Justine: Hey guys, welcome to my channel. I’m Justine and this is little Marcus. Today we’re going to be showing you our top tips for flying with a baby, but real quick, before we get into that portion of the video, I wanted to welcome you if you are new to my channel. I upload videos on motherhood, lifestyle, beauty on Mondays and Fridays, and if you don’t want to miss any of those, you can click the red button down here in the corner to subscribe to my channel, and if you are on a mobile device, there should be a little arrow down in this corner, which you can click on that. A window will pop open along with that red subscribe button, so you can subscribe there, and with all taken care of, let’s get into the video.
Ever since I posted the blog where we traveled to Texas, you guys have been requesting, and letting me know that you’re waiting for me to upload this video, and so I apologize that it’s taken me this long to actually do it. Marcus was two months old at the time and he is currently six months, almost seven. When I was getting ready to fly with Marcus for the first time, I was really nervous, and I couldn’t find a whole lot of information on YouTube or online. There was some but not a whole lot, not enough to make me feel really assured that everything was going to go smoothly. I gathered a lot of wisdom from my cousins, my sister-in-law, and a friend that all have little babies that have actually traveled with them before, so I’m just going to share the best advice that I got, and the ideas that really worked for me.
Like I said earlier, Marcus was only two months old at the time, which means that he was still sleeping a lot, so the results might vary, obviously, depending on your baby and depending on how old he or she is. Tip number one is to nurse baby at take off and landing, each flight. Obviously, the sucking is supposed to help with the change in pressure, so they don’t get an earache or anything. As a little girl, I remember getting earaches whenever I flew on a place. I thought he might be susceptible to them too, so I did nurse him, take off and landing at every flight. We had a change of flights, so that was like four different nursing in a six hour trip, but it really, really worked, and he was really great during the whole flight. I don’t think he had any discomfort whatsoever, so I think that is a really important tip, and that’s why it’s number one.
Tip number two is to bring a nursing cover. I’m more private when it comes to nursing. I don’t like to nurse when there’s a lot of people around, and I knew that there would really no escape, since I needed to nurse on the airplane. Something that made me feel more comfortable, and it’s very cute, are these infinity scarf nursing covers, which you can wear on as a scarf, which is convenient because you don’t have to dig through anything when you’re on a plane to find it. You’re just wearing it as an accessory, so that’s awesome. I talked about this before, but it also goes all the way down, around your shoulders, and you’re completely covered. Also, underneath my shirt, I had a nursing tank top, so that just added to me feeling really secure and comfortable nursing on the plane.
Tip number three is a Moby Wrapper or Go Baby. This is something that I used more for the whole traveling experience. It was really nice to be hands free when we were visiting family, and at the wedding, when we went to Texas. I actually used it during the trip and not so much on the airplane, but you can totally put this on and carry him that way while flying because a lot of babies just really love being in a Moby Wrap. I, however, didn’t do that because I didn’t want to put it on in the airplane or at the airport because it’s so long that you have to get it on the ground at some point, and I just didn’t really feel like would be that clean, but however, it was really, really useful during the trip, so that is why it is one of my tips.
Okay, I’m losing track, but I think we’re on tip number four, which is bring a lot of onesies, more than you think you’re going to need. I think as soon as we boarded the airplane, Marcus had a blow out, and if they have more than that, you don’t want to be stuck without clothes for your baby, so I would highly recommend that you bring extra clothes than you think you’re going to need, and I just have mine packed away in this Ziploc bag. You can also stuff any dirty clothes back into the Ziploc bag, and it also might get on you, so a good idea might be to bring a change of clothes for yourself as well, even if your baby just spits up a lot, because it wouldn’t be fun to travel with dirty clothes.
Tip number five is to bring a nursing pillow, and mine is somewhat smaller than the average nursing pillow. I actually really love this size. You probably see that it’s quite a bit smaller, and it’s really cute print, so I’m not talking about a big, huge nursing pillow, which would take up way too much room in a plane, or be a pain to bring. This is one of the things I really had to fight Daniel on. He wanted to pack really light, but I insisted that I really needed to bring a nursing pillow, and it actually ended up being really, really nice to have. This is the size that I always use, and I really love it because it was just really easy to stick under my stroller.
It doesn’t take up that much space, and it made it really convenient to nurse him with, but also, sorry you guys can’t see this, but it was also really nice to leave Marcus sleeping down on the nursing pillow, and he slept the whole time like that. It was so comfortable for him. This nursing pillow is by, oh, the brand is called, Nursing Pillow, so I will have a link to that down below where you guys can get this, and I also have … Marcus is playing with his toys now, as well as my discount code, where you guys can get, basically you just pay for shipping, which is $15.00. The size makes them really convenient to travel with.
Tip number six, I don’t have enough fingers, so tip number six is if the baby is crying, have the dad, if you’re traveling with him, walk up and down the aisle to sooth the baby because, this was actually a really good tip, and I saw another guy doing this. If other passengers see a mom with a crying baby, they’re going to think, “Well, she needs to keep her baby quiet,” but if everyone sees a dad carrying a baby, which it’s sad but it’s true, all they’ll be thinking is, “Wow, what a great dad,” and although Marcus didn’t every cry during the whole flight, that was our game plan had Marcus started crying on the trip.
Tip number seven is to bring pacifier wipes. If your baby uses a pacy, which Marcus did, and he was fantastic the whole time because he had the pacy. I highly recommend bringing some pacifier wipes because it’s going to fall on the floor. Something’s going to happen where it gets all gross, where you don’t just want to put it back in the baby’s mouth, so I recommend bringing some sort of disinfecting baby wipe. This one’s just the Target brand, and you can also use it on his hands and face if you need to as well.
Tip number eight is to bring your own car seat because if you’re going to be getting a rental car, you don’t know how old that car seat is. Just for safety reasons we decided to bring our own car seat. We were told it would be more convenient not to bring our big stroller, but we decided to anyway because Marcus’ car seat actually clips into the stroller, and we didn’t want to have to carry the car seat around. It actually ended up being really convenient that way. Daniel had a backpack and the luggage. I had the backpack diaper bag and pushed the stroller. It actually ended up working out really well that way, so even though it might be more convenient for an older child to bring one of those tinier strollers, I thought it was really great to have ours to push around, and just load up on the stroller.
The last two tips are for momma. I actually brought my Kindle and some headphones. I was just listening to an audio book on the flight, but the nice thing is, it’s so compact that it fits right inside your purse, and you can have a ton of different books, and you can also get on the Internet. You only need one hand to hold it and flip pages, so you can totally hold the baby while you’re doing that. It was just something that was really convenient and took up hardly any space.
The second momma tip is to bring snacks for you. You’re going to be stuck on the plane for a long time, so just make sure you have water to drink and bring some granola bars or fruit or trail mix, something like that, that will keep you sustained, so you can continue to produce milk for your little one. Anytime I skipped a meal in those early days, I would notice it in my milk supply, so I always made sure to have some sort of healthy granola bar or healthy snack of some sort.
The last thing is something that I didn’t even think about as a first time mom. I didn’t realize that I would need one, but that’s your baby’s birth certificate. Luckily, I found out just a couple days before traveling that I would need to bring my baby’s birth certificate with us because they will need to ID the baby as well. I just wanted to pass that along to you. Although babies are free to travel, they still need identification of some sort, so make sure you have your baby’s birth certificate on hand.
That’s the end of our video. I hope you guys found this useful. Obviously, at the time, Marcus wasn’t old enough for snacks or toys or anything, so I can’t recommend anything like that, but if you can, or have any great mom advice for flying with a baby, or children even, I would love to hear from you guys, and have us help each other out on this, so please, please leave a comment down below. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to my channel if you haven’t already done that, and I will see you all in my next video. Bye guys.