First things first, let me just put it out there that traveling with a baby is TOUGH. With a capital T. Especially for two noob parents who has never traveled with a baby before. Ever.

Some questions we had:

1. Is she still considered free, since she’s only just about 11 months?
2. How do we bring a stroller with us?
3. Do we bring the car seat for the plane?
4. Are we allowed to bring her formula on the plane?
5. Obviously CANNOT bring the 500ml of alcohol we usually have in her diaper bag – so do we have bring 5pcs of 100ml bottles of alcohol? Would that seem like it’s too much???
6. What about other liquids such as her; baby moisturizer/lotion, sunblock, diaper rash cream, vitamins, paracetamol (for babies of course. just incase, you know?) and of course water for her milk.
7. How do we consolidate her HUGE diaper bag?

Don’t worry we’ll go through these questions one by one. These questions were answered DURING our trip.

Question #1 Is your baby flying for free? NO. She was not considered free. We were told babies fly for free since they don’t take up a seat and you can have them on your lap (hence my question about bringing the car seat??!?! But don’t worry we’ll get to that…). I guess this was a few years back, but if you go through airline sites they always have two options for your baby. Either you pick to have them on your lap or they would take up a seat. Obviously to save on plane ticket costs, we chose to have her on our laps – eliminating the car seat idea*. You pay 10% of your regular ticket cost for your baby to sit on your lap. EXCLUDING LUGGAGE.

In a sense, this would lead us to question # 2. If she didn’t not have luggage allowance included in her ticket cost – like NIL amounts says the ticket – is a stroller considered OUR luggage or HER luggage as an extra cost? Also, it’d be amazing to have while waiting to board and help us with carrying the baby around the airport.

* Hear me out real quick though. If babies are to be kept safe in a car seat on a moving vehicle, shouldn’t it also be a mandatory that they too ride a car seat (-ish) whilst in a plane moving 3,000mph???

WE DO NOT KNOW. Hahaha! I apologize if this was unhelpful, but we tried to call our airline but we were on hold for at least 25-30mins every time. So we gave up asking. ALTHOUGH we saw a couple of families with babies in our flight that had strollers and had to fold them away when we got to the plane doors. Not sure where they put them away, and/or they had to pay extra for it. But they brought it with them. So I suggest, be patient and call your airline regarding bringing your strollers.

So, NO, we didn’t bring our stroller. With two carry on bags each, between my husband and I, plus we had to carry a baby and a diaper bag. Hence we had to consolidate what’s in Kheira’s diaper bag. If you’re a mum, can we just agree on the fact that we NEED everything that’s inside the diaper bag??? I didn’t know what to take out of this diaper bag because we’ll be on a straight 11hour flight with an 11-month old baby. YOU NEED EVERYTHING and ANYTHING that would distract or calm her down and stop her from crying. What’s definitely NOT in the diaper bag is the alcohol and no, bringing 5pcs of 100ml bottles is just too much so I decided to bring only two. Also her diaper rash cream, paracetmol, and vitamins all had to be consolidated to 100ml bottles. Did not bring the sunblock, I thought of just buying when we get to there.

And if you’re thinking that you can definitely just buy water in the airport for your baby formula, you’re right and you’re wrong at the same time. This is what we did as well. We bought bottles of water in the airport. But at the same time we could not bring them to the area where you actually wait to board. I had to transfer the water to her baby bottles for them to allow me to keep them for her milk.

Our hands were full, I was pregnant with only four hands between the two of us and no stroller to help us – we were stressed. Tired mostly. And to think it would be better by the time we were finally boarded and was seated, it wasn’t.

Kheira in general is a great baby to travel with – we drove to our first family vacation that took 8 hours and she was just asleep the whole time. She was ok for the most part, especially during take off and landing. On the plane, she was just loud yelling and screaming saying hi and smiling at everybody. She was quite the charmer and did not go down ‘til after two or three hours after take off. She was asleep the WHOLE time though! We were happy about that but sad because she would wince and cry a lil’ every time she fidgets trying to look for her spot.

Poor baby ♥ Nonetheless, it was a pretty cool adventure to have with the lil’ one. Challenging, yes definitely, but at least NOW we know!

Don’t get intimidated with the challenges, embrace them! In the end, its just another adventure with you and your family. Have fun! ♥

Be a blessing to others! xx