Flying with a Three-Month-Old: Essential Tips for Stress-Free Travel
We all know that becoming a new mom comes with a lot of challenges and a great deal of unsolicited advice. Prior to taking our short weekend getaway to visit the Mouse, I was overwhelmed by numerous comments, suggestions, and statements that fueled my anxiety causing me to second guess the decision we had made to attempt a trial run with my three-month old, Chaplin. I'm here to set the record straight and give you some tips I have learned through trial and error and urge you to consider traveling with your littles sooner rather than later! This blog will focus solely on the flight-aspect of travel as it is one of the top deterrents for expectant/new parents.
Planning Chaplin's First Disney Trip: A Trial Run
We have had Chaplin's first Disney trip planned since Christmas of last year. My parents gift my sibling, our spouses, and myself a trip each year. This year I was roughly five months pregnant around Christmas time, and my family and I decided that we wanted to travel to Anaheim, California to visit Disneyland in October of 2024. We had planned for this to be Chaplin's first trip, but due to an unexpected turn of events we decided to have a trial run and take him to Disney World for a few days. The flight from Charleston (CRW) to California (LAX) is significantly longer than Charleston (CRW) to Orlando (MCO). Although Chaplin will be six-months old during the time of travel in October, and that age comes with a series of new challenges and obstacles to take into consideration, we found it crucial to take a short trip to see what works for us and what doesn't that way we have ample time to make adjustments that allowed for seamless travel in the fall.
Navigating TSA Regulations for Infant Supplies
Just to give some context prior to delving into our experience, as stated before Chaplin is three-months old. I am exclusively pumping as well as supplementing with formula due to his caloric needs and height/weight ratio. This in itself poses a great challenge in regard to travel. Prior to making our way to the airport, I did a lot of research on guidelines pertaining to infant nutritional supplies/products. Per TSA, breastmilk, formula, and baby/toddler food are considered medically necessary supplies--thus, carrying on in excess of 3.4 ounces is acceptable if you follow special instructions.
Being that I exclusively pump, I planned to have enough milk stored and separated to last us for approximately 8 hours (incase of emergency). I stored several bags of milk (ranging from 3-5oz) in clear medical storage bags within a cooler filled with ice-packs. TSA suggests that milk and formula be transported in clear bottles to expedite the screening process, but as stated before traveling with my milk in bags did not pose an issue. Please keep in mind that regardless of TSA pre-check status, your liquids/supplies are subject to additional testing and TSA agents need to be notified that you are traveling with an infant!
Just before boarding, I removed the stroller caddy and placed it within my personal item (a small weekender sized bag). My personal item contained the following items:
- An extra outfit
- several diapers
- burp cloth
- bib
- small, thin blanket
- toys
- portable breast pump
- portable hatch machine
- arm and hammer diaper bag dispenser and bags
- cooler with milk
When traveling with a stroller, the gate agent will tag your stroller and gate-check it free of charge. I highly recommend covering your stroller to avoid any unnecessary and unintentional damage that comes with transporting your item. We found that our Evenflo Shyft Dualride was essential for travel. This specific stroller converts to a car-seat which was MUCH needed. We folded our stroller, pulled the sun-cover down and covered it with our Milk-Snob car-seat cover, then placed a bright red gate-check bag on top of everything so that it could be easily found once deplaning!
A common misconception that I found to be a huge stressor is feeding/sleep schedule. There were numerous individuals who suggested that I align Chaplin's feeding schedule for the day with our takeoff and landing time. It was suggested that if I had him feed during takeoff and landing that it would help with pressure in his ears and cause him to have a smoother transition during the flight. I won’t lie, I was very anxious because of how persistent people were about this. I felt that if he wasn’t eating exactly when the plane took off or landed that I would have an inconsolable infant that was disturbing everyone’s peace so I planned accordingly. Unfortunately, we spent longer than expected on the tarmac and all the work that I had done earlier that day to align his feeding schedule with our flight was in vain. Thankfully, Chaplin did not have any issue as he fell right asleep and slept the majority of the flight. I had planned for him to only need a bottle during takeoff, but as mentioned before the schedule was postponed so he ended up needing a bottle towards the end of the flight as well. Thankfully, our flight attendants were extremely helpful and gave us warm water to heat Chaplin's bottle up with. Because we had planned prior to and had all of our essentials with us, this was a fairly easy change and caused no issues!
On our flight from Charleston to Orlando, our entire row was supposed to be occupied. I had Chaplin as an infant-on-lap addition in the window seat, Brock was beside me, and an older gentleman was at the end of our row. He saw that we were traveling with an infant and assumed that he would cause a disruption during the flight and chose to move. Chaplin ultimately proved him wrong, but we were very thankful to have a seat in between Brock and I. This is something that I highly recommend if you were traveling with an infant. We did not have a seat open on the flight back as there was an older lady who was a grandma and was not perturbed at the thought of being in the same row as an infant. Having the empty seat between Brock and I allowed us to have some room for Chaplin to spread out rather than just being confined to my lap the entire flight. The flight back did not pose a significant challenge with him being confined to my lap, but our personal preference from this point on will be to pay for the additional seat (especially on our upcoming trip to California).
Overall, the both flights to and from Orlando were smooth! Chaplin did an excellent job and I felt as if we prepared ourselves well for all the "what-ifs". This was only the first task in our series of challenges that were posed traveling with an infant. Stay tuned for my next blog take-over where I focus on my top tips to beat the heat and survive the parks with littles!
