jjmb

So in late April and early May I am going to Scotland and France to visit with ailing parents - my FIL who is dying of oesophageal cancer and My mother who has yet undiagnosed progressive brain disorder but probably Multiple system atrophy

Anyway I was originally going on my own as we are trying to do care visits to my FIL as often as we can (we, meaning my husband, myself and my BIL who lives in Australia) with out limited holiday time. Wish we had the amount of time Australians seem to have. My BIL is using his accumulated sick leave for his visit - 5 wks!

Realising that she would prefer to visit her grandparents whilst they are still unable to appreciate a visit and not at a funeral , my eldest daughter and my grand-daughter will be coming with me. Juniper will be 9 months old by this point and to be honest, its been a long time since I have travelled with such a young infant.

Would you book a separate seat for Juniper or as my husband suggests, suck it up and have her on our laps? What sort of food can you take on board as she is not into proper solid food yet?

I read in another thread that car seats can be an issue. My daughter's is also Juniper's stroller, so not sure what type it is. Can you rent cars with baby seats? Still not sure if we will rent a car as normally my husband drives whilst in Scotland but I will definitely need one in France as my parents live in the middle of NOWHERE!

In the middle of our visit to Scotland we will be visiting London and Medway to some of Elisabeth's old friends from school who have moved there and see my sisters who live in Medway. Thought about trains but seems pretty expensive. Anyone know of any good travel sites in the UK?

At the end of our 4 weeks I am sure we will exhausted with all this travel but it will be worth to see the delight of the great grandparents in seeing Juniper.

AmerLisa

My best recommendation is that the baby gets her own seat. I think a baby in an approved car seat on a flight is so much safer. It's not where they always want to be though. Good luck on your journey.

Englishmum

So sorry to hear of the reason for your visit

However, it will be so uplifting for the 'ailing parents' to meet their baby great-grandaughter for the first - and perhaps only - time.

There are many threads on the link below (a website for frequent flyers) about how to best travel with babies eg. lap or buy a seat, FAA approved car seats etc.

Are you likely to be flying with a British airline or an American one? They may have different specs for car seats in the cabin (again see the link below).

I would strongly suggest that you book a 'bassinet' for the little one to sleep in, the airline will usually then assign the bulk-head seats with slightly more leg room. Personally I wouldn't like a 'lap baby' on a long-haul flight, it's do-able on flights for say 1-3 hours but any more than that it would be difficult I should think, there is a big difference between the weight (and sleep times) of a 9 month old compared to a baby who is just a few weeks old!

Hope this helps, and all the best for the health of your loved ones:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-children-221/

Have a safe trip

Weeze

It's totally up to you as to if you book a seat or not. If you do book a seat, she'll have to be on a lap for take off and landing as well as turbulence. It's unlikely she'll still meet the weight requirements for a bassinet, unless she's pretty small. Mine certainly wouldn't. Instead of spending your money on another seat, perhaps you could just upgrade your existing seats. Then you get more room. With my 10 month old I won't be booking her a seat, but will be booking either business class seats or extra legroom seats. Then you can all shuffle along a bit and they can play alongside you.

You can take baby food if needed. They may make you open and taste it. Sometimes they just swab the outside and put it through the bomb sniffer machine. Airline staff tend to be very helpful when you have a baby, but I always take lots of snacks just incase.

Yes, you can rent car seats with cars. You do it at the time of booking. Be aware though, often they don't guarantee it, they just say if one is available.

We used redspottedhankey.com for train tickets. They were cheapest when we used them.

jjmb

thanks for the advice so far. First time I had read you still need them on your lap at various points of your journey. Will look into extra legroom room seats. Yes, I suspect she will be too big for the bassinets.

Weeze

Not sure on the rules for take off, landing and turbulence with an approved carseat. The link Englishmum gave can probably help. I was meaning just with a booked seat, not booked seat plus carseat.

sir_eccles

You should not be forced to taste the baby food or milk, though they may ask you to open them to test for explosives. Even for sealed packets which is a pain because they're sealed for a reason. On the other hand they may not even check them at all (whatever!).

You should go through the metal detector with the child.

You may place the child in a tray on the x-ray machine conveyor to the amusement of TSA agents while you deal with the straps on the BabyBjorn carrier.

If you get a helpful agent they may assist you in putting the child in the BabyBjorn but strictly speaking they are not allowed to touch your child at all. Oh that was a fun trip of canceled flights, colds, flus, etc etc.

http://www.tsa.gov/traveler-informat...eling-children

http://www.tsa.gov/traveling-formula...milk-and-juice

A note on Childrens Benadryl. People are very divided on this issue. No medical professional will officially tell you it is ok. However, it may be indicated if the child has a cold/stuffy nose at the time to help unblock the ears. Test beforehand, some children get hyper not sleepy.

One more thing, many airlines have dropped priority boarding for children but if you have frequent flyer status that lets you board earlier, your group can still board early with children.

Bink

United for instance...! BA are still pretty good.

I asked about flying with a baby and got a ton of good answers here too: http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=752989

If you phone up the airline as soon as you book it you can normally get bulkhead seats for free which have more room and give a small area for the baby to move around.

notonuksoil

If you are looking at trains have you tried the britpass website http://www.raileurope.com/rail-tickets-passes/

The cheapest way to book trains in the UK is using the advance purchase options, the east coast train line has some good deals travelling off peak between Scotland and London if booked in advance but there is little or no flexibility with the tickets if you need to change your plans last minute.

Alan17

We flew from LA to Aberdeen via Heathrow with our kid in a carseat, US bought. AA to Heathrow, BA to Aberdeen.

No problem on the AA flight as its a US carseat and its AA approved, installed facing backwards.

On the BA fight we had problems. The CAA says the seats have to be forwards facing and BA only recognize the CAA. The trolley dollies insisted that having the kid in our laps was safer than having them in a carseat despite all obvious evidence. We did this for takeoff and landing, and put him in his seat during the flight.

So much for OneWorld intercompany coordination.....

slummymummy

The downside to an extra seat is obviously it's more expensive to book another seat! We always flew with ours as "lap-infants" up to 2 years old and it was fine. Was it a comfortable night when I traveled US-UK alone & pregnant with a 1-year-old sleeping on me all night? Er, no of course not. But was I happy at having saved the money? Yes! Sometimes we were lucky enough to get a spare seat for free on flights. Oh and we've used bassinets on both Virgin and BA and it was great. Think up to about age 1. You can ask the airline about their bassinets and give the baby's weight and age.

Bink

The only thing about the bassinets is some of them mean that the adults can't watch tv. BA Traveller you can't - traveller plus you can I think.
We ran into this when we got our little one to sleep but then couldn't actually do anything to relax (I'm a terrible sleeper on planes unless I can lie down in a bed).

slummymummy

Mmm it can be hard. On Virgin you can but it's a bit of a hassle to fold out the TV I think. But what would you choose? A sleeping baby and no TV, or TV and a screaming overtired baby?

Bink

No brainer. Screaming baby automatically means no TV anyway!

Bob

but there's booze....lots of booze....