Virginia 1 {Traveling With a Baby. Alternate Title: We're Never Leaving The House Again}

We did it. We made it on a cross country trip with a nearly-8-month old. It was exhausting. Between the 279 bags we carried, the heavy stroller to push, anticipating when I was going to be able to give my boobs some relief, breastfeeding on the airplane, breastfeeding in the airport, making sure to communicate clearly with my husband (because, you know, I sometimes think things and forget to say them out loud then get mad at him for ignoring me. Seriously.), two five hour flights each way, a 3 hour layover on the way there and two shorter flights, WE DID IT. And you know what I learned? I'm never doing it again. 

pre-flight

Just kidding. Kind of.

If we went solely off of Harrison's behavior we would fly every day. He was awesome. Only getting fussy on the long flight home, which turned out he was constipated judging by the poop-splosion that happened in the In-N-Out parking lot in Sacramento. Seriously disgusting and honestly, quite impressive for a little human. (Remember that time I said I'd never talk about baby poop on social media? HAHAHA.)

We made sure to have his diaper bag stocked. We brought piles of toys. But the thing that kept him occupied 90% of the time? My freaking necklace. He chewed, sucked on and beat that sucker to hell. Totally worth it.

We got a lot of advice leading up to this trip, some of it worked, some of it didn't. Like feeding him on take off and landing. The first flight I fed him on take off without incident but on landing he was sleeping so I didn't wake him up. He was perfectly fine. I think it just depends on the baby. I wish I would of taken the advice someone offered up to take less than we think we need. We had way too much crap to carry around the airport and we didn't use half of it.

Bubble Guppies with head phones that kept his attention for about 6 seconds.

The thing we didn't anticipate was that 3 of the 4 flights were not full so we got a whole row of seats to ourselves. LIFESAVING. I'm telling you. So my only piece of advice on long flights? Hope and wish and pray for your own row of seats or buy that extra seat. Or...well, I was going to say something off color about getting your row-mate kicked off the plane but I just can't. Use your imagination.

And just so you know, other passengers are generally understanding and get it. When Harrison was fussy we just did everything we could to comfort and calm him. People saw that we were trying our best and not once did I see a stink eye from anyone.

The real reason I'm not in a hurry to travel again is simply because I can't handle the stress. The anxiety. The stress. My left eye hasn't stopped twitching since we got home. It twitched a record number of times while we were there. Maybe now I can consider myself a pro and not be so stressed out leading up to travel but god dammit, staying home sounds so much better.