Comments on: We have a travel-safe baby

By: The Obligatory Vacation Recap at Sowrey.org

The Obligatory Vacation Recap at Sowrey.org — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:21:03 +0000

[...] I said it before, but our kid rocks. Sleep on the flight out (sadly, not so much on the way back), adjustment to the timezone in two nights (by the third day, all was well), played a lot on the trains (although she did have trouble sleeping due to lack of space), and she didn’t keep us up at night even though we were all in the same room. It didn’t matter how many places we went or how many people wanted to hold her (the Wee One apparently is the cutest thing many Brits have ever seen, judging by the near-endless stream of comments we got). [...]

By: Cath

Cath — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 00:16:45 +0000

Geez – we could’ve used the “puker” a couple of times now!! LOL

By: Geoff

Geoff — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:40:24 +0000

Rent-a-Puker, eh? Sounds like a great business model!

By: Geoff

Geoff — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:39:22 +0000

Yeah, we didn’t have to change diapers in the plane this time. It’s only an hour, so unless she unloads rather heavily, we can wait until the other end.

That said, sooner or later we have to go east. If it ain’t to Ontario, it’ll be to Europe. That closet change is a-comin’…

By: Karen

Karen — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 20:20:41 +0000

Great for you three…. sounds like a piece of cake! One of Kara’s first flights was Syracuse to Pittsburgh and on to West Palm. In true Scottish fashion, since she had just turned 2, we only purchased two adult seats, figuring she could sit on a lap. Syracuse to Pittsburgh was a snap…. 40 minute flight….. stayed on the same plane. Breakfast was served after we were airborne out of Pittsburgh. Bob ate and I fed Kara off his full breakfast tray….chunks of pineapple, bits of toast et cetera….. so far so good. Then I ate while Bob held Kara. After I was done, she sat in my lap and was headed off to a snooze when all of a sudden, she sat bolt upright and threw up onto my lap…… including chunky bits of pineapple et alia. The lady golfer seated to my right promptly turned as “green in her face” as the golfing attire she was wearing!
A stewardess was called and the golfer was moved to another row, freeing up the third seat. I wandered down the aisle with the edge of my dress turned upward to contain my lap contents and cleaned myself. When I returned to my seat, Kara was belted into the middle seat and sleeping. After that flight, Bob and I figured we could run an ad in the local paper offering “Rent a Puker” service for adults not willing to pay for that third seat. There’s a lot of humor needed in parenting and boy oh boy, do you ever learn a lot!!
Please let me know when you are headed to Oakville. I would love to see all three of you.

By: Erin

Erin — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 16:31:24 +0000

Glad to hear that the first trip went so well! Yeah for you.

By: Scott

Scott — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 03:34:31 +0000

Being in a similar situation as you guys having family on opposites of the country we did A LOT of traveling. The breastfeeding trick works wonders, and not once did we ever have anyone tell us not to do it. Both our kids could of been next to the speaker at a rock concert and wouldn’t flinch if they were feeding.

As they got older, one of the best investments we ever made was one of those portable dvd players and a bunch of Baby Einstein DVDs. This was before the airlines had TV in the back of the seats (some planes still don’t). Even with the TVs not all the shows available entertained our kids like their own DVDs. To me the Baby Einstein stuff is like a bad acid trip but it kept our oldest entertained for hours. Our youngest is more interested in books so we usually have a bag full of them.

The last thing, even though kids fly free until they are two, a few times we broke down and bought the third seat in the row, nothing worse than having a squirming kid and being crammed into two seats. Its not fun for you and it is definitely not fun for the other person. It starts out cute, but after the 4th hour of being kicked you can see the rage in their eyes.

Wait till she starts walking, then plane rides are real fun, I counted once, 47 times up and down the aisle of the plane on a 4 hour flight to Toronto. We knew everyone on that plane by the end of the flight.

I have noticed WestJet seating all the kids in the same spot, you will notice that more and more. Restaurants do this too, take a look around next time you go out to eat, I bet you will see a lot of other high chairs and strollers in the area.

Not sure if you guys are planning to have more but that is when traveling “really” gets fun. But its all worth it, and the sadist side of me thinks it is kind of funny when the kids act up and people around us get annoyed. My response to one lady who asked “is there anything you can do to quiet him down?” in a really sarcastic tone was, “Sure, help me out with the overhead, I’ll stuff him in there for a few hours, if it doesn’t quiet him down at least it will muffle the sound for a bit.” she looked at me in a very shocked manner and I followed up with “unless of course you would fit up there”. Lets just say she didn’t look over very much after that.

Anyway, I’m glad your first trip was a good one, I know how much you guys like to travel. I can’t wait for your first blog posting on changing a diaper in one of those closets they call a restroom on a plane.