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August 2019 Moms
cato99
member
Product Spotlight: Travel Accessories
cato99
member
Remember going on a trip and throwing a tiny stylish weekend bag together and waltzing onto a plane and scoffing at those bedraggled travelers waiting for checked luggage after the flight? Congratulations, those days are over! Now you will be traveling with an infant, or toddler, or child, and their mountains of gear.
Whether you're a seasoned traveler in and out of the airport every weekend, or only slog through the occasional big family trip, we'd love to hear all of your travel tips and accessory recommendations to make flying (or long-car-driving, or bus-taking, or train-taking, or boat-sailing) a little more streamlined and easy.
What do you do about carseats? Do you travel with them or rent at destination? Do you wrap them in plastic for the flight or use a carseat backpack carrier or one of those push-systems that attaches to the carseat? And what about strollers? Do you take your regular stroller or use a special travel one? And how about traveling with double strollers? Do you exclusively baby-wear while traveling instead? And where will baby sleep at destination--have you ever had to travel with a particular travel crib you'd recommend?
How do you pack? Do you have separate bags for you and baby, or one big suitcase? Do you have packing cubes you recommend? When you travel, what do you bring along with you for baby health (medicine, baby hygiene products)? What do you do with diapers and wipes--pack them in a special place, or at random, or Amazon Prime directly to your destination? Once they reach the toddler run-away-from-you-in-a-crowded-airport stage, do you use a harness or leash-backpack?
What snacks do you pack? How do you deal with breastmilk or formula through security and on the plane? What do you take with you on the flight for baby/toddler distraction? Any tips on managing the system--e.g., getting TSA-Pre, or Global Traveler status for fast-tracked customs, or strategies for boarding the plane, or choosing seats on the flight? Please share!
Prior and Upcoming Product Spotlights
Whether you're a seasoned traveler in and out of the airport every weekend, or only slog through the occasional big family trip, we'd love to hear all of your travel tips and accessory recommendations to make flying (or long-car-driving, or bus-taking, or train-taking, or boat-sailing) a little more streamlined and easy.
What do you do about carseats? Do you travel with them or rent at destination? Do you wrap them in plastic for the flight or use a carseat backpack carrier or one of those push-systems that attaches to the carseat? And what about strollers? Do you take your regular stroller or use a special travel one? And how about traveling with double strollers? Do you exclusively baby-wear while traveling instead? And where will baby sleep at destination--have you ever had to travel with a particular travel crib you'd recommend?
How do you pack? Do you have separate bags for you and baby, or one big suitcase? Do you have packing cubes you recommend? When you travel, what do you bring along with you for baby health (medicine, baby hygiene products)? What do you do with diapers and wipes--pack them in a special place, or at random, or Amazon Prime directly to your destination? Once they reach the toddler run-away-from-you-in-a-crowded-airport stage, do you use a harness or leash-backpack?
What snacks do you pack? How do you deal with breastmilk or formula through security and on the plane? What do you take with you on the flight for baby/toddler distraction? Any tips on managing the system--e.g., getting TSA-Pre, or Global Traveler status for fast-tracked customs, or strategies for boarding the plane, or choosing seats on the flight? Please share!
Prior and Upcoming Product Spotlights
Re: Product Spotlight: Travel Accessories
When babies are still in the bucket car seats, I found it easiest to use the stroller with the car seat attached all through the airports, then gate check both for the flights (I don’t wrap them in anything). After a year / when you have a convertible car seat, I bought a generic bag for the seat off Amazon and we check that with our luggage, then continue to use the stroller in the airport and gate check it. I always use my regular stroller (Baby Jogger City Mini GT) b/c I want to use it on the trip and b/c I throw stuff in the bottom so I don’t have to lug it through the airport.
*Every airline I’ve used allows you to bring a stroller, a car seat, and a pack and play FOR FREE. Take advantage of that so you don’t have to rent any of that junk at your destination.
Make sure you always pack your breast pump in your carry-on a) so you can use it if necessary and b) so it doesn’t jostled around and destroyed in your checked baggage. I pack pumping supplies in zip-lock bags, and bring an extra bag or two to store the dirty supplies when I’m done. I was never given a hard time bringing breast milk through security...I never brought more than a bottle though, since I didn’t want to travel with ice packs and stuff. I would just pump more when I needed it, and had a couple of single-serve formula packs in case I didn’t have enough milk.
My kid always fell asleep on the plane as a baby, which was fantastic. As a toddler...not so much. I highly recommend using technology / screen time as a distraction for toddlers. Download new videos you know they’ll like and haven’t seen before or in a while. We have an old iPad that is just for our toddler and is used exclusively when we travel. It also has some games downloaded on it...just remember that things need to be useable when you don’t have Internet. You can’t rely on YouTube or Amazon Prime on the plane.
I don’t have a ton of “destination” advice since we always stay with my parents - so I bring enough diapers / wipes for the travel time, but they stock up on those supplies at their house. They have a crib we can use at their house, but we’re usually at their cabin too so we bring our pack-and-play along for sleeping there.
I also used my bucket seat and frame as a stroller and would gate check both. Most bucket seats can be installed without the base so that’s what we would use for the week.
Larger seats are a little harder to transport. My kids both use Britax Boulevard seats - they are expensive and bulky and there is no way I’m lugging them through an airport. We bought a less expensive option that’s lighter. DH keeps that one in his car so he can take a kid with him occasionally and I use that one for travel. I did buy a back pack holder for the seat - I travel solo with both kids so being able to throw it on my back and have my hands free for stroller and luggage was key and I check that with luggage. We had a second seat already at both grandparents homes so we only needed to bring 1. If going somewhere else I have rented seats before but you have to do some research. I actually found a car rental company in LA that used only Britax Marathon seats and replaced them new every 3 years - it was great! But you can definitely end up with garbage through a car rental company.
We also bought a less expensive stroller for travel. I just wasn’t dealing with the size and weight of my Bob while flying. A good umbrella stroller was always sufficient and so much easier.
Travel packing complicates by a thousand with kids. On the rare occasion I travel without them I feel I have almost nothing with me. Figuring out what they need and how to keep them entertained and happy while making sure you can actually transport it all is a fine balancing act.
One extra note - if doing a big trip and you don’t want to haul a ton of gear, I would highly recommend looking into a third party baby gear rental company like babyquip. They are in a ton of markets and you can rent super nice and clean gear - anything from boxes of toys to car seats to sleeping products - some vendors even have luxury products or more unique products more reflective of their individual market (like a backpack carrier for the mountains). They will even come set everything up for you or meet you at the airport. It’s kind of pricey but can definitely simplify travel. I actually worked for them for a while and it’s legit (and SAHMs a great way to earn some extra $$ if you want to hang onto your gear). Almost all of my gear ended up paying for itself and then some.
Now that she's bigger and doesn't fit into that stroller/carseat combo anymore, we use this amazingly lightweight travel stroller. It folds down small enough to fit in the overhead compartment, and is durable enough that we ran around all over Northern Europe and cobbled streets with it. MORALLY PROBLEMATIC TIP: there is a new rule that you can't bring a stroller onto a flight at all. Normally that's not a problem because you can gate-check strollers for free anyway, but a couple of times DH has been adamant about taking it on when we have tight connections and can't wait for them to unload gate-checked strollers between flights, so this stroller in particular folds down and into a little bag so that it just looks like a little suitcase and you can sneak it on. OR SO I'VE HEARD.
Many people have recommended attaching your regular car-seat to a cart like this, and you can use the carseat as a stroller in the airport too.
Now that we'll have two, I'm sure traveling will get even harder. I plan to babywear the little one a lot more, and just bring our regular double stroller (I'm planning on getting the City Mini GT Double, probably). And I haven't used it, but I do have this little toddler backpack with optional leash/harness. I see absolutely no shame in using one of these--some kids are chill, some kids are absolute runners in airports and if you have another infant (or a pregnant belly) and a pile of luggage and are on your own, you can't just take off running after them.
Get packing cubes no matter if you pack separately or all together. It makes life so much easier.
TIPS:
-when we traveled with DD and she was super tiny (2-3 months), I brought my Boppy pillow with me. Normally I'd hate to have something so bulky but it was nice to put her on the pillow on my lap instead of actively holding her.
-feed them boob or bottle during take off and landing; it helps with the pressure change
-you can bring bottles and sippy cups full of liquid through security, just let them know
-it never hurts to ask at the gate whether it's an empty-ish flight and there can be some seat juggling to give you more room. I traveled to London from San Francisco alone with 7-month DD. On the way there, they were able to put me in a completely empty row near the back of the plane so that I could lie down with her; on the way back, they put me with an empty seat next to me so I brought her carseat on the plane and she flew in there and slept comfortably most of the way!
-pretty much all hotels have pack-n-plays or cribs, but it's a good idea to call ahead and ask.
Now we limit our travel to driving, but some of our trips are ~4 hours. We still try and leave around bedtime because then they sleep through most of the trip. When traveling during the day can't be helped we take lots of books, snacks, and a toy or two. We also load a tablets with a few episodes of something they like.
A great trick that's worked recently (for when their older) is that while we're trying to load up the car we give DS#1 (3yo) a duffle and tell him that it's his and he should put his blankets and stuffed animals in, and that he can add any books or toys he wants. He loves that he's helping, and it keeps him occupied. Plus then I know he has toys he wants.
We usually bring our pack and play, and stroller with us, and enough diapers for the trip. Everything else we stock up on once we get there.