Travelling with Baby
This past weekend we took advantage of the holiday to head to Vancouver Island for a change of scenery. It’s a nice simple trip – fill up the car, drive to the ferry terminal, ride the ferry and drive off – without a lot of logistical headaches that a plane flight would entail.
Even so, it was a lesson that fills us with a bit of trepidation for our trip to France in September. That trip will be a 5 hour flight from Vancouver to Montreal with short lay-over, then another 7 hours from Montreal to Paris.
On the ferry we at least could pull out the baby carriage and go for a walk around the passenger area and out on the decks. We did this a couple of times when baby Juliette started getting cranky and yelling – a lot of the time when she’s unhappy it’s because she’s bored and wants a change of scenery.
What we’ve realized is that on the flights this is going to be a challenge. Heading to France won’t be so bad because there are two of us, and we’ll have the bulkhead seats where they can put a bassinet-thing on the bulkhead for Juliette. However coming back from France Becoming-A-Mom is going to be by herself (Becoming-A-Dad only has 2 weeks of vacation). And because Juliette will be older than 6 months, she won’t be guaranteed to have the bulkhead/bassinet thingy to put Juliette in.
If anyone has any suggestions or tips on how to make this bearable for both the parents and our baby, we’d love to hear them! So far the biggest tip has been to nurse her on takeoff and descent so she can equalize her ears.
