screaming infant may have contributed

You have no idea how a baby/child will cope with a flight until you try it. Speaking as someone who’s taken multiple flights a year with kids since they weee born. They might be great one time and a nightmare the next, for any number of reasons.

We took our dd on long haul flights from when she was 3 months old and never had any problems.

We were lucky in that she never had any problems sleeping and was easy to entertain.

My top tip is to put a change of clothes for yourself in your hand luggage in case she's sick on you on the plane or at the airport (I found out the hard way how useful that is).

We took our dds on flights to the US from age 10m, and once a year from then. The baby period wasn't a problem at all, they sat and read stories and napped. Around 2 years was more difficult as they don't want to sit for long, but we just had to keep them busy. From age 3 it was easy as they would be happy to watch films.

City breaks have been fine for us as we're London based so it's similar to our lifestyle. We prefer renting apartments to hotels so we can have a proper living room and kitchen facilities.

@Superscientist sorry to hear that. I also had PND and I look back at my baby's younger months and feel sad. I should've been happy.

@cariadlet I think a 3 month old would be easier as mine still slept a lot at that age. Sterilising bottles would've been a pain though. I couldn't have gone on holiday when mine was younger (she's 12 months) because I was really depressed and in lots of physical pain from childbirth.

@ccarluuy yes it's the long flights that are worrying me. At least 12 hours.

Same shit, different location at that age imo. Long haul flights would have been a nightmare with DTs.

We did long haul at 2.5 and it nearly broke me.

Did it again at 4.5 and it was fine.

I did long haul to Aus this year with my 5yo and 12mo. First leg was hell because there were EIGHT babies on the flight. Not only were we unlucky to not get a bassinet seat, but the babies continuously set each other off crying.

The second leg and our return flights were fine though. My best tips would be to use command hooks to help use a snooze shade over the bassinet (my baby is nosey), and snack boxes with lots of little compartments so they can pick at lots of different foods.

It was a successful trip because my husband was with us and we shared being "on" with the baby. On one leg, I sat near a woman who was travelling alone with a 12 months old and that looked really hard.

Why do you want to visit 'with my daughter' when she will be too young to remember anything about it? If you want her to to have memories of such a different place then you need to take her when she's older. We did family beach holidays staying in villas and eating the local foods when ours were young and then did Africa, Asia, USA, city breaks etc when they were old enough to really enjoy and remember the places we visited.

I don't see that it matters if children don't remember where they've been.

We took dd travelling around South America, Australia, the Middle East and Asia when she was a baby and toddler.

She doesn't remember those holidays but dp and I do & she enjoyed them at the time

If parents waited until children could remember things before going anywhere with them, you would never take a baby or toddler anywhere.