airplanes, babies, and poopstains. How to travel with the little nugget.

Due to Chicago's hellish unrelenting winter, hubs and I decided to pack up our family and head for Arizona for 5 days for a HOT escape. We are big travelers, but this time was different because we had to account for a baby. Avi was just under 3 months when we decided to trek to the west for some sun.

What up Miss Thighs

How the hell do you pack and travel, especially air travel with a baby? Well here's some tips of what we found:

1. We bought a cheapo piece of crap, however new and meets regulations car seat. We needed to rent a car in Arizona and would need some sort of contraption to put nugget in, and I didn't want the airlines to throw around my $200+ car seat. I've also heard mixed reviews about rental car car seats, and didn't feel like dealing with that at 10:30pm when we got into Phoenix.So we bought one from Kohl's that did the job just fine. It's hideous with light pink and grey flowers, but is better than letting Avi roll around in the backseat. At least that's what I'm told.

We checked the car seat at the front desk of the airlines so we wouldn't have to lug it through the airport. Make sure you read the manual before hand so you have a good idea of how to quickly install in rental car. This seat came with a base, which we used, however some car seats you don't need a base and can attach with lap belt. 

2. I raved about my UPPAbaby umbrella stroller in my last entry. This stroller is the cat's pajamas. So glad we decided to get it. You can choose to check it right away with the airline or you can gate check it for free depending on if you want to use it through security, which brings me to my next point.

3. wear your baby through security. I put Avi in my Tula carrier (which is amazing by the way), it's a soft structured carrier easy to get on and off and then you don't have to putz with anything in the security line. If you have them in a stroller,  you'll have to take them out, which might be fine for a toddler who should be walking anyways, but I wasn't about to wake up my 3 month old. No thanks, we'll just walk on through.

On the plane, some flight attendants will require you to take the baby out of the carrier for takeoff and landing, which doesn't make sense to me as to why you'd want the baby to become a projectile if shit's heading south, but whatever Avi needed to eat then anyways.

4. Speaking of take off and landing, feed your babe during those times, either by boob or bottle, or if it's not eating time, use a paci. Those are the times that most affect their ears but if they're doing the suck/swallow motion, they won't notice, which means happy non-screaming baby and happy neighbors. I have pretty much lost the small amount of modesty I had, so my milk bags were out and about during flight. Those teeny planes do not have enough room for you to fidget with a boobcover, but I think those things are annoying anyways.

5. The biggest thing is you will feel like a disorganized wreck because of all the crap this teeny human needs. To minimize this feeling, be as organized as you can. I had a small wristlet that I put about 6 diapers in, a small pouch of wipes, a small changing pad, hand sanitizer and lip balm. This way when you need to change you can grab one thing right away, or if you need to change in the airplane bathroom, which we didn't, you don't need to try and carry a bunch of things, only a wristlet.

6. Babies, at least my baby, loves to poop at the most inconvenient times. Avi was asleep in the Tula carrier and we were grabbing food quickly before boarding when I heard and felt a rumble. I was sorry to find this was a juicy up the back blowout. I found a family changing room, which is nice because it's a private room with large changing space so the hubs could come in and help out. So this brings me to my point of having an emergency outfit for when your kid wants to crap themselves. Our one carry-on besides the kid was a backpack, so in the side pocket I stuffed footed onesies so I didn't have to deal with pants or socks. One piece. Don't make this hard.

7. Now what to do with my juicy pooped on onesie? Right. Walk back to the food court to find a bag of some sort to stuff it in until we land. Made a mental note to pack plastic baggies for next time. They will come in handy for any wet clothes and can be put in the wristlet for easy access. See how we are becoming more organized as we move along?!

8. So I over packed outfits for Avi, but she's a girl and I'm a girl and we need options for what to wear. So I packed the girl some options, but I guess a few too many. I had about 3 per day for 5 days, so about 15 outfits plus 3 pajamas. We used more in the realm of 8 outfits. But if you have a kid that likes to crap their pants more than my kid, well then you'll need more than1 outfit a day.

Traveling is so stressful...