Travelling with baby

Many car seats can be used even without the base. It gets strapped on by the car’s seat belt. Double check your car seat if the base is needed.

We just took the stroller with us, in a taxi.
No need for car seat in taxi, u can hold infant in your lap or mommy can. (We did that with twin infants, each held a baby).....taxi is exempt from mandatory car seats
Stroller gets gate-checked into the hold anyway......so u can use it in airport until the gate.....till boarding

You can bring baby food, meds, anything thru security it's not a issue at all....babies win!

Perhaps you can use a baby-carrier to carry baby if it helps..... availability in Walmart or check online....

Our destination country doesn't require mandatory car seats etc so we didn't need to bring it. Just stroller enough.

It's easy, don't stress and congrats.

Good luck

apnayloags wrote: ↑ We just took the stroller with us, in a taxi.
No need for car seat in taxi, u can hold infant in your lap or mommy can. (We did that with twin infants, each held a baby).....taxi is exempt from mandatory car seats
Stroller gets gate-checked into the hold anyway......so u can use it in airport until the gate.....till boarding

You can bring baby food, meds, anything thru security it's not a issue at all....babies win!

Perhaps you can use a baby-carrier to carry baby if it helps..... availability in Walmart or check online....

Our destination country doesn't require mandatory car seats etc so we didn't need to bring it. Just stroller enough.

It's easy, don't stress and congrats.

Good luck

This is what I do also sometimes but a lot of people aren’t comfortable in taxis without car seats. They rightly point out a taxi can also get in a car accident. Especially abroad ( depending on where you are going accident rates are generally higher.

Another under used option is public transport. A train with a stroller is a no brainer. It’s longer than taxi but my kids always prefer their stroller to car seat so it breezes by. A bus is a bit more of a hassle but I’ve also done it. Public transport saves a lot of $ too of course. If I’m going to Europe or most of Asia I’ll be doing that on arrival anyway so usually pack accordingly and it’s easy.

In the opposite direction financially. With a lot of luggage and small kids I’ll usually choose airport parking once taxis. It’s worth a bit more money depending on your trip length and distance to airport.

I've been on planes with passengers that had babies and some you didn't notice throughout the flight and others where the baby screamed blue murder for large portions of it. Not fun. Something about the pressure changes that bother their ears...it's a good idea for them to be nursing (or alternative like bottle or pacifier) during takeoffs and landings.

It's been a long time since mine were babies and rules may have changed with regards to car seats, etc. Check the airline and your destination (the city may have rules about car seats).

Best practice from a safety perspective would be to purchase a seat on a plane for the child and use a car seat. Generally if it is an infant seat, it is used without the base, but read the manual for your specific seat. Again, car seats should be used in taxis as the physics doesn't change. In most areas, the ticket for an unrestrained child goes to the driver of the vehicle, so taxis are exempt just so taxi drivers don't get ticketed due to the choices made by their passengers.

It is physically impossible to hold onto your baby in a taxi collision, severe turbulence in a plane, etc. Here is an example of a smaller plane where everyone survived except the lap infant: Forbes Article.

Congrats!

We've travelled pretty extensively (pre-pandemic) with our 3 kids. Being an rfd'er a lot of it was before age 2 to save $.

We never used a stroller. It's a physical burden. It's big. It's bulky. Whether you check it in or gate check, you always have to work around it (eg. Always needing to find an elevator). Wear your baby as much as possible.

Car seats. Depends on where you're going. Big cities like NYC, London etc you're not going to realistically use a car seat... Don't bring it. Most of Asia? Don't bother. Small caribbean islands? Don't bother. If you will be using, check it in. Don't bring it on the plane.

@mattnew Congrats with the new baby. At 3 weeks, I wasn't even thinking straight, I didn't think I would ever leave the house again or sleep, little less travel. However, we did travel with our babies a fair bit, especially under 2 to get the free airfare.

I ALWAYS brought a car seat, when they were really small, I did bucket seat with the stroller and checked them both at the gate. It made it easier to get to the gate, and I knew the car seat would arrive intact. The bucket seat can install into any vehicle (not bus), and we did it for the taxis. On the plane, I had a carrier, and tried to book the bassinet seat if available. Though it was about 50/50 on availability. When they were old enough to buy a seat, I brought a car seat on the plane and strapped them in.

I would never rent a car seat at the car rentals, we have had a few friends that had horror stories, and ended up having one person drive to a baby store to buy a new seat, while the rest of the family waited at the airport.

RFDAddict9000 wrote: ↑ Many car seats can be used even without the base. It gets strapped on by the car’s seat belt. Double check your car seat if the base is needed.

Thank you I didn't know that, it looks like I can do that with mine!

Thanks everyone for the advices, much appreciated.

ideally, travel should be avoided for young children.... if they get sick... you cant give most over the counter meds an even prescriptions are limited.
i would recommend to avoid travel unless its seriously required

adnanakhtar wrote: ↑ ideally, travel should be avoided for young children.... if they get sick... you cant give most over the counter meds an even prescriptions are limited.
i would recommend to avoid travel unless its seriously required

We're going to visit family overseas so it should be fine, but thanks for the heads-up it's good to know.

adnanakhtar wrote: ↑ ideally, travel should be avoided for young children.... if they get sick... you cant give most over the counter meds an even prescriptions are limited.
i would recommend to avoid travel unless its seriously required

I think it really depends where one is travelling to. I may not take my baby to a place where there is no adequate health care, but I don’t generally like going to those places myself. Any where else, travelling with babies or kids just requires more planning and preparation. Health insurance is a must with littles outsid of Canada.

adnanakhtar wrote: ↑ ideally, travel should be avoided for young children.... if they get sick... you cant give most over the counter meds an even prescriptions are limited.
i would recommend to avoid travel unless its seriously required

This seems extreme. And what do you mean medicines are limited? Somewhere with limited infrastructure does add risk but otherwise an illness isn’t much more dangerous in Europe.

adnanakhtar wrote: ↑ideally, travel should be avoided for young children.... if they get sick... you cant give most over the counter meds an even prescriptions are limited.
i would recommend to avoid travel unless its seriously required

fogetmylogin wrote: ↑ This seems extreme. And what do you mean medicines are limited? Somewhere with limited infrastructure does add risk but otherwise an illness isn’t much more dangerous in Europe.

I took that reply to mean …
Young kids / babies are actually quite prone to illnesses
And the younger they are … the better it is to be close to home for treatment
Esp as infants have limited options for Meds … be they OTC or prescriptions

That’s all FACTUAL

Travelling with a kid under a year is most definitely a MEASURED RISK
That Parents have to research & weigh for themselves

Cuz babies have weaker immune systems

I brought car seats some places and didn't bring them other places.

Nassau I reserved airport taxi service that supplied them on request.

For cruises, I bring them, usually I stay a day before and after, and rent a car. It's extra work but I wouldn't take an infant in a vehicle without one.

Every trip is different... Some I can get around without bringing, sometimes I need to bring them.

Or a trip can have a minor adjustment. For example, I usually take a taxi from the Seattle train station to the cruise terminal. But the last 2 times, I've taken the city bus, since that means avoiding bringing the seats.

Stroller... Every time. Couldn't live without it.

I've travelled to many exotic, and not children friendly places before my kids were born, but we didn't want to give up travelling so we stuck with the US, Canada and cruise ports destinations as early as 6 months old. The summer infant strollers are great for travelling and I used the ergo baby carrier. For places where we rented a car for the week, we brought the bucket car seat. Once they outgrew it, we would just rent it from the car rental places. For destinations like a cruise where you need to get from airport to hotel to port, we used a taxi and I held them in my Ergo carrier while I had my seat belt on. I probably did this up until they were 2 yr old

I can't wait until they are a bit older like 7-8+, really want to take the to Iceland and the Amazon rainforest. I hear G Adventures has family tours where they can help with the more exotic places. I wouldn't want to take them on my own and must be a bit older.

We've always purchased a seat for our infant and brought a car seat on board. Not to mention being way safer while on the plane, doing so allows us to have a car seat at the destination, and gives us somewhere to plunk the kid down during a long flight.

Sure, you can check a car seat as luggage to have at the destination, but many people don't realize that it technically voids the warranty. You don't know how the baggage handlers treated it (hint: likely really poorly).

For the first year, we brought our son's infant seat on board. Now we have a Cosco Scenera Next and use it just for travel. They're $70 on sale, which is often, and weigh < 8lb. It'll last until the kid is at least 3, but likely until 5 or so. Our kid is 85th percentile on height and 55th on weight and it still fits him at 3yo.

Be prepared to deal with flight attendants and check in staff who know nothing, though. Every single time, we need to explain to several gatekeepers that we bought a ticket and are bringing the seat on board, not checking it. We've also had to fight about how to install it (we once got told to install the infant seat forward facing and had to whip out the manual to argue with the attendant).

We also always need to make sure that when we book the tickets they properly assign us to a window seat for the kid.

We've also had the seat not fit. The bucket seat, in particular, doesn't fit on a Q400 unless you're in the premiere seats near the front. We got on a WestJet once to discover it didn't fit properly. We had to lap carry after having already purchased the seat. We then had to fight with the attendant to let us strap the car seat, improperly installed to be used by a kid, into the empty seat that we had already paid for rather than checking it and voiding warranty.

The Cosco seat also doesn't fit rear facing on a Q400, so we had to install it forward facing for our 1 year old the couple times we were on the smaller plane, but it's still safer than no seat at all. Best to try to book on bigger planes if at all possible, though that's not always possible.

Our travel stroller is a Mountain Buggy Nano. They fold up to be small enough to carry on the plane (though we gate check it), and support strapping on a bucket seat. For carrying everything through the airport with our toddler, we strap his Cosco convertible to it, and it's stable enough that he can still ride in the car seat strapped to the stroller.