The Plane Ride

Last week I wrote up a post of 10 Tips for Flying with a Baby, but I also wanted to do an entry regarding our specific experience this time around. I really wanted to fly direct from San Francisco (SFO) to New Orleans (MSY) but the only direct flight there was a red-eye and left at 10 PM. I wasn’t sure if Forest would sleep on the plane but I was fairly certain I wouldn’t so we decided an indirect route during daylight hours might be better in this case. 

We chose to fly through Houston, leaving SFO at about 7:30 AM. Unfortunately, this meant being at the airport prior to 6:30 which meant leaving our house around 5:15 AM. Forest was not so happy about being woken up 2 hours early. 

We decided to hire a driver so that at least we’d be dropped off at the door and we could skip the whole driving, parking, and taking a shuttle bus rigmarole. Plus, parking is $18 bucks a day and we were gonna be gone for quite some time so taking a driver was only marginally more expensive. You should look into it for your next trip! Anyhoo, that cut out a lot of stress especially since he helped with the bags and Forest slept the whole way to the airport. 

This was our first time flying with ‘a lap baby’. For those of you without kiddos, babies under the age of 2 can fly for free if they sit on your lap. Since our original trip from Scotland to San Fran was for a job relocation, Jonathan’s company paid for all three of us to have a business class ticket home. This lap-baby journey in Economy (with a now very mobile child) was gonna be quite a different experience! 

Jon and I took a chance that there might be an open seat and decided to gate check Forest’s car seat just in case. 

Other than that we packed one large suitcase, 1 sizeable carry-on and two backpacks (1 being a diaper bag). After dropping off our checked luggage we were directed to the ‘family’ security line. This was the first time I had seen a line just for people travelling with small children so that helped to ease the pressure a bit since everyone around us was dealing with car seats/strollers/baby liquids/etc. It definitely wasn’t quicker though, but we always make sure to get to the airport with plenty of time. 

We especially wanted extra time for this flight because we wanted to make sure we all three ate a good breakfast before traveling all day. Jonathan ordered us some grub while I took Forest to the gate to ask about an open seat. The attendant took my boarding pass and let me know that she’d call me up if a seat was indeed available. As luck would have it, she said there was a seat available next to us and that it should remain open. We were ecstatic and gladly lugged our car seat on board to strap Forest in. 

Unfortunately, about 3 minutes later a girl pointed out that Forest was in her seat. I have no idea how this happened since the window seat was actually assigned to me, but sure enough, her ticket had the same number on it. Bummer! We handed our car seat to the flight attendant to be gate checked and she told us just to hang on and she would try to do some shuffling. In the meantime we noticed that there was a mom behind us traveling alone with her 8 month old baby boy. Turns out she was living in the Bay Area as well and also traveling back to LA to visit family. We got to talking and it sounded like our boys had a lot in common (busy, busy busy!). 

While we were chatting, the flight attendant came to ask the girl sitting in our aisle if she’d be open to moving to another window seat. She obliged. And as it turned out, there was another open window seat so the passenger sitting in the middle next to the mom behind us offered to sit there instead so that her baby boy could also have a seat. Happy day! 

We got our car seat re-strapped in and settled Forest in for take off. Once we were in the air, he started to look sleepy so we put on some white noise, handed him his snuggy and pacifier, draped a blanket over his car seat and hoped for the best. 

As if by magic, he nodded off and slept for 1.5 hours!  We couldn’t believe it! He must have been extraordinarily tired from being woken up 2 hours early that morning.  The mom behind us was equally amazed. ‘You just put that blanket over his car seat and he just falls asleep?!?!?!’ I just replied ‘I guess so.... This has never really happened before….’ 

I’ve always been the mom staring in amazement as a baby just dozes off in public. It was nice to be on the receiving end of that for a change. I was so proud of Forest! The rest of the flight was pretty easy peasy and had us breathing huge sighs of relief as we started our descent. 

We had a short layover in Houston but had enough time to scarf down a sandwich, feed the baby his solids, change his diaper and board the plane. There was no open seat on the flight from Houston to New Orleans so we gate checked the car seat. The flight was literally only 40 minutes and Forest did wonderfully, even catching another cat nap while riding in the Ergo on his dad’s lap. 

It seriously could not have gone any better! Once we had our rental car, we again set the stage for a nap in his car seat and he snoozed all the way to my parents’ house in Covington. 

Seriously, he did AWESOME. 

The journey back was not as smooth, but still went really well. We had a direct 4 hour flight from New Orleans to San Francisco. There wasn’t a single open seat on the plane and Jon and I had seats on different rows. A nice Aussie guy was nice enough to switch his seat with me so that I could sit next to Jonathan who once again had Forest strapped to him in the Ergo carrier. We hoped Forest would go to sleep as easily as he had on the way over, but we weren’t so lucky this time. 

Since the flight took off around 7 PM, it was conflicting with his body’s bedtime clock. He was obviously tired but was being kept awake by all the loud noises and commotion aboard. The only time Forest really gets fussy is when he is tired, and this was no exception.  Jonathan eventually had to take him to the back of the plane and just sway back and forth to soothe him  until he fell asleep. He was crying pretty hard through some of it, but eventually nodded off. However, it was a very delicate state of sleep because he would wake up really easily, like any time the fasten seatbelt sign came on or when I tried to open my can of soda. 

We ended up just attaching his Cloud B ‘Sleep Sheep’ white noise machine to one of the straps of the Ergo to try to drown out some of the culprits but he was still in and out of sleep. Fortunately, he seemed to get enough rest to keep him calm so for the rest of the flight he stayed quiet and content. 

When our flight arrived it took FOREVER for the car seat to be brought to me from gate check. All of the passengers had exited the plane and the flight attendants didn’t want to leave me all alone waiting (Jon had gone on to baggage claim) so they hung out with me until the car seat finally arrived 20 minutes later. Thank goodness we didn’t have a connection! 

It didn’t end up mattering much because our bags still hadn’t arrived when I got to baggage claim. I took Forest to the bathroom to change his diaper and put his pjs on while Jonathan waited for our bags (I should have just put him in pjs from the get go but I just wasn't thinking I guess). Finally our bags arrived and our driver helped us get them to his car. 

Forest promptly fell fast asleep for the 45 minute car ride home. I was worried he wouldn’t go back to sleep in his crib without a fight, especially with us scrambling to get all of his sleep items unpacked and get his white noise machine hooked back up. Just as I sat down to rock him and feed him his bedtime bottle at around 11:30 PM, I realized I forgot his seahorse in my carry-on! 

I think he was so tired it wouldn’t of mattered for falling asleep purposes, but I didn’t want him waking up in the middle of the night without it since it always helps him to drift back off to dreamland without me having to get out of bed. By this time I was super tired too and craving a good night’s sleep. After I made a mad dash back downstairs for his beloved seahorse, baby boy cooperated, went promptly to sleep without a fight and slept til 7:15 AM which allowed me to get a good 7 hours of sleep in myself. 

The next night he was especially tired and I actually had to wake him up from a dead sleep after 13 hours! 

This is what 13 hours of sleep looks like (him, not me)!

It was kind of nice to get to wake up, work out, shower and eat breakfast before waking him up at 8 AM. Sadly the next morning he was up at 7:15 and since then he’s been back to his 6:30/6:45 wake up time so no more morning work outs and showers for me! Overall, I this he did remarkably well and made the thought of travelling back to Louisiana not seem so scary.Good job, baby boy!