Flights with 5 month old

RLH33

Sorry if I am being a bit thick but do you have to pay to put stuff in oversize luggage?

If you do then you have to compare the price of taking your car seat with you to hiring one when you get there. I have always hired car seats from the car hire company and I must say their condition and fitting have been a bit dodgy. At the prospect of being charged about £35 in Portugal last year I decided to take a booster seat for our 5 year old in the case with us - when we got there I had a look at the ones we would have been given if we had hired one and it was shockingly old and in poor condition:eek:

Now we have a baby as well I will definitely look into taking our own seat with us for peace of mind when we go abroad next.

Counting_Pennies_2

Hi it is definitely the best time to fly with a baby, after the age of one and before five it is quite tricky, so definitely good timing.

In terms of formula, I have been caught out on this many times at the airport.

Don't take tetra packs with you, they will make you open them all and taste them, so make up a bottle of water, which you are prepared to open the baby bottle and sip in front of the security staff, and put the powder in a separate pot, which again you will be prepared to dip a finger into and taste.

What you can do however is contact Boots airside (make sure it is the right terminal and definitely airside!) and put in an order at least a week before you go for baby food and milk and nappies etc. Don't rely fully on this service just in case.

So go into your local Boots, write down the codes of the food you want, and their full description, then go on to the airport website and get their telephone number from there. I would recommend contacting them the day of travel to double check they have they order put by for you.

Then make sure you just take one small hand baggage with passports and a book, and the baby essentials (you won't get baby allowance) and a regulation sized empty bag to put your Boots order into. Perhaps include in your hand luggage a clean t-shirt for you, I always end up caked in some dreadful mess and a change for baby.

In terms of carting baby around, you will be lucky to get the pushchair back immediately, so I would also put in your hand luggage (wear on you!) a baby carrier so you aren't weighed down queuing for passport control before baggage return.

Definitely give a bottle of formula on take off and landing. For take off I would weight until you are taxi'ing down the run way before you start to feed, and landing you will probably want to start giving it to baby as you start to descend, make sure you give the air hostesses loads of warning you want it warmed up. i.e. before the door is closed for take off and when they are doing their final walk through the cabin getting rubbish, they won't be too pleased if it is at the last minute and probably refuse!

Good luck with it, enjoy it, and ignore the stares from people when baby cries!

Counting_Pennies_2

http://www.babytec.co.uk/electric_steam_steriliser.html

By the way I had one of these sterilisers and travelled round the world with it, sterilising as I went.

For a long plane journey, I took a big tupperware container and cold water sterlised on the plane!

SugarSpun

onlyroz wrote: »

Why on earth do you need so many? :eek:

My daughter loses them as though it was a game

snugglepet20 wrote: »

My experinece of flying with babies is that airlines are not particularly accomodating especially the discount ones. You get no luggage allowance for an infant unless you have paid for a seperate seat so be careful as they will charge you for excess. You can take the buggy on free of charge though.

Lufthansa give a 10kg baggage allowance for a baby - the places they fly to is limited, but it could be worth the extra to fly with them if there's a suitable route. All four times we've flown with them we've been able to take the carseat into the cabin, too.

Nefertare

Wow that's an awesome amount of responses! I didn't think of the sterilising tablets, I have some of those so that's easy! We're flying from Liverpool, so not the biggest airport, I'll have to phone the boots to check they can have what we need. Checked online and cow and gate formula is sold in spain under a different name so that's a relief. I also have boots points to spend so at least I can get the sun cream and ready made milk if needed without spending too much.

Thanks so much everyone!

skintchick

Make sure you take a first-aid kit with baby nurofen/paracetamol/both, nail scissors, teething gel, sun lotion, sudocrem or similar for burns/nappy rash, thermometer, etc. with you.

When we took DD abroad aged 8 weeks we didn;t take a buggy, just a fabric sling, and I wore her everywhere. She is 8 months now and I'd do that again - I wear her every day anyway and the fabric can be used as a blanket/scarf/whatever when she's not in it.

I second taking your own washing powder.

I fed on take off and landing (bfing) because their ears hurt when the pressure builds. Made a big difference, but sucking a finger/dummy would also help.

If possible, make the flights coincide with naps so they sleep!

Savvy_Sue

If you are taking washing powder, make sure that you pack it in a secure plastic pot of some kind, but my vote would go to washing powder tablets.

We once had an open packet of washing powder 'escape' in transit and we were shaking it out of everything for a very long time!

However, taking tablets might be a good idea, because IME it's easier to get bio than non-bio powder in Europe, and I won't use bio.