As many of you know, I am a huge proponent for traveling with your baby and kids. Bump Club and Beyond is even doing an entire event surrounding this topic at the end of June. Baby J has been on two trips prior to today, but today was the day I took the plunge and embarked on a solo flight with her to Detroit.
A 45-minute flight couldn't be that bad, right?
Navigating the airport was a little harder than when I flew with my husband. There was no one to watch our bags when I took J to change her, and there was no one to watch J so I could go to the bathroom. I used both the stroller and our carrier as I knew I would have to be handsfree to fold the stroller. Overall, we did alright, I would say we get an A+ for keeping everything together and getting on the plane with all of our gear in tow and properly stowed.
J got a little fidgety before we took off, but she was hungry. I waited to feed her until we were taking off so she would have less pressure in her ears. After her bottle she fell fast asleep in my arms and I even closed my eyes for a few minutes. Upon descent we were put into a "holding pattern" and circled for what seemed like an eternity. The pressure was getting to J and she started to cry. We were going up and down, air traffic control could not make up their mind if they wanted us to land or not. The tears persisted.
I really didn't care much about the crying---I just felt bad for J as I know how awful it is when your ears hurt. I was also trying to avoid feeding her again so soon (remember, this is only a 45 minute flight,) but I figured half a bottle would be fine. But then we were put back into a holding pattern and J started crying again, so I let her finish the bottle.
When I finally thought we were landing, again, another holding pattern. I took out a bottle that had water in it and let J drink some of it. All was going well until J had a little burp. The the burp turned into a belch which turned into projectile spit up ALL OVER me, her and the seat. This was all followed by a second burp and another HUGE surge of projectile spit up. It was similar to the scene in "Parenthood" when Steve Martin gets vomited all over by his daughter.
The woman next to me and I sat there in disbelief. She immediately asked if she could do anything. I immediately asked if the projectile spit up got on her. (Thankfully she was a nurse.) I was sitting in a huge puddle and my jeans were covered in spit up, not to mention sopping wet. J cried for a second and then smiled and started to laugh. In the moment of it happening I wanted to crawl under the chair as I was mortified. But in the end, I used my burp clothes to clean it up, threw everything in my bag when the plane pulled into the gate and got off the plane, shoes squeaking and all. I told the flight attendant and she said she would clean the seat, and then walked through the airport looking like I had peed in my pants.
J and I went to the bathroom and I changed her clothes and diaper. And that was that. We rolled with the punches and made it through our first solo travel adventure (barely, but we made it.)
My biggest takeaways from this adventure:
1-Don't overfeed the baby on the plane.
2-Bring a change of clothes for the baby and for you in your carry on.
3-Roll with it---you can't change a situation like this, so you may as well laugh at it.
Safe travels to you and your family this holiday weekend!
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