Travelling on your own with very young children

Travelling is not easy these days, especially when travelling with very young children. Gone are the days you could rush to the gate minutes before departure (cue airport scene from Home alone 2). Today there are many things to consider when planning a trip. What baggage allowance is included? What do you need for the flight? What meals and snacks to think about? These are all things to consider when planning a trip with little ones. I’ve had to do a couple of trips on my own with two very young children (1 & 2 years old). Luckily, they both are already very well travelled and seem to enjoy it very much… It would seem they have inherited the travel bug from me. Usually we’ll take a short haul trip to Austria which we’re now used to. Recently however, I decided to brave a long haul trip to Canada on my own with the kids. Travelling with very young children may sound like a nightmare but there are a few things you can do to make the whole experience easier:

1. Plan your trip or get someone to do it.

People in Scotland used to enjoy the benefit of a direct flight to Vancouver from Glasgow with air transat however this was recently scrapped with no plans to reinstate the direct flights for the foreseeable future. Nightmare for people like me. It is essential when travelling with young children, regardless of whether you are doing it on your own or with your partner to plan the trip properly and make it as easy/uncomplicated and comfortable/not too tiring as possible… after all, travel takes a lot out of even the most well-travelled person, imagine what it takes out of little kids who need constant stimulation and be entertained all the time! If being in a confided space with little to do for long periods sounds like a boring nightmare to you how do you think your two year old will feel about it?

There are a few factors to consider when booking a flight (see next point) and it can get tricky if you’re not used to it. It might help to jot some of it down or do a brainstorm before committing to the purchase of your ticket if you’re not used to booking a lot of flights or get in touch with us or someone like ourselves (a travel agent/planner) to do this for you – it doesn’t cost any more than doing it yourself! If you like planning yourself you can find some useful booking links by in our travel toolbox.

2. Book strategically.

Light fares and luggage allowance (see point 4), flexible fares, transfer time, flight duration, seating plan, price… the list of things to consider go on and on however if you familiarise yourself with the different options or get a travel planner like ourselves to plan your trip you can be sure that it will be as easy and go as well as possible, be confident and move on to focus on other areas of preparing for your trip. For this particular trip after researching the travel time from various connecting destinations throughout Europe I decided to go via London with ba because this was the shortest total travel time (14 hours all in with an hour 20 in London for the connection inclusive), it was with the a380 which has a lot of space and I also knew that you are able to get a baby cot/seat (upon availability) and able to select your seats at no extra cost which meant I was able to strategically allocate our seats (see next point) as well.

3. Manage your booking

Allocate your seats in advance.

The a380 is a double decker plane where the front row of each section is equipped with the baby cot/seat. The bottom floor has 3 seats and 1 baby cot/seat at the window row on either side and 4 seats with 2 baby cots/seats in the middle row. Upstairs the window rows only have 2 seats and the baby cot/seat on either side and the 4 and 2 layout in the middle row just like on the bottom floor so depending on the size of your family you can decide where is best for you to sit. The front row on both floors also has loads of leg space which is great but the kids can’t stay on the floor because the oxygen masks would not come down that far so just FYI, the air crew will not be happy if your kids make themselves too comfortable in the spacious area in front of their seats.

Although I was tempted to sit upstairs just because it’s something you only can do on a double decker plane (the kid in me still likes to sit at a window upstairs ;D), I went ahead with the lower floor because my two year old needed a seat and I was hoping to have an empty seat next to us to put my youngest in the off chance that there was enough space. This was the case on the return flight but not on the outbound which was fine because the person sitting next to me was great. He wasn’t disturbed by my kids at all and very helpful even with my luggage, which was lovely. It is worth mentioning that the baby cots/seats are subject to availability and there is the chance the person sitting next to you will get to use it and not you if they got there first so be mindful of this. In our case the a380 is so big and has so many baby cot/seat spaces available you’d have to be very unlucky to have landed such a busy flight with so many families with children. It is also worth mentioning that the baby cot is intended for babies up to 6 months of age and the baby seat until 1 year of age, my baby was small enough to use it even though he was older but just FYI. After your children are over the age they can use the baby cot/seat it probably makes more sense to use one of the other rows as the arm rests can be put up so your kids can sleep on your lap which they can’t do in the first row as the tables and entertainment screens are located in the armrests and these can therefore not be lifted. A great webpage to check out for more information on seats on your flight and the layout of the actual plane you will visit with graphics is https://www.seatguru.com/ even travel professionals make use of this great resource so it definitely is worth a visit.

A great webpage to check out for more information on seats on your flight and the layout of the actual plane you will visit with graphics is https://www.seatguru.com/ even travel professionals make use of this great resource so it definitely is worth a visit.

Pick your meals.

BA and most scheduled airlines will give you the option to select meals according to your dietary requirements. My kids are very picky eaters and you never can be sure if they’ll be happy eating what’s in front of them so I selected all of our meals so that we could share and swap by choosing children’s meal for my kids and low salt for myself in case they didn’t like it, which is exactly what happened in the end. I think I will be selecting two low salt and only one children’s meal next time as the low salt option seemed a lot healthier and tastier and the kids seemed to like it better as well. The kids meal included mashed potatoes, which seemed very salty even to myself but had good other features like cut fruit or a treat for dessert. Another bonus of selecting a meal preference is that the passengers which have pre-selected their meals will be served before the others, which is great when travelling with young and not always patient children.

4. Pack smart.

Most airlines will allow you to take a diaper bag in addition to your hand luggage and 2 pieces of baby equipment such as a bumper seat and pram or travel cot that can be checked in so at least you’ll have most of your essentials covered in that. Because I was flying to Vancouver during the summer tickets were quite high, so I booked the the light fare, which with ba only included hand luggage which consists of a hand luggage sized suitcase (up to 23 kg though, so pretty generous still if you can fit it all in) and a small cabin bag per seat and a hand luggage sized suitcase and diaper bag for the baby on my lap so on my trip down I took loads of time packing and being super organised by packing a bag for myself, one for my children, the diaper bag and one for in flight which included things like sticker and colouring books, snacks & drinks, change of clothes, a tablet for playing games on, extra nappies, liquids and medicine… generally speaking the things you need handy during the flight and to get out of your bag easily for security.

The Ryanair website had a good tip about rolling your clothes rather than folding it to save space… I don’t know if it actually saves space but I have started to do this because especially with baby clothes I find it neater, more handy and easier to see what’s what.

My experience with BA:

I didn’t bother using all my allowance because on BA they won’t let you check in your hand luggage on their light fare as their hand luggage policy would mean you should be able to carry your luggage onto the flight by hand yourself, at least that’s what customer service told me on the phone when enquiring. The actual airport staff sometimes are nice and will let you check some things in if you ask, this was the case for me coming back. Anyway I thought I was smart packing until I got to Vancouver only to learn that the bag with all my children’s clothes had not made the connecting flight and I was now left with nothing to dress the kids in until the bag arrived with the next flight two days later.

The moral of the story is that although it is a great idea to pack a bag with the things you need handy and to get out easily for security it is not necessarily a good idea to pack bags dedicated to a certain member of your family. Instead, mix it up and have a few random items of everyone in different bags just in case one of the bags goes MIA.

5. Keep the kids happy in flight.

Be sure to keep the kids comfortable in flight by making sure they are hydrated and entertained, have clean nappies and are well rested and able to sleep when they get tired and fed when they get hungry. The in flight entertainment might be great for older but not well equipped for younger children as they are not yet able to understand the use of the remote and headset, so it might be worth having a tablet with pre-loaded games and cartoons as well as a sticker or colouring book and other age appropriate toys which won’t necessarily get lost easily by rolling under the seat. Some airlines are great and will give you something for the kids to play with, on the return flight with BA the kids got a carry bag with colouring/activity book which was great. We didn’t get this in the flight down but didn’t know about it either and therefore didn’t ask but is good to know for the future. A content child will be a well behaved one and make yours and other passengers flight as pleasant as possible.

6. Ask for help & take your time.

Especially if you are traveling alone with young children don’t be afraid to ask for help when needed. People in general are very understanding and will do their best to help, most of them will have been in the same situation at least once before if they have had children of their own and the airport and airline crew are there to help make yours and your fellow passengers as pleasant as possible as well and the best way of ensuring this is by keeping children in flight happy. There are some things you will need help with, regardless of how capable you are, such as putting luggage in the overhead lockers (even without kids I would have difficulty with this as I found it very high in the a380), holding the baby while changing the toddlers nappy (you’ve only got two hands) or having the crew warm up your milk for the baby (they are not able to do this with the microwave so ask them to do so with hot water and don’t have it filled to the top as it will come out when you open it due to the cabin pressure and it will go all over the place). When coming off the plane take your time and don’t stress, you’ll only end up forgetting something and making things more difficult for yourself.

7. Use your transfer time.

Let’s face it, we can plan as much as we want but with children there will always be some things beyond our control, like when they need a change of diaper. How often have you just changed your babies nappy only to have them go for a number 2 literally as you are just going out the door? Well, it can happen right after landing or between flights while travelling too ? Luckily this didn’t happen to me but the WC on the plane was very busy right before landing (of course), which is when I wanted to change my older one because she had just woken up from a long sleep. I was a bi nervous because the connection time wasn’t very big and I had to change terminals in Heathrow so I made my way to the gate of the connecting flight and changed them at the WC closest to this instead. Turns out my connecting flight was also delayed (go figure) but at least I didn’t have to worry about not making the flight (like one of my pieces of checked luggage, unfortunately). Heathrow had a soft play at the gate for my connection on the return flight which gave the kids some fun time before getting on the second flight after the long haul, which was great