Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Travel with Baby, Part 1.

So plane travel with a baby was not as difficult as I expected.  Sure we had a lot more luggage than we normally travel with but Tyler was a seller passenger, considering. 


Babies under 2 years old fly for free if they sit on your lap.  We wanted to take full advantage of this deal.  And it meant that we did not have to haul a car seat on the plane, we just rented one through the car rental.


None of the hotels could guarantee us a crib (we do not co-sleep), so we brought our own pack-n-play.  I was so proud of myself to find a cheap piece of luggage that fit this monster piece of furniture plus some wiggle room for more clothes.  I also brought lots of toys, the one thing that my wise traveling friend said not to skimp.  She turned out to be right.

The day before we left we noticed Tyler pulling on his ear and acting more fussy than normal so I ran him to his doctor and sure enough he had a mild ear infection.  She gave me a prescription for ear drops and an antibiotic and said to use it only as needed if he screams like a banshee on the plane.

My doctor also recommended that because of his stuffy ears I should give him a small dose of liquid benedryl before we get on the plane.  This will help with congestion in his ears and make him sleepy, she said, but with a disclaimer that "some" babies are made hyper by this seemingly harmless common over-the-counter drug.

Tyler fell into the category of "some" babies that are made hyper by benedryl.  So for the first hour of the flight we had a (happy) bouncing baby on our laps.  It wasn't until the last 10 minutes that he fell asleep breastfeeding.  Yeah for num-nums.  Tom said he would never travel alone with Tyler because of my magic.