15 Travel Tips With A Baby (How to Travel with a Baby?)

Tips for traveling with a baby. I’m Shimul, And we just took a trip to Hawaii. And in this post, I will tell you everything you want about 15 travel tips with a baby.

We asked 50 fellow explorers who are seasoned parent travelers for advice. Some things worked for us. Some things didn’t work for us. So, we’re going to tell you what worked for us.

It’ll help make your trip with your baby so much better. So, before I move into tips about when you’re actually at your destination, let’s start with tips for the airplane.

1. Buy A Seat For Your Baby

First things first, buy a seat. Yes, babies under two can generally be considered lap children under two, but they like to wiggle. They want to move. If you have them on your lap the whole time, your arms will get tired.

We just did a five-hour flight to Hawaii. It was six hours and having her seat, even though My baby wasn’t in it the whole time. My baby was on my lap, My baby was on mommy’s lap, but it was nice to have that seat in between us that My baby could stand on and jump on to have a little bit of her own space.

2. Burn Off Energy Before The Flight

Now, before you get on the plane and in the airport, take advantage of letting your little one run off energy. They’re going to be trapped on that plane in your aisle. So, when you’re in the airport, ensure they have plenty of time to run around and walk around the airport before you trap them in their seat.

3. Sucking To Avoid Ear Pressure

Now, another important thing for planes is avoiding ear pressure. As adults, we understand that swallowing will relieve our ear pressure, but babies don’t yet have that concept. So, if they use a pacifier, have them suck on it.

If they drink from a bottle or a sippy cup, have them drink from
it as they land. There are also some earplugs called earplanes that your baby could use. Many parents report those do wonders for their kids.

We tried those in our traveling princess and not so much. My baby would not keep them in her ears, but some other parents have reported they’ve just put them in their baby’s ears and clamped their hands over their ears to keep them in there.

4. Bring New Toys

Now, the most tips I got from other seasoned traveling parents are about entertainment for the flight. They said it is critical to
keep your baby entertained. And I would completely agree.

Some new toys are one of the best ways to keep them entertained. Where do you get new toys from for a flight? And a lot of them. Like a new toy, every 20 or 30 minutes, the dollar store is an option. Target is an option. If you live someplace with a Daiso, the equivalent of a Japanese dollar store, that’s even better because their stuff is some of the coolest.

5. Bring Colouring Book

Consider bringing a coloring book, some crayons, and things that don’t require sound. Most things that entertain babies make sound effects, but you don’t want to be super noisy on a plane. So bring quiet things.

And babies, often before age two, haven’t appreciated the notion of watching movies on an iPad or listening to headphones. And so, you will need to keep them engaged with other activities.

6. Download Games & Movies To Tablet Or Phone

Now, if your baby enjoys iPad entertainment or cartoons, make sure you download enough of it onto your iPad or phone. Our traveling princess, My baby, really loves the sight of herself. And so we show the videos of herself on our iPhones. That’ll always calm her down.

When My baby was having ear pressure coming down on the plane, we just showed her videos of herself on mommy’s iPhone. And then My baby was good to go.

7. Bring Plenty Of Snacks

Now, the second set of tips I received was about snacks. Snacks are super important to have on planes. Make sure you bring a lot of snacks and bring more snacks than you think you’ll need.

We love little apple sauce in squeeze containers. Our traveling princess loves these things called Bellies that we get at Whole Foods. They come with mango Bellies, apple Bellies, and strawberry Bellies.

8. TSA Allow Baby Food

You can bring liquid baby food to the USA through the TSA checkpoint. Many people need to learn that, but you can get formula. You can bring applesauce. Just search for a separate bag. And you tell them when you go through the security checkpoint that this is liquid food for your baby.

9. Flights With NAP Or Sleep Time

Okay, now let’s talk about sleeping on the plane. There are a few considerations you’ll want to think about here. If you have a long flight, consider booking it overnight so your kiddo can sleep at their natural time.

If you are expecting them to sleep on the plane, consider bringing your car seat because they’re used to sleeping in their car seat. And if your car seat is FAA-approved, you can get it on the plane. And they can sit in that provided that you bought a seat.

10. Inflatable Footrest Bed

Another option to help them sleep is these inflatable footrest pillows. We bought one on Amazon for about 15 bucks. It did help her take about a 30-minute nap.

But what was also really useful about this was when we wanted her to stand and stay in her seat. This inflatable footrest helped keep her up on her seat and not down on the dirty floor.

11. CARES Harness For Safety

If safety is your concern, but you don’t want to bring a car seat on board, you can get a CARES harness in the US. It’s FAA-approved. And it essentially looks like a seatbelt harness that goes on the airplane seatbelt that will help keep your baby even more secure.

12. Pack Tons Of Diapers

Now, you’ll want to make sure you pack a lot of other baby supplies and more diapers than you think you need. If you’ve done the math, change the diaper every two or three hours. You’re like, I can bring three diapers, no big deal.

Bring 10 diapers because you never know what happens. Your flight gets delayed. Bring plenty of diapers. Bring extra snacks, too. Ensure you don’t have to buy that stuff in route or at your destination.

13. Gate Check The Stroller

And then, I mentioned the car seat for transportation through the airport. You can bring that on the plane. You can gate-check it, which is good. You can also check in your luggage, but consider bringing your stroller.

Your stroller, you can do the same thing. You can check it as luggage. You can also gate-check it. That’s what we did. We gate-checked the stroller. That way, we could use the stroller through the airport.

We could put her in it. My baby could push it around. My baby loves pushing the stroller, and we can use it to hold some of our stuff through the airport.

Many parents like to gate-check their stroller instead of checking it as luggage, because people report that the strollers are damaged less when they’re gate-checked, because they don’t have to go through all of the airport’s baggage handling equipment.

If you are gate-checking your stroller, go to the gate agent before you board the plane to tell them that you are gate-checking it. So you get the gate-check tag.

14. Plan Less Stuff Each Day

I want to share some tips with you once you’re at the destination. And where we are right now, we’re about halfway up the path to Diamond Head.

So, slow down from your pre-baby travels when you’re at your destination. Plan less on any day, and plan things around your baby’s nap and meal times. A well-rested and well-fed baby will be better for everybody.

15. Use A Baby Backpack Carrier

My final tip for you is if you’re going somewhere that’s a beach or even a city destination, consider a baby carrier.

This is the Osprey Poco Plus. We have loved this thing. It’s allowed us to do the Diamond Head hike. It’s allowed us to go to the beach. It’s allowed us to go to malls with escalators and you can’t take strollers. We also brought a stroller for specific days, but we love this backpack carrier.