During the Easter holidays we went on our first family holiday to Nelson, to introduce the tiny human to his Godfather (and vice versa). It was also the first time flying for the Tiny Human, which was going to be an adventure in itself.
Besides traveling for free, infants receive two checked items free of charge (essential baby equipment/items – carseat, pram, portacot) when traveling with Air New Zealand (not sure about other airlines as haven't looked into it); which was great as it meant we could travel with just carry on (one bag for tiny human, one bag for our clothes) and keep our cost down.
So here are a couple of things we learnt from our first Tiny Human flying experience...
Besides traveling for free, infants receive two checked items free of charge (essential baby equipment/items – carseat, pram, portacot) when traveling with Air New Zealand (not sure about other airlines as haven't looked into it); which was great as it meant we could travel with just carry on (one bag for tiny human, one bag for our clothes) and keep our cost down.
So here are a couple of things we learnt from our first Tiny Human flying experience...
- DON'T TEMPT THE BUM
You may have just changed their nappy, but now is not the time to tempt fate & not have at least one nappy on you. We almost made this mistake (if it were up to the bearded one we would have).
We had brought a new pack of nappies and we didn't use them, so strapped them into the carseat when traveling back since we had no bag space due to only having carry on. Lucky I pulled a nappy from the pack “just in case”, as 5 mintues before boarding poop. - NO BAG, NO WORRY
If you don't have a travel bag for your pram or whatever your essential baby item is, don't worry as Air New Zealand have big black bags to put items in (an adult could easily fit in one) - SUCK IT
Feed during take off & landing, or give your little one a dummy or something to suck on. It helps relieve their ears with the pressure change (it is also why Air New Zealand hand out lollies on their flights). And if they are busy feeding or sucking on something, it means they are less likely to make you “the person with THAT baby”. - SPIN THE BABY
You don't need to unbuckle your tiny one to feed them during the flight, you can just spin them to their side while they are still wearing their lap belt. Makes sense since they advise feeding during take off/landing, I never found this out till the flight back from Nelson though as I didn't feed Tiny Human on the flight to Nelson. - JUST WAIT
There is no hurry to disembark the plane, there is no race happening and you don't need to be first off the plane. Let the other passengers go first, you'll have more space to grab & sort out things and you won't be holding others up.
It's hard enough grabbing carry on bags without a small person; but add not knocking that small person unconscious with your bag and it's a whole new level of difficult, even with two adults.
Hopefully these help you when you make your first flight with your Tiny Human.
* This was not a solo parent flight mission and is based on a domestic flight in New Zealand.