Flying with baby Frankfurt Orlando

Flying with baby (second segment)

Flying with baby in the second segment meant a loooooooooooooooooong flight! 🙂 It started after a three hour stop in Frankfurt. The first segment of our flight went well but it was just the beginning. The landing went smooth and we were able to take our stroller immediately after that.

There was another baby, in our flight from Vienna to Frankfurt, in fact much younger that F. He was traveling just with the mom, and I remember thinking that she probably doesn’t fly farther then Frankfurt. Well as you probably guessed I was very wrong. 🙂

When we were waiting for the stroller ( she did too) she asked us if we don’t mind watching her baby for a short while as she needed it to use the bathroom. We were a bit surprised by the request to be honest but we agreed, and then when she returned we asked her where she was flying to. She said Mexico!!!And she mentioned that she had traveled before with the baby to Brazil!!! It was the first time she was flying with baby alone.

Boarding time!

The second segment was again a Lufthansa flight and the check-in went fast. What we noticed right away was that there were many families with kids of different ages in the plane. Orlando is a popular destination for families with kids because of the abundance of theme parks and other attractions. We had time to find our places and arrange the luggage.

Our seats were in the middle of the plane and right next to us was another family with a little boy of 18 months. We chatted a bit and found out that they flew previously with the toddler but for a shorter trip.

We had been in the plane for only half an hour and F was starting to fuss. He was not crying, but he was restless. The take off went well without him crying and not showing any sign of distress. He was up from 5:30 AM and it was around 2 P.M -except for a short nap in the flight Vienna-Frankfurt- he had not sleep.

You can check out how was the previous flight in Baby aboard, flight Vienna Frankfurt

With baby on the plane or the art of patience

F was very curious, he was looking around and checking the movements of people but he was tired of sitting in the lap. He wanted to crawl and explore. Fortunately he was fine to explore in front of our seats. We had a bit of leg room. But that meant that he wanted to chew on stuff too. We had a few toys brought and he was interested in them for a short while. Just to be safe I desinfected the area around us and especially the food tables.

Check out what we packed in Packing for our trip in USA

A mom suggested to bring some threads for playing. It sounds strange but babies play with strange things. That lasted a little while too.

Then he had some shoes that he liked to chew on, so we let him. 🙂 (We ended up loosing one but it was worth it). Then the other boy became interested in F’s toys and they suddenly became more interesting for him too.

Once in a while my husband was talking F in baby carrier and they were going for a stroll, they admired the plane and checked on other passengers. 🙂 That left me with a few breaks for which I was very grateful.

Getting hungry while flying with baby

We were served food in the plane a few times including snacks and it was not very easy to eat with a wiggly baby. Our approach to our meal times was to eat in shifts. 🙂 First one of us was eating and after he was done the other was eating. Somebody had to watch and entertain F . This was our way of dealing with an active and curious kid.

When coming to F food, I tried some solid food and even baby snacks and he ate, but very little. In exchanged I was breastfeeding a lot, especially in the second part of the flight. He was getting more tired and I think breastfeeding was also comforting him a bit. The fun part was starting to wear off.

Somebody mention once that in this kind of environment the rules do no apply, so we tried to be as flexible as we could without spoiling him. 🙂 Or so we thought!

Many moms wonder if they can bring baby food on board before they fly for the first time. You can! Just make sure with the airline too.

Be prepared for accidents

The mom next to us had formula already in a bottle and she only added water. I think she asked the stewards to warm it up for her. Plus she prepared kind of lunch box with some fruits and cheese.

Unfortunately after M drank all the bottle and he was giving signs that he might sleep, he vomited all his food on the floor, himself and mom.. Both parents tried to calm him down, change his clothes and clean the area.

The stewards were probably used with such events and handled the last part perfectly . (I didn’t know that if you throw ground cafe on the carpet it will not smell anymore).

All their family was in obvious distress and I could understand them perfectly. I was thinking that something similar could happen to us and I was glad that I packed extra clothes for such eventualities.

Since M vomited all his food he was hungry and there was no more bottle so mom had to persuade him to drink some tea for which she asked the stewards.

Changing diaper

Flying with baby, means also changing diaper. In the plane there were a few toilets but not all had changing table. So you need to make sure that you checked properly or you asked, before giving up.

The changing table looked cleaned but I made sure that I placed a disposable pad on top of it before changing F. He doesn’t like to be changed so I always give him something to play with. That makes him happy and busy and gives me time to change him properly. It happened on occasions that he started to stand before the diaper was properly in place. 🙂

You can also try to change the baby at your seat but there is not much room and I prefer to do it in private not having eyes observing me. Although to be fair many were either attempted to sleep or watching movies.

I read an article about things that stewards dislike and one was getting a dirty diaper. And it makes sense from my point of view. So just in case you do change the diaper at your seat and you can not throw it away yourself is better if you put it in a small little bag before handing it over.

Baby sleeping in bassinet

As I mentioned the flight was very long, so is recommended to fly at night with baby. I strongly recommend that but we didn’t find a night flight. It was more of an afternoon flight. However the last hours of the flight were night hours relative to where we were flying from. Although we landed at 6 P.M. local time.

F fought hard against sleeping but he lost the battle in the end. The bassinet was installed after take of and it was right in front of us. They provided us with sheet for bassinet, pillow and blanket. The bassinet looked clean as well. It was equipped with some kind of a security belt.

We placed F in the bassinet after he fall asleep first time. Then we secured him as we were instructed. He slept for a while and then he start crying when he couldn’t turn around. The bassinet is not very big. To summarize he slept foe around 40 minutes after the first 5h of flight.

Last part of the looong flight

We all were getting more tired in the last part of the flight. I was breastfeeding F a lot and he did manage to fall asleep again in the last three hours. But he had a light sleep. I had to hold him in my arms for a while because when I attempted to put him in bassinet he was opening his eyes! 🙂

One hour before the landing and because F was asleep we put everything in the luggage and got ready for the landing. Except the shoe that we lost! 🙂 No idea where it was because we really looked for it!

So we start packing because we didn’t want to be in the plane one second more than needed. Plus the journey was not over. We still had the custom in front of us, the luggage claim and the ride to the hotel.

To summarize “flying with baby” is not easy on a long flight. The problem is in the length of the journey. But in our case it was better than I expected, not easy but somehow not as bad. If that makes sense. 🙂 The research done before it helped a lot although there always are things that you can not predict.

Flying with baby on our way back went much smoother.

Flying with baby- extra notes

is very important to pack extra clothes for kids and babies (accidents happen)
pack also extra formula bottle just in case it gets spieled
bend the rules in long flights
drink water, a lot
be emphatic, empathy goes both ways

Some photos were taken at http://www.ussalabama.com