As soon as you board a plane you are very restricted when it comes to space. Remember when you used to travel alone, busy getting comfy in your seat only to realise that you would need your wallet for when you would be asked you if you wanted refreshments, you could simply stand up and nimbly extract your purse from your bag and sit back down all in the blink of an eye.

Sounds easy, huh! Now picture yourself juggling a minimum of one young child on one arm, and a bag equipped with half of their worldly possessions on the other - the theory being that you are prepared for every eventuality. Squashed somewhere in the darkest corner of your bulky baby bag is the smallest coin purse known to man holding everything that YOU might need on the flight! This is the reality of the travelling mother!

So it is simply common sense that the secret to effective travel with young children is organisation, swiftly followed by the importance of keeping everything small!

I choose the term “effective travel” because all of the things that you identified with travel which made it a pleasurable experience pre-baby are now well and truly things of the past. What matters now is simply getting from A to B with a minimal of mishaps.

Preparation must begin from the very moment that you decide to travel. Simply choosing the cheapest flight and throwing your stuff in a bag – NO!

Now you need to take into consideration the times of the flight, how that will coincide with feeds, sleeps, etc. You do not want to find yourself waiting to board a flight just when little Johnny is ready for his dinner or overtired because nap-time should have started 30 minutes earlier. Wherever possible you need to keep their routines as close to normal or you could end up arriving at your destination practically catatonic!

So once you have found the right departure times, and breathed your way through the reality of the cost of travelling with an infant nowadays, you can start planning the actual journey.

Packing for my final destination has never really worried me too much as unless you are going to the back of beyond you can buy most things there if you happen to forget anything. The only must for bottle-feeding mothers is formula milk as even the same brands abroad can have different recipes which can be unsettling for young tummies, so always best to take your formula with you.

What I always considered my priority was getting my travelling bag as prepared as it could be, remembering that it has to comply with the 20x35x22 limitations! Not an easy task!

Of course there are the obvious items like nappies, wipes, bottles, etc that you’d have to be pretty silly to forget but there are plenty of other things that you might overlook.

Most mums will pack at least one change of clothes for their child, more if possible, but they might not think about packing something for themselves. A leaky nappy or a spilled drink can be just as devastating, if not more so, to an unsuspecting mum. Perhaps an extra tip worth considering is if you are travelling in trousers to wear shoes that would go with a skirt too and make your emergency clothes a skirt and top. A skirt will generally take up less room in your inflight bag than trousers, or even a dress if you are in summer season.

If you are packing bottles and formula, even nappies, always consider taking more than you need just in case you are delayed. Nothing worse than being caught out that way and a hungry or dirty baby in your arms.

Inflight Entertainment

This could be an endless list of tips and will very much depend on the age of the child you are travelling with.

I think the key is size. Even if it is your child’s favourite toy, if it is at all bulky you need to leave it at home. Airplane seats are not known for their generosity and don’t forget if you are travelling with an under-2 they will be sat on your lap restricting you even further!

This is something worth considering as well if you are thinking of taking anything with you that will really require a tray table down. Unless you are really lucky and get an empty seat next to you this simply isn’t going to be possible.

Stacking Blocks

When I travelled with my little one I used to take stacking blocks – packing into each other meant they didn’t take up any room at all in my bag, and they were very versatile. They were the first thing I packed when we travelled right from when he was a crawling baby to an active toddler. I picked up a set in my local supermarket for less than 2 euros and they were such a good buy. Aside from actually stacking them, they can be banged together, rolled (more useful in the airport lounge), used to hide and seek small items, cup over your nose and mouth to make funny noises, trace round with a pencil to make lots of overlapping shapes to colour, used as a pencil pot, and if there is a beach at your destination you can use them to make sand castles!

Balloons

Okay, this might sound like the most inappropriate thing to take on board a plane but I did and I was rather proud of my creative thinking!! Balloons, pre-inflation, take up zero room so I love them already! I used to partially inflate them so if they did pop they didn’t make a bang and weren’t likely to float off anywhere to startle other passengers! But babies love playing with them and squashing them.

We were really lucky on one flight to get an upgrade so we could sit our little boy on the floor aged 14 months and he played with a few semi-inflated balloons for ages and ages.

If you have lots of time and a felt tip pen you could put hardly any air in them at all and put little faces on them and have a little puppet show! Taking it too far?? Not at all! If you sit and think about it long enough I am sure you could come up with even more ideas of what you could do with a couple of balloons that would amuse a child for long enough.

Practical Tips

Moving on from entertainment, simple practicalities are vital.

The biggest challenge for me was regarding changing facilities and the lack of room. It was fine when my baby was tiny, but as he got bigger and was still in nappies it became practically impossible to change him in the toilet on the fold down table as he was too long.

Pull-up nappies

I had never used pull-up nappies before because they were more expensive and also more likely to leak. But I soon discovered that they were a must on any flight with an older baby. In fact I think I could have changed him almost anywhere if I had pull-up nappies such became my skill! They were quicker as well, and my little boy always had an aversion to being laid down in strange places anyway, even for a nappy change, so pull-ups became a godsend. Admittedly a bit more tricky if we were dealing with a dirty bottom, but far from impossible.

Baby Sling

Most times I did travel with a pushchair and I was allowed to keep it with me until I boarded the plane, but there was the odd occasion where I wasn’t. Also don’t forget that even if you keep your pushchair til you board it rarely is waiting for you at the plane’s door as you depart – you have to go to luggage reclaim to collect it. In this case struggling with a young baby and a bulky bag can be a strain.

So don’t pack that sling or baby carrier in the luggage or leave it at home, have it with you! If you have an older child how about a HippyChick Hipseat. Not so useful for long stints without a pushchair but a lifesaver for airport transit, etc. Passport control always seems so much further away when you have things to carry so make life easier for yourself.

I think that more or less covers my tips at least. Travelling doesn’t have to be stressful with children and I actually found that travelling with a young baby was much easier than when they got older, even if I did have to take more along with me. So if you are a new mum don’t be afraid to get on a flight, you really might be pleasantly surprised!

If you have a tip to share we would love to hear from you!