Flying With Baby

The weekend before the 4th of July, Tom, Ethan and I flew to from LA to Minneapolis. We had a great time. Since Ethan doesn't like the car so much I decided we would stay downtown and utilize the public transportation system they call the "Light Rail" (in LA we call we call it the "Metrolink").

We could only bring what we could carry so I managed to pack of our clothes, toys, etc. into one suitcase. I bought those space pack bags and put all of our clothes in separate bags. This not only saved space but it also kept things really organized. You can even space savor pack diapers.

Now that Ethan can eat real food, traveling is much easier and much more fun. Just trying new foods is entertaining. The hotel had free buffet breakfast every morning. In the morning he eat a boiled egg yolk, a waffle, and a little banana. At lunch and dinner we would give him some bread and noodles. I would try and feed him some baby food vegetables from a jar. However, he quickly discovered that our food was much tastier than his jarred baby food.

Our Mia Moda Cielo stroller worked great. It folds into a little bag and can be stored in the overhead comparment on the plane. It's very lightweight (only 9 pounds) and you can snap it open with one hand. They don't seem to sell the exact one that we have anymore but here's a link to one that's very similar:

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3121415

I also used the Ergo baby. I highly recommend the Ergo for anyone like myself who has had back problems. Ethan is now about 22 or 23 pounds and I was even able to carry him around for a couple of hours in the Ergo.

We kept Ethan on the same sleeping schedule. Since Minnesota time is 2 hours ahead, we simply put him to bed at 9:30 (which would be 7:30 California time). He did have a harder time falling asleep and I'm not sure if he was just testing us to see if the same rules applied on vacation or if he had a harder time falling asleep in a new environment.

I decided to buy premixed formula for the trip and I highly recommend this. It can be a pain finding bottled water and I'm not sure if you can even bring it through airport security. Plus, the bottled water in our room was $4 a bottle and at that price it's much more economical to spend $2.5o for a premixed can of formula. They even have one that you simply attach a nipple to, however, Ethan is already using the sippy cup so I decided to go with the cans.

I ordered everything I needed for the trip from Diapers.com. The prices are much better on the diapers and formula than anywhere else I shop. According to friends Costco has the best prices, however, I end up buying a bunch extra stuff that I didn't know I needed - so I don't shop there. We do not have a Walmart in LA. I shop at Toys "R" Us or Target.

Ethan was really excited about the window shade on the plane. The shade entertained him for about an 1 hour throughout the trip, which is about 1/3 of the flight. So, make sure you get a window seat when flying.

I'll probably edit and add to this post but I just wanted to go ahead and publish it because I have a lot more things to post and write about.