Since I don’t really work yet and the work I do is remote I decided to take me and baby Emilia to Florida for a week to visit my grandparents, her great grandparents. I totally don’t regret it 😃 The weather is awesome and I Emilia is getting some travel experience before we fly ✈️ to Poland 🇵🇱 in May.
It’s hard to travel by yourself with a 4 month old but it’s totally doable. I will tell you all about my experience 😃😊
Coming to the airport was easy because my mom accompanied me all the way through security.
The line for security wasn’t so big but they only had one line open (small local airport) and Baby Ems got hungry while I was standing there, so I quickly prepared her bottle and I propped it against her toy so she could eat while I filled the baskets with my computer, backpack, shoes, cell phones (that’s all I had). I was all happy, thinking to my self “ah that was easy” up until the guy goes, “you need to take the baby out and fold up the stroller so it can go through the scan”!! The 🌎 shattered for me 😂😂😂 But quickly I was like, oh okay, yea totally easy single handed 😅 The guy helped me a bit as he noticed I am all by myself. We got through and I am waiting for my things because my backpack 🎒 was stopped , they had to test the water 🙄 I read that for baby purposes the water is allowed but the guy gave me so much crap. Whatever, next time I will only have her bottles filled with water which I also had this time but the bottle water was needed later on.
Anyways, all done through the security and off we went to our gate. I was happy baby was awesome through that process and was able to drink her bottle by herself. 😌 I was impressed because I know babies tend to fuss at the worst moments 😂
I had 12 minutes to boarding so I went and changed her diaper and used the bathroom myself as I wasn’t sure if it would be easy going to the loo 🚽 in the ✈️.
The announcement for the boarding process started right after bathroom and as always wheelchairs first, next priority and family with babies. Here I got a bit annoyed because some people clearly saw me and another mama but decided to go first anyway. Really dude???
I was able to wheel the stroller all the way to the aircraft and then I had to take Ems out and fold the stroller. I have one of those strollers that I attach my car seat to the base, so I had to take the seat out first, then the base of the seat from underneath and then fold the stroller base. Three people stood there and zero decided to help until I asked if one could kindly press a button for me. Omfg, this one annoyed me the most, I don’t care what your job is, if you see a person struggling how can you not help that person?!!? 😵😵
Ok, on the plane I am seated, middle seat, and there comes the other mom with her 3 month old boy and she has the window seat next to me. I immediately knew something is up, I read that two lap infants cannot sit in the same row of seats due to the fact that there wouldn’t be enough oxygen masks in case of emergency. For a row of 3 seats, only 4 masks pop out. So I knew there will be some shuffling mostly happening. 😩 I already assessed the other mom, she too, just like me overestimated how much harder it will be to travel with the baby singlehanded.
Sure enough the stewardess 👩✈️ came over and explained that there was an error and one of us will need to move. Mom next to me went ballistic, “I paid for this seat, blah blah blah, this was supposed to be extra room leg!, blah blah blah” My baby was looking at her as if she had six heads and I thought to myself ‘geez I will move’. I knew they will work out a swap so that we still stay within the 3 first rows where there is that extra room leg. That’s exactly what they did, a lady from the window seat opposite of us was okay with switching, the stewardess asked the other mom if she could switch, lady started to already go for another fit but I didn’t let her finish because I said ‘I will go, just someone please take my backpack’ NOT A BIG DEAL 🙄🙄🙄
I get her frustration and in ALL honestly this issue needs to be definitely fixed when buying tickets. There is very little chance that we were both purchasing the tickets at the same exact day and hour so the system of ticket buying and choosing seats shouldn’t have allowed us to sit next to each other.
Anyways, once finally seated Ems started to get tired. So I buckled us in and hugged her to put her to sleep. It was a little hard to get her to go to sleep because she does not like to sleep in someone’s arms, she likes her crib and her own space but as soon as we started to roll to the starting pass she was out. She slept through the air lift, she didn’t even flinch when the aircraft lifted. 😃
When she woke up, she was a bit fussy so I gave her a little bit of food. She already eats solids so I was giving her peas with pear. She loved it. Then we played and then more fussiness because she was tired and wanted to sleep but position was definitely not comfy. As she slept I got her another bottle ready because I knew she will be ready for it. She woke up as the plane started its descend but we were still about 45min from landing. I knew her ears must of been popping because I sure felt the discomfort myself. She did cry very little with her hands grabbing onto her ears so I would assume it hurt. I gave her the bottle though and she drank it pretty slowly thankfully and was completely fine. I only had 4oz and it wasn’t enough so I filled the bottle with water to fool her. I did have more formula powder prepped for another 4oz but it would have taken me too long to get it out. She wasn’t very happy about the water but she realized drinking helped so all the way to landing she sipped on that bottle! Yay 😁
Leaving the airplane was easy, I waited pretty much until almost everyone left because I was waiting for my stroller gear anyways. 😊 The captain 👨✈️ actually helped with getting my stroller to open 😃 and then I went to the elevators and my grandma was waiting outside.
Oh, yea, I did not go to the bathroom during the flight even though I knew Ems definitely had poop in her pants. She was pooping right before takeoff. I actually was getting ready to go because I had to pee too but at first she was still asleep when they gave the green light to move around and plus there was way too much traffic in the bathroom area and I peaked in her diaper and it wasn’t a big blow out so I decided we will wait till landing. The other mom got 2 full blown diapers, the ones where you had to change your baby and almost bathe them under the sink. 😂😂😂😂 Ems hadn’t have those in a long while, plus I always see when she is pooping so the diaper changing action happens super fast for us, she has no time to smudge it 😅😂😂😂
I kind of think it was Karma for her bitching so much…BUT I won’t be too critical I still have more flights ahead of us, but luckily all will be accompanied!!! Yay😍😍 My aunt bought me and Ems surprise ticket to VA so I fly next week with my grandparents and I will stay until the weekend for my cousins 6th birhtday and we will drive back to NY with my hubby and my parents.
Overall I am super happy and Emilia was so AMAZING 😍❤️ Her first trip and she did so well. Few notes for my next trips and for other mamas that will travel solo or not these should be helpful:
• Get to the airport with a lot of extra time. I got there 1hr 45min before my flight and I only got 12 minutes to myself after the security check. Although pretty okay because it gave Emilia 0 time to fuss I still wished I had those extra minutes for Starbucks and snacks. I bought zero on the airplane ( I flew Frontier so you pay for snacks) only because I didn’t feel like reaching for my wallet. However maybe it’s good I had zero liquids, my bladder was definitely mad at me for not going during the flight.
• If you are not breastfeeding have the formula ready ahead of time. Or even buy the liquid bottles, saves lots of time for sure. My formula isn’t sold in those pre-prepped liquid bottles unfortunately.
• If like me you are planning to feed the baby during landing, I highly recommend it because her binky didn’t work as well as drinking her bottle, then prep extra amount. I will have a 6oz ready for her next time, so I don’t have to add water or formula while the baby eats
• I was happy that I had everything well organized in my backpack 🎒😃 It helps so so much
• Also if you are flying solo, bring only one backpack to carry into the plane! If I had two like I initially planned, for her stuff and for me, it would have been a nightmare. One, compacted and organized worked well
• If your baby is small like me, bring only one or top two toys baby can play with. I brought four but she only ended up using one, her favorite anyways and the other three only annoyed me every time I was taking stuff out of the bag.
• If you don’t have one yet, buy yourself one of those baby carrying backpacks or wrap arounds whichever your prefer. The other mama had it and when I saw it I was like ‘damn, I have identical one, why didn’t I think of it!!’ Gives you the freedom of two hands and the boarding process as well as security check would have been way easier for me. It probably is not so necessary if you have your SO, family member or a friend with you because they will be able to help, but if flying solo I thought it to be a brilliant idea. I was jealous that I didn’t come up with it 😂😂 You live and you learn
• Bring positive attitude with you!!!! I was in shock how many complainers there was. Dudeeee we were flying Frontier, the cheap airlines! As my dad always says, you get what you paid for 😂😂😂😂 But hey, I got those extra leg room seats and was able to check in a bag for only $250 from NY to FL, the cheapest other tickets I found were for $400 soooooo yea I will take the cheap deal and I have $150 saved up for another trip to FL. Also realize that the crew at the airport and airplane are doing their best they can. I received good service, I do wish they had a little more staff to help with the boarding the aircraft process but in all reality I didn’t request and extra help so why would the help me? I knew what I was getting into, it sometimes takes me over an hr to just leave the house for a walk so a flight solo clearly upping the game of mother skills, 🙂
First trip with an airplane ✈️ checked off and I hope all are as smooth mood wise for Baby Ems going forward!
Cheers!
Normal Life as Per Me 