[kcinhk]

Happy Chinese New Year to all mummies!
I'm a new mom with a 2.5mth baby girl, and we will be travelling to Paris in mid February for 10 days (with air france). It will be her first flight experience and a long haul one!
Would appreciate if anyone could share some advise or suggestions on what to prepare for the journey!

- baby is bottle feed with breast milk. Is it inconvenient to express milk on the plane, has any mom done this? how many bottles should i bring? would a disposable bottle be more useful in this case or a thermos bag?
- can baby stay in baby bjorn most of the time? what do i do with the baby during take off and landing, carrying the baby on baby bjorn is acceptable and safe ? otherwise..? what about baby bassinet on air france, any comments?
- anything i should bring on the air france flight, or things i should look out for?
- should we try to bring a pusher (McClaren) for Paris? would it be useful or the baby bjorn is fine? Pusher is rather heavy, on top of that with the other luggages.

Thank you in advance for all you comments!
Nervous mom....

[dfair1721]

Hi,

My experience with Air France was very good. First contact them and ask for the bulk head seats. They have bassinettes that they hitch up to the wall for babies to sleep. They were excellent in warming bottles and they even gave me a little "meal" for my infant (she was a bit older) that contained Heinz baby food and cereal. I was very impressed. I can't really advise on expressing breast milk while flying, are you not breastfeeding? If not and are just bottle feeding espressed breast milk, I would advise freezing some ahead of time and bring it with you in a cooler (it wouldn't hurt to have some powder formula on hand just in case, I always carried some in a ziploc baggy with the scoop).

And as for how many, if your trip is 6 hours, plan for 12! You never know when you are going to get delayed or stranded. The last thing you need is a hungry screaming infant!

As for take off and landing, sometimes they make you put on a seatbelt (strap you tie to your seatbelt) but your baby is so young i would imagine you just hold her in the "burping position"over your shoulder. they will go over everything.

Next, the stroller, my advice is to avoid it if you can carry her. I did take a stroller and there is plenty of room on the sidewalks for them but the roads can be bumpy and if you can carry her in a baby bjorn, then do so. You will likely do a lot of walking.

Hope this helps. The biggest advise is to relax.. kids, even infants can sense your stress level. Best of luck!!

[kcinhk]

Dear dfair1721,
Thank you so much for your help and suggestions! They are very useful! Will heed your advise not to bring the pusher as it' very heavy and my baby is a little young for it. The reason why i've been bottle feeding baby with express milk is because she doesn't like latching on! impatient baby...Guess i'll have to bring as much express milk as possible for the flight. Will also try to express milk on flight. Thanks again!

[Sleuth]

A 2.5 MO should fly pretty easily. She won't want to move from your side and will spend some of the time sleeping. Plus every airline we have been on with the baby has bent over backwards to help--everybody likes babies!
Try to time feeding with take off and landing as the swallowing will help the ears.
Might want to go with just the powder formula. It's easier to carry, there won't be any security hassle with it, you don't have to worry about keeping it cold and the plane will have plenty of water. I know breast milk is better, but it is only for the duration of the flight.