EverydaySunshine

Hi Everyone,

We are literally down to weeks now. My son drinks formula milk and I want to take a few ready made bottles in my hand luggage for him to have on the flight to Australia. Will this be taken from me at the security check at Heathrow? also I'm planning on buying a few tins of formula to put in our suitcases. Until a find a suitable Australian alternative I need to take his milk with me. Does anyone have experience with this?

Adding to that I was thinking about taking a few snacks for toddler and daughter to have while we are waiting to board the flight and during stopovers etc. Again, if you have thoughts on this please advise.

Thanks!

ES

LouiseR

If you want to take ready made formula cartons through security they will make you open it and taste it even though it's sealed. I bought cartons at Boots in the departure lounge, they had tons of baby food and milk and they said they always have extras out the back just in case.

I also took a tin of formula and a couple of my sons favourite jars in my luggage and that was fine, I did let customs know in Australia but they weren't bothered and didn't even want to check what baby food items I had.

For snacks cereal bars go down very well for us as do plain biscuits like arrowroot and digestives.

What brand milk does your baby have? Cow and Gate is called Karicare over here and my son didn't notice the transition

22B

I took several bottles of sterilised water, with formula powder in a see-through tupperware container.

At security we had to taste the water (just shake it into your mouth - no need to touch the teat) and powder (quick finger dab) - no problem.

On board, they will stand it in boiling water to warm it. Keep an eye on them though - they don't generally know how long it takes to get to baby-ready, and a couple of times the bottle came back super-hot.

Take more than you think you'll need - you may get delayed or diverted, you may spill some, or you may make up a bottle only to find that child isn't quite ready and it is wasted.......


Other tip - think twice about taking the bulkhead seat. The arms do not lift up, so it's hard to lay the child down, and even though there is the carrier, I don't think it's worth it as you are not allowed to leave the child in it while you sleep (crazy but true) or if there is turbulence - I'd rather lift my armrest and get comfy with the child so we both fall asleep in peace.

Kingseat

Here is my experience from terminal 5 at heathrow in March. Everything I took for my son was confiscated! Water and jars of food but snacks were ok. Everyone will have a different story as it seems all staff at all airports are different. My experience tells me to pre-order (you will get the airside boots number on the airports website) your formula. Tubs will be ok in the checked lugguage but obviously you need to declare that in Oz.

I have also just checked with my cousin who is sitting next to me who works for an airline and she says yes, babies are not allowed in the bassinet during turbulence however, usually the staff leave this to the parents to decide if they should lift them out or not - especially when baby is sleeping. If it is really rough then they can enforce it.

As for baby in it when you are sleeping she says "rubbish"! Sorry previous poster! Obviously you run the risk of baby falling out of you don't hear him/her waking but she's never seen that happen before.

Jan4kids

and S26 is the same as SMA.

EverydaySunshine

Thank you for the responses so far. My son drinks Aptimal Forward 1+ for toddlers. Does anyone know if this is available in Aus? Otherwise I will have to try and find the nearest one to that. As for the small ready made bottles they aren't stocked everywhere. Not sure what I will do if I turn up at boots in departures only to find they don't have any.

al150n

When we flew last October our son was on soya milk (same the previous year when we flew) & they allowed us to take bottles of milk through, I just had to taste it. With squash for the kids (my 2 are well fussy) I took a few bottles with 100ml of undiluted squash in each & we bought bottled water airside to dilute it. Had to taste that as well...yuck....soya milk followed by neat squash

We took loads of snacks even things like packs of raisins. We had to chuck the apples that weren't eaten away before going through customs at Perth but the raisins were fine as they were in little boxes. If they'd been loose in a bag I'd have had to through them away.

Tbh we really didn't need the snacks we took as the food boxes the kids got on the flights had tons in them & the sweets from those lasted us almost until we flew back home. We flew with Emirates btw & have just booked our one way flights with them for next year

I declared everything we had including the raisins & was told at Perth that as long as we had small children traveling with us we could take whatever we needed for them for the flight including drinks & milk over 100ml. When we came to leave the guy at the check in desk said we couldn't take any of the fluids through even though I repeated to him exactly what customs had told me. We kept hold of it all & at customs/passport control had no problems at all. I doubled checked & again they told me that as we had young children it was all fine. Shame Heathrow aren't quite the same isn't it?

Alison x

Kingseat

Aptamil is not available in Oz but is usually available airside boots. Just give them a call and ask them to hold some fo ryou.

22B

Oh, I wish I'd had her on the flight! Maybe because it was an American airline? I remember boy was 15wks and I had so been looking forward to a good sleep, but the b**ch attendant kept waking me. Talk about a job's worth! In the end I was holding him, but nodded off and nearly dropped him!

Anyway - I am glad to hear that her attitude isn't the norm!

NigelWaring

Qantas cabin crew have instructions not to heat baby food, some do break the rules though but you cannot rely on it.