Singapore – As I stood near the baggage carousel, waiting for it to spit out my new and yet already fraying luggage, I could feel a woman watching me.
We had just finished a six-hour flight from Seoul to Singapore, which had followed a 12-hour flight from San Francisco to Seoul, which (for me) had followed a one-hour flight from San Diego, and she and I shared that same bewildered look.
Where were the cheering crowds? The balloons? The pats on the back?
After all, we had both just travelled with two children still in diapers and were arguably more battered and drained than someone who had run a marathon. Curling up in that little foil blanket sounded sublime.
Before I could spot any of our suitcases or answer to the melodic string of “mama mama mama” coming from the stroller in front of me, the woman was at my side, exhaling: “I just want to say it’s amazing we survived that.”
I considered hugging her. I would have, too, if she and I both didn’t have sleeping babies strapped to our chests and the questionable scents of two people who had wiped one too many things in the last 30-some hours, counting layovers and customs checks.
My love of travelling developed long before I had children and I prided myself in my ability to fall asleep the moment the plane took off and wake up precisely at meal time. I also had perfected the process of packing.
No matter if the destination was diving in Belize or touring Italy, I could squeeze everything I needed into a carry-on. To my family’s chiding, I also did this with my wedding dress and two weeks worth of clothes for a destination wedding and honeymoon in Nicaragua.
But travelling with kids requires a whole other set of skills – ones that I have learned through (sometimes unfortunate) trial and error, and share here in hopes that it will help my fellow stressed out parents.
I have flown with my oldest son, now 2 and a half, since he was months old, but a recent move overseas took the challenge to a whole new level. In the course of three months, my husband and I travelled with a toddler and infant from Washington to Indonesia, from Indonesia to California, from California to Texas, from Texas to California, and then back to Indonesia.
And here is, in part, how we survived:
* Accept that there will be checked baggage – lots of it! You will never hear the phrase “children and carry-on only” together, and if you do, I bow to that parent and worry for them. Small creatures require mountains of items: car seats, strollers, multiple changes of clothes, diapers, favorite toys – and that’s just to get to and through the airport. To save us some stress and back pain, my husband and I have learned to limit our load to about a week’s worth of clothes for each child, along with a few items for unusual weather, reminding ourselves that we can always do laundry on the other end. We then check in everything except a diaper bag, a backpack and a stroller, which can be checked plane-side and will then be there waiting for you as you get off your flight. (Since airlines are also much stricter now about luggage limits, one trick is to buy a carseat bag in advance and because they are always huge, use the extra space to lug bulky items).
* Book the bulkhead if possible. Not that little people need the extra leg room, but the bulkhead will allow you to avoid spending the entire flight telling your child through gritted teeth not to kick the seat of the stranger in front of him. With the bulkhead, you also get more face time with the flight attendant, whose attention (and hopefully kindness) you will undoubtedly need.
* Forget moderation (except when it comes to dried fruit). As far as my son is concerned, every flight is a mini-Christmas. I buy a ton of cheap, plane-appropriate toys in advance and present them slowly throughout the flight. “Bored with that Melissa and Doug magnet game, how about this coloring book that uses only water? Or these animal stickers?” (Note on the latter: Only buy “reusable stickers.” Otherwise, you will end up scraping them off the tray table, the seat belts and parts of your body you can’t see but will notice strangers staring at later as they try to figure out if that is a car or an alligator on your behind.) Depending on your moral stance on electronics, the same rule can be applied to handheld tablets. We normally download a few age-appropriate puzzle-type games on our iPad and unveil them as needed. Finally, what would Christmas be without snacks galore? Just, and this is very important, beware of healthy snacks. Fiber and flying should never, ever, be combined. I am fortunate to have a toddler who loves vegetables and thinks dried fruit is candy, but after a few (maybe four) dried apricots on one flight, we ended up in the bathroom so many times I eventually ignored the seatbelt warnings. That was also when we discovered – yes, I’m looking at you United Airlines – that not all plane restrooms have changing tables.
* Covet the barf bags. Because children are gross, you will need these bags (which can also usually be found in the restrooms) for more than their intended purpose. I have used them to store soiled clothes, bibs with spit up, rejected snacks, half empty bottles, and sadly, to catch the stomach contents of a child who after a 13-hour flight looked up at me with big brown eyes and a pale face and let me and everyone around us know he gets motion sickness.
* No, you did not pack enough diapers or wipes. This, I learned, after eyeing my white sweater on one flight and calculating whether I could turn it into a makeshift diaper if needed. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that.
* Concede that flying will never again be enjoyable … or at least not until your child can understand bribes and threats. No, you will not get to watch a movie without pausing it about five dozen times, eat your meal like a normal human with two free hands or sleep for any extended period of time. But if you are lucky, you will end your flight much like that woman and I did: looking ragged, smelling questionable and feeling victorious.
That is, at least until later that night when you’re dealing with a jet-lagged child.
Washington Post-Bloomberg