Tips: Air travel with an infant
August 12th, 2008
This morning, reading a post on Ohdeedoh (I’m such an Apartment Therapy fan, seriously) about traveling with kids reminded me about our recent trip. We took our little Capucine to France in June for a month, and among the many memorable moments were, unsurprisingly, a few lessons on air travel with an infant. There are a lot of ‘what to take’ lists around, and I read at least ten sites on the subject ahead of time. But of course, there is always something to be learned. I emailed these thoughts to some other mamas originally, and they liked it so much, I’m posting it again here. (Note that these tips are most appropriate for international flights. It would be a little overkill to worry about all this for a four-hour flight. Except the one about the nose-rinsing, boy don’t skip that one.)
I’ll put in links for products I used for this list, too. It was all one small backpack, no big deal. Here ya go!
- We booked the aisle and window seats in a three-seat row, on the hope that nobody would want to be in a seat between two parents and a baby. (The Air France lady was the one who told us to do it.) That worked perfectly, we had an extra seat to pile stuff in both ways. Barring that, go for a bulkhead seat.
- We reserved a bassinet, many airlines have them on long flights. Request one when you make reservations and then call to reserve or confirm again 48 hours before the flight, because there are usually more babies than bassinets. That is a tip from a flight attendent, too.
Here’s what the Air France bassinets are like:
This morning, reading a post on Ohdeedoh (I’m such an Apartment Therapy fan, seriously) about traveling with kids reminded me about our recent trip. We took our little Capucine to France in June for a month, and among the many memorable moments were, unsurprisingly, a few lessons on air travel with an infant. There are a lot of ‘what to take’ lists around, and I read at least ten sites on the subject ahead of time. But of course, there is always something to be learned. I emailed these thoughts to some other mamas originally, and they liked it so much, I’m posting it again here. (Note that these tips are most appropriate for international flights. It would be a little overkill to worry about all this for a four-hour flight. Except the one about the nose-rinsing, boy don’t skip that one.)
I’ll put in links for products I used for this list, too. It was all one small backpack, no big deal. Here ya go!
- We booked the aisle and window seats in a three-seat row, on the hope that nobody would want to be in a seat between two parents and a baby. (The Air France lady was the one who told us to do it.) That worked perfectly, we had an extra seat to pile stuff in both ways. Barring that, go for a bulkhead seat.
- We reserved a bassinet, many airlines have them on long flights. Request one when you make reservations and then call to reserve or confirm again 48 hours before the flight, because there are usually more babies than bassinets. That is a tip from a flight attendent, too.
Here’s what the Air France bassinets are like:
