My Top Ten Travel Tips

I've been doing a lot of top 10 posts lately, I think it helps me to keep things more concise and I often finish them more quickly which is great when you have 2 littles to care for.

As a full-time mama I have the luxury of taking off whenever I want and staying for as long as I want, that is until Cyril starts school. Unfortunately this also means that I do the majority of my travelling solo, in fact I think Josh has only flown with us twice, our mega awesome holiday but horrific flight experience to California 2 years ago and our totally awesome flight and trip to Portugal last year. Usually he meets us for part of the trip and has the luxury of child free flying, which by the way I didn't realise was a luxury until I started travelling with children, but I digress.

1. Always, I repeat, always phone the airline and request a bassinet seat if your child is under 2. Even if your child is 23 months and 2 weeks (as Cyril was in February when we travelled) request the damn seat. Not only do you get more leg room but you can get off the plane faster and if you fly United it's classed as an economy plus seat but you don't have to pay for it.

2. Being and staying super organised is key. I had one bag for Sage's stuff with a little heart tied to it and an identical bag for Cyril with his stuff inside. The heart helped me to identify which was hers so there was no time wasted when I needed to grab something quickly. Both clipped to the side of the pram so I didn't have to carry them around the airport. Inside the bags were a change of clothes, nappies, wipes, muslins/bibs, toys, snacks, bottles and ready made formula. Unfortunately breastfeeding didn't work out which had me slightly panicked about flying with the extra gear but it really wasn't a problem at all and security is equipped to process and scan baby milk efficiently, they were finished scanning before I even had the pram folded!

Just a note as some people aren't aware of this. You are allowed to take as much baby milk, water and food pouches when travelling with young children and since you usually go through the fast lane it doesn't take any extra time. They let me through with my giant Klean Kanteen filled with water and Cyril is a little old for pouches but they always let me through with his smoothies, etc. I think I had 42 ounces of liquid formula (excessive I know but you always need to be prepared in case of a long layover, and a 40 ounce water bottle.)

I carried a backpack for myself so that I always had my hands free. Inside was a change of clothes (Cyril threw up on me in February and I forgot to carry on a change of clothes so had to wear vomit, not fun especially as I was pregnant with morning sickness!) passports and boarding cards inside a little zip pouch for easy access, a travel wallet with different currencies organised into different bags so I wasn't fumbling around trying to find the correct currency, lotion, hand sanitiser, baby tylenol (both kids were sick for this flight) saline drops for Sage, cell phone and charger, Cyril's Kindle and a pen. There was no point in packing a book or knitting for myself you'd be kidding yourself if you actually thought you'd get to watch a film, read a book or knit. Unless your kids are much older, then you might get lucky.

3. Good toys for flying. You know your kids best but Cyril's Kindle fire was a godsend. Cyril didn't start watching TV until about a month ago. I used it as a way to keep him from getting into trouble when I was feeding Sage and to my amazement it worked amazingly well. No more shouting at him while Sage was hanging off my boob. Josh downloaded a bunch of Cyril's favourite shows and when we had to wear our seat belts because of turbulence, which happened a lot on this flight, he hopped right up with his rabbies and sat there until they turned the seat belt signs off. When he was allowed to move around we had a ton of leg room as we had a row of 4 seats in the bassinet aisle. I gave him his bag of duplo legos and he got to work. Cyril is obsessed with building towers so this was an obvious toy to pack for him. I also packed his brio engine and 3 trains, a colouring book and about 5 crayons. That was all we packed for a 12 hour journey and I didn't feel like we needed anything else. Sage is too young for toys, she just likes to socialise anyway.

4. I forgot to phone up and request a kids meal for Cyril, fail! I planned to get him lunch in Ireland but they had a mad rush before we landed and hardly had anything left. He wasn't interested in a ploughman's sandwich or a chicken fajita wrap and as he was sick I knew he wouldn't be trying any new food. Fortunately I had enough snacks to keep him sustained and he did eat some of the adult meal, well basically he just ate the yogurt and chocolate that came with it, lol.

5. Layovers. Not too long, not too short, 2 hours is ideal for an international journey. We had to clear customs in Ireland, it's the way it's done if you fly to Boston, and it's honestly way better then clearing it when you get to America. We had a 2 hour layover and by the time we got to our gate we had 30 minutes before boarding, which was just enough time for me to chug a Guinness to calm my nerves, plus we were in Ireland and Guinness tastes 10 times better there.

If you're flying from the UK to America you have to clear customs at your first point of entry which is a pain in the ass. It usually means you have to get all of your luggage at baggage claim and then re-check it. If you're travelling alone with children it's pretty much impossible because most Americans that work at the airport won't help you unless you give them a massive tip and usually I don't have dollars on me. So my advice is to pay extra for a direct flight or if you travel through Dublin you have the luxury of clearing customs there and they don't make you collect your bags and re-check them. Which brings me to my next point

6. It is totally worth paying an extra 1-200 pounds to make your life easier. Whether that's paying to travel to and from a closer airport or paying to have a slightly shorter layover, you'll totally thank me for this advice. We paid extra to travel through Dublin because I knew it would be the difference between me arriving slightly sane and needing psychiatric help. Obviously if it was a 3-500 pound difference I would have been forced to reconsider but definitely worth the extra 200 pounds.

7. If you have a crawler/walker/runner let them burn off some energy during your layover. Even Sage needed some time to kick her legs and was fed up with being in the sling. I put her in her bassinet in Ireland and she happily kicked away for 45 minutes and was tired enough to fall asleep when I had to put her back in.

8. If you have a non-mover bring a sling, even if you have a pram you'll need one. It can be quite a walk from your gate to the airplane. We had to fold down our buggy and go up an escalator. Since I had 3 bags and a toddler that needed to hold my hand on the escalator I definitely needed to be hands free, the sling is great for this. Plus she sleeps really well in it. When she was sleeping in the sling on the plane I was able to change Cyril's nappy, build a tower, turn on his Kindle, select different shows for him to watch, get him snacks, help him with his juice, and the list goes on. I really don't know how parents travel with babies without a sling, maybe they can chime in here.

9. Choose your pram wisely. My double buggy was amazing for this trip, only downside is that I have to take the bassinet off to fold it and the Joolz bassinet is a pain in the ass to put back on. She has a toddler seat that we were going to use but I needed somewhere for her to sleep when we got to the farm so we opted for the bassinet. If I was only travelling with one child I would use one of those cheap umbrella strollers and my ergo. When it was just Cyril he often went in the ergo and we would use the stroller for holding our bags. I wouldn't have survived without our Joolz.

10. Lots of deep breathing and 1-2 beers works wonders. Just remember it's only x hours. I chose not to look at my watch as it can seem like an eternity if you keep checking. The one good thing about kids is that you're so busy caring for them and keeping them preoccupied and quiet that the time actually does go pretty quickly. The worst part of our trip was keeping Cyril from waking up Sage, another bonus of the sling, and when he announced he had a poop right after we got back from changing his first poop.

And last I just have to say that there is a fine balance between having too much crap and just enough. Josh tends to overpack, I underpack. On the one hand you don't want to be lugging around a ton of stuff but on the other you don't want to be up shit creek without a paddle. With a baby, I recommend packing some extra powdered formula, it doesn't take up much room and you can get boiling water anywhere. I packed a couple extra disposable nappies and 2 changes of clothes because she still spits up quite a lot. I knew I could get by without too many snacks for Cyril because if he was starving he would eat, even if it wasn't something he liked. Also, he is pretty good about keeping himself entertained with very few toys. He once played with a key for 3 hours at home, just kept running around the house pretending to fix things with it, I almost brought that key, lol. The kindle and his blocks were more then enough. He didn't touch the train or his colouring.