Baby Travel Tips!

My jet-setter friend Jhenn used her maternity leave to travel! While her little man was learning how to crawl, sit and walk, she introduced him to a world of sights, sounds and international cuisine. I asked her to share some of her tips for traveling with precious cargo...

Hotels & Babies

• Your own sheet for the playpen/crib (industrial detergents are harsh)
• Same for washcloths, if you have space
• Bottle brush and little squirt bottle of dish detergent (I reuse a baby shampoo bottle) 

Life savers for flying and hotels:

• Ziploc bags. (I should have bought stock in Ziploc)
• Put the bottle brush and detergent in one
• Keep some in diaper bag for wet shirts, dirty bibs, vomity burp rags, anything else you don’t want contaminating the rest of the bag
• Extra soothers (clean). Yes, they make cute containers for 1 or 2 soothers, but if you are travelling you want several backups and Ziploc will form to space available vs a big hard sided container. 
• Fill with ice (I suggest double bagging) to use as a freezer pack, since you probably won’t be able to refreeze yours. Don’t even bring yours, just use ice and Ziplocs.
• Hazmat containment for toys that hit the airplane floor (until they are washed), dirty bottles, used spoons, etc.
• Keep all the baby toiletries/Tylenol/saline/hand sanitizer etc in one, since you have to pull it all out to go through security when flying anyway

• Half used paper towel roll, with cardboard tube removed so you can squish it flat to pack. If there is a vomit issue at the start of an 8 hour flight, you don’t want to stink up all your cloths, the paper towels can get tossed.

• Drying pad for washed bottles/nipples (vs using a hotel towel, see detergent comment above)
• Use as an extra layer when putting change pad on those fold out changing tables (shudder)
• Do I need to list how handy it is to have a bunch of (nice soft vs brown paper) paper towels? No? ok. Moving on.

• Tethers: I found the best ones in the US, they were about 10” long and snapped closed into a loop at each end. Can be used for attaching soothers to carseats, toys to strollers, or one toy to another. Then you don’t have to put the toys into Ziploc limbo because they won’t drop onto the airport-/bathroom-/airplane-/parking garage-/whatever floor.

• A smaller bag within the diaper bag that just has change pad, wipes and 1 or 2 diapers in it – there is NO space in an airplane lavatory, and you don’t want to put your diaper bag on the floor. So unless you know a full body washdown and outfit change is necessary, just being able to get the “essentials” in one grab is nice. Refill the diaper when you get back to the big diaper bag.

Tupperware Formula Dispenser

• One of those containers that holds 3+ servings of powdered formula (Formula Dispenser). Then you can bring baby bottles of measured water (only 1 airport security ever made me taste it (cough… Manchester…cough)) and just mix it on the plane. Freezer packs (or ziplocs of ice water!!!) are tricky to get through security, so you just want to make it up as needed, but also don’t want to be scooping and measuring formula.

• Also bring on the plane: a clean shirt. I deplaned behind a dad who had to go through customs in a puke-covered (COVERED) undershirt (the button-down shirt was already off) and it was gross. Even the kid who barfed all over him from the turbulence didn’t want to be carried by him.

Things to know:

• Most hotels will bring you an electric kettle if you ask (the little coffee makers don’t boil water)
• Same for a bowl to sit a bottle in and add hot water to warm it up
• Best to book a playpen or crib in advance. They usually only have a couple.

Thank you for sharing this information Jhenn! 

Feel free to comment and add your own travel tips ... 

Photographs courtesy of Xtine Bergs