Questions about flying with infant

SugarSpun

1. I assume she will get her own airline seat - right?

Not necessarily, although most airlines will try and give you a row so you have an empty seat in the middle.

2. What will be luggage allowance for baby?

It depends. Some airlines don't give you anything. Lufthansa give you 10kg of baby hold baggage and an extra carry-on bag.

3. Will the pram constitute as part of our luggage allowance or it will be excluded from allowance limit?

Excluded by law, but if you have a good one consider a sling instead; they can be damaged inflight (like mine )

4. Shall we be allowed to carry 500 ml liquid milk in bottle? If not, what will be best way to feed the baby during the journey?

It's possible, but if you're using formula it might be better to take the powder and get water airside - anything you take through will have to be tasted, which makes it unsterile.

5. If I hire car abroad, do we have to carry infant seat or hire company will provide the seat?

You can hire one, but the reputability of the company is going to determine how good the seat is. Having said that, the seat could also be thrown about a bit inflight.

6. What will be best way of carrying the baby in public transport (bus, underground etc.)? Pram/holding on hand/baby carrying strap (not sure what they are called)

Depends where you are. For a 3-4 month old baby I'd take a sling and no pram to save bother and give you more manoeuvring room in the airport if you have bags etc too.

7. Any other advise?

Check in early, book flights around the baby's naptimes, be as nice as you can to everyone who might be able to do anything nice for you in return, feed the baby on the way up and the way down to equalise the pressure in the ears and bring a rattly rather than a singing toy.

Counting_Pennies_2

I think the other replies will cover most aspects but wanted to let you know that if you call the Boots store (airside) find the number on the airport website. You can pre-order the baby milk in cartons, powder whatever your requirement is. You then collect it when you get through security.

One tip is to call a week before the flight and get the order in, then call on the day of travel to check they have the milk ready for you

In terms of managing baby on the flight, try to feed on take off and approach for landing to help clear the ears.

Pushchair
The pushchair will likely be loaded on to the plane from the gate on the way out, but often on arrival to an airport you won't receive it back until the baggage reclaim, so take a baby sling with you to pop baby in. (Make sure the pushchair folds right down)

Depending on what airline you travel with, and if it is long haul you can request a baby basinette, which is a cot attached to a wall in front of you. These are hard to get, so give a lot of notice, ensure the request is written down, check again at check in and don't be upset if there isn't one, planes often don't have them on.

hth

sueeve

If you ae flying budget you may not have a prereserved seat. Hopefully you will be given priority boading if you have an infant, so that you can all sit together.This happens on the outward leg, but my daughter has had a problem coming back with Ryanair; the spanish airport didn't follow this practice. Some package companies do enable you to prebook seats (at a price). Others may wantto add to this.

skintchick

I took DD to Italy when she was 8 weeks old. She had to go on our lap, with a special seatbelt for them and did not have her own luggage allowance so we had to fit it all in ours.

We took a sling, no buggy at all, I found that easiest and would have done that at 4 months too.

I breastfeed her so at that point as she wasn;t having solids I didn;t need to take anything so can;t help on that.

We flew BA and had reserved seats, I didn;t want to fly budget with a small baby cos I wanted to be sure we'd be sitting together.

We didn;t take a car seat, when we used a taxi I had her in the sling on me.

Personally, at that age I'd not bother with a buggy and would just use a sling as it's easier all round and if they're asleep in it when you board transport of any kind then they can stay asleep, whereas you might have to fold a buggy and wake them up.

The only other thing is that if you are going somewhere hot you will need to offer more milk because of dehydration.

turn3r

We live abroad and use BA to fly back to UK and have been doing this since my daughter was 6 weeks old. They usually try to give you a bassanet (not during take off and landing) for the baby to sleep in but best to request one when booking the flight. You get a normal luggage allowance for the child (although I don't know if this would be different on short haul flights). Car seat and buggy are accepted as luggage and not charged and usually they allowed me to take the buggy to the plane, however if you have to change planes at another airport then you don't always get your buggy back so a sling is very handy!! I found that the air stewards were very helpful and heated milk and gave us any assistance we needed.

Counting_Pennies_2

A thought about the milk on board.

Do ask the air steward quite early on when you arrive on the flight that you need the milk heated up. They won't take kindly if they are running up and down the flight checking belts and getting ready for take off, so when they are wandering around the cabin as people are finding their seats is a good time. They often over heat it so you then have time for it to cool before take off.

The same for getting ready to land. Give plenty of notice, the air stewards are often warned by the captain 10 mins to landing, so at that point ask for the heating of milk.

Giving it to baby at both lift off and at the descent for landing will help enormously for clearing baby's ears and stop little one getting in pain.

sueeve

One of the problems with finding a schedule airline like BA is that they have given up many of the holiday routes to those whch don't have such thorough provision. We used to go to Lanzarote with GB airways (BA by another name) but the whole thing was handed over to Easy Jet.
It's not that I have anything against budget airlines, but you can't make presumptions about what will be available.

SugarSpun

I've found that Easyjet have been really good with the baby - we get priority boarding, the cabin staff will bend over backwards to help and it's generally been really good. Their baggage handlers did destroy our pushchair though, which is why I would recommend a sling.

treetrunks

Hi, with Easyjet we were allowed two of car seat, travel cot, pushchair to be check in. We took push chair right up to the gate.

Other tips are think about food, we went to greece recently, tins of baby food were 4 euros per tin, nappies and wipes also expensive. Thankfully we took our own and the owner of the villa we stayed in shipped some over.

Another useful thing we found was taking a seat that clips around your waist. Sort of luck a bum bag but the child can sit on it. We were at gatwick and with all the walking you have to do the other end when you havent got a push chair this was a god send. Saved some tired arms.

Air stewards with easy jet were amazing and even invited us into the cockpit to meet the pilot at the end. Our lad loved the whole experience.

oh another thing, take a black out blind. we have one that sticks to the windows.

Britwife

I feel that babies should have their own seat in a secured infant seat. You don't pay full fare for the seat but you pay at the child rate. One thing to be aware of and I would advise on ringing your chosen airline to find out if you can acutally use the seat during take off and landing. I usually travel to the states to visit family with my baby and young child and my last trip home, I used Air France and my journey from BHX to CDG in Paris I was not allowed to sit my baby in her seat for take off and landing. Not a long flight but a pain for me as I have a fidgety baby. She was 18 months old at the time. This is the first time I have ever had that happen and for that instance was basically a waste of money for that part of my flights. And there was no mention of this on the website. so just a heads up on that.

Most airlines you still have to pay a fee for a lap child and if not that you may have to pay the taxes.

I would want to have my own car seat instead of a rented one, you just don't know the history or safety of them. You can always ask the airline to see if the can stow it in the cabin somewhere. Mine was stowed back by the gallery.

I also notice that we get pushed through most security lines due to having small children and I was on my own, however make sure that you both know who is doing what in security lines to get you moving faster. Such as you grab the baby and your partner folds the buggy and you all work to get everything on the belt. Then on the other side, just grab everything and move to the side to reorganize. It keeps the lines moving and travellers happy.

If you have a connection at another airport be prepared to go through security again, alot of the major airports have this and it's a pain in the back side. so make sure any liquids are disposed of or allow extra time for an in depth search. I learned that the hard way on my first flight and forgot that I bought 2 huge bottles of water. They were very nice though.

One thing that helped me was looking at the airport maps and getting a look of where I may need to go. The bassinet things that were mentioned above are first come first serve, most airlines don't reserve them. You can use seatguru.com to look at your airline details and it will tell you your boarding status as most airline board first class and elderly and parents with young children and then there are some that don't.

I know it's alot to take in but it's best to be prepared so that things go smoothly as possible. You'll do great and love it. Maybe? I would do it again even though I had a complete meltdown at CDG Paris. Horrible horrible airport but they love kids.