anyone brought their LO on a tropical vacation

Re: anyone brought their LO on a tropical vacation

• jnnfrrose6 member

  March 2014

  I'd have no hesitation taking DS on a "tropical vacation."  I'd absolutely second guess sitting on a flight that long with him, though.  

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• funmommy9 member

  March 2014

  Hoping to visit family in Thailand for Christmas. Flying from Canada so it will be a crazy long flight. Wondering if anyone else survived a super long flight with a toddler?
  

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• jnnfrrose6 member

  March 2014

  I haven't personally, but we have friends who used to live in India and they would fly home occasionally with their kids (now 5, 3, 2, and 1). They moved back to the states before the last one was born.

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• jllmb79 member

  March 2014

  I have 2 little ones now so I can't imagine more then a few hours on a plane with them but my friend just flew from Canada to India to visit family.  She said the best thing she did was to book one of those 1st class sleeper seats for her and son.  She also flew alone.

  

  
  

  
  

   

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• ss265 member

  March 2014 edited March 2014

  I flew from the U.S. to South East Asia when DS was 1 year old. A lot depends on the personality of your LO. DS is a fairly easy baby and he slept around 80% of the flight. We did have some rough hours where he just wanted to play and not sleep. A friend of mine recently did a similar flight and her baby hardly slept so she had a different experience. I would recommend the following.

  • Book early so that you can reserve a bassinet for your LO. DS refused to sleep in the bassinet and only slept on us but having a bassinet means that the airline will seat you at the front of the section of seats so you will have more leg room and space for LO to play in front of you
  • Bring some new toys to distract him
  • Bring plenty of snacks in case he/she doesn't like the food that the airline provides
  • Bring lots of diapers, change of clothes, medicine (medications don't need to comply to the 3-1-1 rule but bring the relevant printout from the TSA website in case you run into issues) and a thermometer (in case he develops a fever while flying)
  • Follow his bedtime routine as closely as possible to help him wind down for sleep - bring pajamas, favorite blanket etc.

  Finally, this is completely up to you, but we brought some Benadryl with us to help DS sleep.(assuming you know that Benadryl makes him/her drowsy and not wired, like it does to some kids). We discussed it with our pediatrician before we flew. I don't usually advocate drugging your child and it's not for everyone but on a 30 hour journey, we wanted to have it as an option.

  Good luck! I was really nervous before our flight but it wasn't too bad (maybe because I was expecting the worst).

  

  
  

  
  

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• APendola member

  March 2014

  Most of this trip was not tropical and she wasn't a toddler yet, but DD went to Chile and Argentina with us when she was about 8 months...we did spend a few days at Iguazu Falls which is tropical.  We are taking her to Hawaii next month and I look forward to playing on the beach with her.

  
  

  Most tropical locations do have risks of certain diseases (ie. dengue fever, yellow fever), so you should talk to your doctor or make an appointment with a travel clinic to talk about vaccinations and other precautions (ie. sleeping with a bug net may be advised for some locations).

  
  

  
  

    
  

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• traveltheworld member

  March 2014

  We flew close to 14 hours to Asia with DS when he was about 18 months.  One piece of advice - get your child her own seat, no matter the cost!  I'm super cheap and was unwilling to buy an extra seat, and prior to the Asia trip, have flown multiple times with DS before (Hawaii - 6 hours, various 2-3 hour flights to different cities), so I thought we'd be fine since we managed to reserve the bucket seats and there was plenty of space for him to play on the floor. 

  He hated it!  He wanted to be up on our seats, and without the extra seat, there really wasn't enough room to put him.  He cried/screamed a lot.  He also couldn't sleep because there was not enough room for him to spread out.  We tried putting him on the floor but that wasn't allowed by the flight attendants.  We brought along tons of new toys and snacks, but about 8 hours in, none of that was effective anymore since he was so tired but couldn't sleep.  It was painful.

  On the way back, we lucked out and there was an extra seat so he had his own seat, and it was a completely different experience.  He didn't even whine once.  He really liked sitting by himself like a big boy, we coloured, read stories, ate snacks; and when he was tired, he had enough room to put his head on my lap and sleep. 

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