Going to Romania

We are going to Romania in less than a week.  It’s exciting.  We have most everything done, including shopping, shopping and shopping.  :)  The only thing stressing us out now is a paper that Silvia has due in her english class Tuesday night…we leave Wednesday.  She’ll need to push hard this weekend to get that done.  Paper writing can be such a pain. But I’m sure she can do it.

This will be our first international flight with Noah.  We aren’t looking forward to it.  I’m not going to engage Murphy’s Law and assume the worst, but I’m not expecting it to be as laid back and simple as it would be if it were just the two of us. Oh well.  It will be really great to see what he thinks about it.  I wonder if he will remember any of it?

Here’s some good advise I got from a friend regarding international travel with an infant:

As soon as you can, call the airline and explain that you are travleing with an infant in your lap and that you want seats in the bulkhead. Which airline are you traveling on? The bulkhead seats are the ones directly behind the bathrrom walls, and most big jets have holes in those walls where they can attach a bassinett for the baby to sleep in. Your son might be on the bigger side now to fully spread out in the bassinett but he can curl up at least and lie flat and hopefully get some sleep. It’s almost like having an extra seat and you guys can set him in it while you eat and stuff like that.

Another thing, overpack on clothes and diapers (I found that our kids seemed to have blow out diapers when up in the air…maybe it was the altitude or maybe just a coincidence but I always pack for it now). And it’s also good in case you get stuck in an airport somewhere. I put them in clear ziplock bags so I don’t have to carry the entire big diaper bag into the tiny airplane bathroom.

Underpack on the toys, they hardly play with them anyways.

Bring snacks–you never know if you’ll get stuck in the airport without any kid friendly food.

My girlfriend gave her toddlers/babies Benadryl on flights so that they’d sleep. I never tried that but now that I think of it, I think I’ll bring that with me on the plane.

But I think more than anything, getting seats in the bulkhead with a bassinett will make the trip easier. If you’re on United, they are clueless, so be prepared. And their bassinetts don’t attach to the wall, the one time we flew on them it was just a disaster. Johnny was 8 months old and crawling and the bassinett was on the floor (we had bulkhead seats so at least there was a lot of room for it on the floor) and he was trying to crawl away and after a few hours we just gave up and let him crawl around on the disgusting airplane floor.

Which reminds me, bring lots of hand sanitizer. And remember you can only have 3oz or smaller bottles of liquids that have to be in a clear ziploc bag as a carry-on.

Good luck!!!! It won’t be nearly as nerve-wracking as you think it might be.