Flying with Little Kids ⋆

Traveling with kids is NOT easy! You can never over-prepare for flying with little kids. Every mom remembers their first outing with a baby.

My first time out with Autumn (my first baby), I brought her to the mall. Obviously, this was before the pandemic. I thought it would be so cute to tote her around the mall in a baby carrier. So, I nursed her in the car before putting her in the wrap and heading into the mall. Not even out of the car and she spit up everywhere. The chunky milk cascaded from my collarbone down my chest. My shirt was soaked down to my belly button! Since this trip, I’ve learned a few tricks of the trade (like wearing a burp cloth in my wrap and not putting a freshly fed newborn in a wrap), I’m here to offer some more tips and tricks for an even more advance outing, like an airplane flight.

As I write this post, my oldest child, Autumn Rose, is three years old and my youngest, Hunter Alexander, is four months old. We flew to their grandparents house. So I decided to come up with a flight related checklist to share with you. This list does not include day-to-day items, like clothing, toothbrush, etc.

Flying with little kids: Air Travel with a toddler & infant checklist

In order to provide feedback to my readers, I find it very important to test and review actual products. This post includes a review of products that I used in travel. This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of UPPAbaby. All opinions are 100% mine.

What Kind of Travel?

Consider what level of travel your family will do. When you add another child or two, the most frequent concern is mobility. There are so many different kinds of travel to consider when adding more bodies to a family:

Simple day trip
Air travel
Roadtrip
More than one week away from home

This post is focused on flying on an airplane with little kids. However, I hope the information below would be relevant to every kind of traveling with little kids.

STROLLER FOR FLYING WITH LITTLE KIDS

Pick a stroller that makes you want to go out; not dread it. Here are some things I’ve learned in my two kid life:

Attachments can be a pain. Do your research on what it takes to switch things out.
Test out the transitions before you take it out. It can be very stressful to have a hungry, screaming or sleepy kid and be trying to figure out how to open or close a stroller.
Buy the Travel Bag!
Easy transfers for sleeping baby, if you are on the go frequently
Storage! and cup holders!

Over the first year, baby will sit, stand and walk. Until then, car rides, stroller walks and play gyms are the greatest stretching investments for your kids. Especially the first three months, babies play time is super limited – more specifically, they don’t really play at all. See the details on the six stages of play in my two kid schedule post. Babies spend most of their time in observation.

A good stroller is the best investment you can make when you have 2+ kids. We actually have three double strollers in our house and the UPPAbaby is our favorite. Almost all my friends with multiples have the same one and are obsessed.

UPPAbaby is great for off-roading on trips out of state

CARSEAT

We also love the UPPAbaby’s MESA carseat. It’s not only GORGEOUS. It’s great for travel.

Did you know you can bring your carseat on the airplane when flying with little kids? I am SO glad we did this. We traveled on an airline that left the middle seat open, due to the pandemic. However, it’s definitely worth the extra cost of a ticket. Hunter slept all flights in his carseat. It helped a lot.

Once you get to your destination, you don’t need a base. It’s so easy to install your carseat with a seatbelt. The SMARTSecure system has a red-to-green tightness indicator that allows for accurate, easy installation in seconds.

Hunter sleeping in the beautiful MESA carseat in white and grey marl “Bryce”

The only potential negative is the weight of the carseat, but to be completely honest, I never carry it around. It’s easy enough to just take the UPPAbaby VISTA V2 stroller along everywhere we go.

AIRPLANE TRAVEL

I used to think a stroller would be a pain to take through the airport. However with more than one kid (and an infant at that), I’ve relied on my stroller more than I ever thought I would. A stroller is crucial!

Buy the Travel Bags when flying with little kids. If you don’t, the baggage handlers will likely use any part of the stroller to move it around.
Register for warranty/protection.
Lots of storage. You need so much to make it through one day, flying with little kids. We fit two backpacks and coats into the massive storage basket under the UPPAbaby VISTA2.
Bassinet, if you chose to bring it can also function for baby to sleep in at your destination (skip the pack n play, if baby is small enough!)
Car seat easily attaches
Most airlines will let you check the stroller/carseat at the gate.

Here is a little video of how to disassemble the stroller and put it into the travel bags:

VERSATILITY IS CRUCIAL WHEN FLYING WITH LITTLE KIDS

Definitely worth buying the rumble seat, which is basically a second toddler seat. If you do, you’ll need to purchase the upper/lower attachments. SO WORTH IT. Look at all these configurations.