Category: Travel

12 Travel Tips for Flying With a Baby

Twelve Tips for Flying with a Baby

In Hank’s first year, we’ve visited four different states and three different countries. We’re very tired. Still, we’ve learned a lot about flying with the little guy, and it’s all stuff you should know too.

Follow these guidelines and you’ll be comfortable, entertained, and prepared for the duration of your flight. And if not? Well, at least you’ll be in Belize when it’s over.

1. Book wisely. If your baby is on a regular sleep schedule, take a moment to savor your good luck. Then book your flight during nap or sleep time. Booking tickets is your first chance to optimize seating, though fortunately not your last.

2. Ditch your diaper bag. This smallish Samsonite tote is Hank’s travel bag. (On sale for $20! The hell?) We use it as his carry-on instead of the diaper bag because it has more room, but still stows under the seat. The extra pockets and U-shaped top zipper also make things much more accessible.

3. Provide entertainment. Pack a few new toys if the baby is older, otherwise cup lids and pretzel packets will fascinate. Leave noise-making toys at home. Even soft jingle or squeak will irritate others after an hour or so.

4. Prep for security screening. Invest in a couple of sturdy clear bags that you can yank out of the tote when you get to the security gate. (By the way, food doesn’t count toward your quart-bag limit on toiletries.) We use a medium bag for all his food—usually two ready-to-use bottles of formula, one empty bottle filled with the right amount of powdered formula, and a baggie of powdered formula with the scoop in the bag. The little bag houses children’s Tylenol, hand cream, travel-sized butt paste, a nasal sprayer, eye drops, thermometer, etc.

5. Plan for mishaps. Tuck in two fresh onesies for the kiddo, and a clean T-shirt for you or your partner, in case there’s an incident. You’ll want a few quart-sized plastic zippie bags for wet clothes. I also throw in a large plastic yard bag because it packs so small and is useful if you have a little guy who decides to poop, pee, spit up, and repeat. Dress the baby for easy changes.

6. Prep for fussiness. If you know your baby is a screamer, pack a bag full of foam earplugs for your neighbors. We also find that chamomile or herbal teething drops help calm our baby when he’s grumpy.

7. Buy a couple bottles of water. You can’t get bottled water through security in The States, but you can bring it on the plane if you buy it at the airport. The water on planes has lots of bacteria, so I add bottled water to our powdered formula. We also use a little bottled water and bathroom soap as a last resort if we have to wash a bottle for re-use on board.

8. Strategize seating. A bulkhead seat or an extra empty seat will change your life for the next few hours. First ask for the bulkhead (if you’re traveling internationally with a baby who’s under 28″ or so, this is where they hook you up with bassinets). If they’re not available, and you’re traveling with a partner, ask them to seat one of you on the window and the other on the aisle. This often leaves you with an empty seat between, because no one wants to sit in the middle. If you still haven’t wrangled an empty seat when you get to the gate, bring your cute baby up to the counter and ask very nicely if they can help you find an empty seat should one open up. Then ask if you can get them some coffee.

9. Keep your stroller with you. They’ll give you luggage tags at the gate, and you just leave it outside the door of the plane. We travel with a Kolcraft car seat stroller so we can check the wheels and take the car seat aboard if there are empty seats.

10. Make friends. Be extra kind to every crewmember you encounter. When you board the plane, show the flight attendants your baby, introduce them, take your baby’s hand and help him wave. Flight attendants are awesome, and they’re your allies in keeping the little one quiet and happy. They’ll heat bottles, bring extra blankets, supply cup lids, you name it. But only if you’re pleasant.

11. Do a scrub down. Our doctor advised us to use a few baby wipes to clean our arm rests and table trays. We even clean the light buttons and air vents so everything we touch is a little more sanitary. When you use the changing table in the bathroom, you might also want to wipe off anything the baby can reach in there.

12. Ease ear pressure. The baby should suck on something during takeoff and landing. Nursing works, as does bottle feeding, pacifiers, or a lollipop.

That’s all there is to it. Easier than you thought, right? You’re welcome to leave more ideas in the comments. Tomorrow I’ll do a little roundup of the best way to get through airport security efficiently. You can hardly wait.

Memory Scrapbook

More small differences between Buenos Aires and home:

-You leave your garbage on the curb in bags for pickup each afternoon.

-And yet, the garbage cans are wire boxes on poles, presumably so wild dogs and cats can’t reach the contents.

-I’ve seen at least three women in see-through white skirts wearing black G-strings.

-Milk for your tea comes steamed.

-Bookstores don’t have prices on the books, you have to ask.

-It’s unusually difficult to get change for large bills.

-They sometimes spray perfume on your purchases.

-Milkshakes are just milk blended with whatever flavor you’ve requested.

-At one local grocery store, there’s an express line for the pregnant and disabled.

-All the playground equipment here is still mildly dangerous. Working sea saws and merry-go-rounds, hard dirt ground so the pain shoots up your legs when you jump from the swing.

Flying Over Buenos Aires

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Libby wanted to go skydiving for her birthday, but it wasn’t possible to arrange it, so we took a helicopter flight instead.

I had no idea. It was one of the most amazing things ever, one of those very few things in life that make you dream better. When the helicopter lifted off, it felt exactly how I imagine it would feel to have wings.

(If you plan to be in Buenos Aires any time soon, our pilot was Fernando Rodriguez Alfaro: fralfaros at hotmail dot com. Cellphone: 1551810095. Do it! Do it! You will love it.)

Travel Tips

We choose an outside table and order a couple of caipirinhas to battle the heat.

“Towels?” a street vendor holds up a handful of dishtowels for us to consider.
“No, gracias.”
Another visitor moments later,
“Candy?”
“No, gracias.”

And so on every few minutes until a drunk man approaches and sways toward us.

“Can I have money for the bus?”
“No. Lo siento.”

My purse is sitting in my lap, and I feel uneasy. When the man leaves, I place it on the ground against the wall. The table and chair legs are substantial enough to block anyone who might reach and run from behind me. We chat for a while until a woman rolls up a large, janitor-style cart filled with small boxes.

“Incense?”
“No, gracias.”
“But it smells very good, see?”
“No, gracias.”
“This one? Patchouli?”
“No. Gracias.”

She begins to wheel the cart away, and then stops suddenly. She leans in close to my girlfriend and mumbles something incoherent. My friend looks confused.

“What beaaaautiful earrings,” the vendor says. “So beaaaautiful.” She comes even closer to admire them.
“Uh. Thanks.”
“Beaautiful!”
My girlfriend and I exchange a look, and she’s on her way.

Oddly, she’s the last visitor we have that evening, though several vendors approach other tables. We finish our cocktails and when the bill arrives, I look down for my purse. Of course, it’s gone.

After some conjecture, we figure that it was most likely the incense woman. It would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for someone to grab it from the sides, so I’m fairly sure there was a child or small person hidden on the bottom of her cart who reached in between our legs from the front of the table and grabbed it. Whoever it was had a bit of difficulty (the purse was really crammed in there), and hence the prolonged and awkward earring admiration.

Losses:

-About $100 in cash. Ugh.
-My gorgeous green wallet with bright pink interior that was a gift from my father in law.
-My very favorite, silver lamé clutch that I got for $2 at Goodwill. Irreplaceable.
-My notebook. My awesome Moleskine travel notebook filled with Argentina goodness.Ugh.

Wins:

-The knowledge that, for the first time in about five years, I left the house without my camera. Suck it, incense lady.
-I am impressed enough by the thief’s skill that I didn’t punish myself for too long over stupidly putting my purse on the ground.
-Someone found some of my abandoned wallet contents the next day and emailed me, because most people are goodies.
-After four years of marriage and a child, I finally have the incentive to get a driver’s license and credit cards with my married name on them.

In conclusion, when in doubt, shove your purse up your skirt.

Memory Scrapbook

More small differences between Argentina and San Francisco:

People don’t really throw anything out. There are two “vintage” stores in our neighborhood, and pickings are slim. One of the owners told me she goes to New York to get things, because Argentines pass down their clothing or use the fabric to make something new.

Perhaps because of the above, there’s a rich sense of creativity in the way Argentines dress and the things they make. So many of the objects in shops are completely novel to me.

Especially mid-day, about a quarter of restaurants and bars have no music. It’s peaceful.

There’s dog shit everywhere on the sidewalks, presumably because the dog walkers take out six or seven dogs at a time.

The ideal ice cream cone scoop comes to a point on top, because they don’t keep ice cream as cold here. All the giant pictures of idealized ice cream in heladerias have scoops that look like gnome hats.

They open presents on Christmas Eve, and some families light candles and make wishes before blowing them out. Everyone sets off fireworks at midnight, so the city sounds like New Year’s at home with all the explosions and shouting.

Whipped cream is more the consistency of whipped butter.

Lots of shop owners have a high fear of fraud about Internet sales.

“Hypoallergenic” products are often perfumed.

There are little garbage cans next to the toilets so you can throw away your toilet paper instead of flushing it.

Thermoses are everywhere in shops because people need them to keep their matê warm.

What nutella is to much of Europe, dulce de leche is to Argentina. It’s caramelized brown sugar, milk, and sweetened evaporated milk, and they put it on bread, pancakes, ice cream, whatever. The texture is unbelievable, like liquid silk.

Matambre

http://www.db798.com/pictobrowser.swf

Bryan is adventurous about most things, and especially food. Wherever we go in the world, he tries the sausage. Good idea in Germany, but Malaysia? Anyway, lately, he’s taken to trying meat of all sorts, which is how we ended up preparing Matambre for Christmas. Turns out it’s a very typical Argentine dish, and you should know how to make it, because it’s awesome.

It all started when Bryan dragged me into the butcher shop around the corner, and then pointed to stuff while I tried to translate. The conversation with the butcher went like this:

Bryan: What is that?
Me: What is that?
Butcher: Matambre.
Me: What is matambre?
Butcher: Meat and things.
Bryan: I want one of those.
Me: Uh. OK. How do you prepare it?
Butcher: You put it in boiling water for two hours, then freeze it.
Me: In the freezer?
Butcher: No.
Me: Freeze it?
Butcher: No! You freeze it with the post in the sink.
Me: You make it cold?
Him: Yes.
Me: OK. Do you cook it in the plastic and everything?
Him: Yes, yes! Then you break it with the sink.

In answer to my utter confusion, the butcher mimed preparation of the meat, which ended with us putting the roast in the sink and whacking it hard with the bottom of the pan.

Apparently, a lot of people serve it cold as an appetizer, though they don’t put it in the freezer to get it that way. It’s crazy tasty, and a lot like corned beef, except the vegetables are already rolled up inside with a couple of boiled eggs for good measure. That’s why it looks sort of like a severed arm when you first open it up. Delicious.