When my husband suggested we temporarily escape the New England winter for somewhere warm, I allowed myself a moment of excitement before I started to stress. This vacation would require a flight; the first one with our daughter, who would be 9 months old at the time of the trip. She’d be wriggly, teething and confined to my lap for three hours. I’d heard and witnessed plenty of worst-case scenarios about flying with a baby; I knew that chaos that could ensue. But experiencing the sun, sand and surf as a family was too tempting to refuse.
So I did what any mom does when faced with the unknown: I researched. I read about all the baby travel essentials, spoke to parents who had taken countless flights with their little ones, and scrolled through Instagram for tip-filled reels. I weeded out items that weren’t applicable for our scenario (I didn’t need nursing or pumping items, for example) and narrowed down my list to a point that wasn’t “overkill.” The night before our tript, as I packed the last of her items in our carryon, I felt semi-confident about our daughter’s first flight.
Although you can’t predict how your baby will be at 36,000 feet (or, at any altitude), the right gear can help you correct the course and make for a slightly less stressful flight.
To help ease your travel stress, here are 15 items —all on Amazon — that I actually used during my baby’s first flight to get us both through it.