For months, I dodged family invites to events that would have us travel during baby boy’s first year. In fact, we took what we thought would be our last trip just three weeks before our preemie arrived.
Fast forward to nine weeks post partum when my dearest mentor passed away, and we were hustling to figure out the best plan to cross the country and attend the funeral.
Having not returned to work at that point, we didn’t have a hard and fast schedule to adhere to. This led us to choosing a red eye flight out and a late evening return the same day.
The weather was projected to be freezing rain, and we certainly didn’t want baby boy to be exposed to that, so we started brainstorming ideas and thinking of other friends who lived in the area.
On a whim, I sent a note to a fellow mom who lived near the funeral site and asked if she would mind helping us out by watching our little one while we attended the funeral. We got way more help than we could’ve imagined! She said “No problem!” and offered us a place to nap and hot meals while in town for only a few hours. This is one of those instances where reaching out to our network of friends was crucial, and they came through in a big way.
That said, we’d heard all the stories of how people handled fellow passengers on airplanes and wondered what it would be like to experience the other side of the “sighs” and glares. I made all arrangements possible to be ready to nurse our little one since I’d read (and heard from friends) that was the way to help him regulate his body and the pressure changes.
He slept.
Without any major struggle or coaxing, no excessive nursing or coddling, our little one slept going up and coming down. He only made a few peeps on the flight home (he needed a serious diaper and wardrobe change!), and that was it.
We packed our funeral attire in one carry-on bag, I had what I’d dubbed my “mommy bag,” and we had the diaper bag and a pump bag. That was it. We used a two-piece stroller/car-seat travel system and put the diaper bag and pump bag under the car seat, carried the diaper bag and rolled the carry-on bag. We did not look like the Griswalds, and we checked the carry-on bag for our return flight.
Somehow, in that little of space, we had five changes of clothes, 20 diapers and more milk and milk storage than we needed.
While this, by no means, will look like every trip someone (or even us) might take with a newborn, I share it as an example of just taking life in small chunks, if you will. We gathered the basics and added a few comfort items once we had a grasp on space.
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Our second trip came in the form of a business trip that hubby took vacation time to join so I could still nurse effectively for the three days away from home.
The short version of the trip… Germs! Lack of sleep! Inability to pump in due time! Strange fellow passengers on the flight! You probably get the idea.
This travel occurred when our little one was roughly 16 weeks old. He was about five days shy of his four-month vaccines by the time we returned home. This wouldn’t normally bother me except for his early arrival and the odd passenger sitting next to us who’d just returned from Trimidad and insisted on holding our baby. -_-
Fortunately, we had a repeat performance by baby… He seemed to be a born traveler.
This time, we packed the play crib for him to sleep in after reading about a mom who’s child died the week prior while sleeping in a hotel bed as they were traveling. 😦
Homemaking For Working Moms 