First flight trip post baby

Traveling with a baby is a whole new experience. As a first time parent, the idea of traveling thousands of miles with your infant's movements restricted can be quite terrifying.  

We had our very first trip planned to India around the time my daughter turned 15 months. The longest trip we had taken before this with our daughter was the 2.5 hours trip to nearby Napa Valley.
So naturally, I started reading up online on the things I need to carry in the flight and for our stay outside the comfort of home.

We did a few things to prepare well for our trip. Also, we were visiting quite a few places during our  India trip due to personal reasons and this made it a little more stressful.

Recommended Do's:

• Carry loads of baby food for the flight and your travel around your destination country.
• Depending on what your kid is interested in, new toys, books or video games for the flight. We are still on track for keeping our daughter away from all screen time till she turns 2 and so did not compromise during the flight either. Plus, her loving books helped a great deal. 
• Consult your doctor and get all the required vaccinations specific to the places you plan to visit. Some vaccinations require multiple doses and so talk to your doctor the earliest. 
• Carry sufficient diapers, wipes, milk bottles, water bottles, cups, spoons and other things that your child needs on a regular basis.
• Carry sufficient clothes, jackets and socks to adapt to cold and hot weather as required.
• Zip locks will be very useful for temporary diaper storage. Other things such as aspirator/saline sprays, diaper creams, baby shampoo, body wash is useful to be carried as well. 
• It may be useful to have a portable water filter such as Steripen. Though we never really used it.
• Be very careful with outside food or liquid during transit or at your destination as babies can get sick very easily.
• Be attentive to how your baby is reacting to the weather and food as cold, cough or diarrhea can soon get escalated for your little one. Please do consult and meet a local doctor as and when needed.
•  Be aware of local weather conditions and prepare ahead of time.

Flight specific experiences:

• Most of the airlines provide limited number of bassinets with specific weight and height limitations. Please check if bassinet would fit well for your kid and make the required reservations way before your travel date. Some airlines do not let you reserve it till the very end and we did not want to take that chance. 
• We just went ahead and booked an extra seat for our daughter. You can call it 'First time parent paranoia' if you will:) In the end,  our flight turned out to be quite empty and we ended up getting the front row bassinet seat during our flight both ways.
• We did get a bassinet seat both ways in our flight as it was not completely booked. This helped as we could transfer our daughter to the bassinet after she fell asleep on our lap. Other times, she liked sitting down and playing with the new toys we had picked up explicitly for the flight. 
• We did take turns walking up and down the flight anytime she got a bit restless which helped distract her a bit. 
• Air hostesses were very friendly and kept checking up on her. They even gave her a goodie set with many little items in it to explore and this kept her occupied atlas for a few hours. 

Other experiences:

• We did not carry a stroller or baby seat and I cannot imagine how we could have carried it all with her if we had indeed taken them. Looking back, it was. good decision as it is very helpful to travel light and be hands free as much as possible. We had a baby carrier and that was good enough to carry our daughter around in the airports.
• Backpacks or sling backs are definitely better than hand bags. 
• Most of the airports have a good mothers room which is useful for diaper changes, breastfeeding etc. Though you may have to walk a bit to find one of those rooms.
• We visited Udaipur during this trip and so if you are traveling to any place as a tourist, I would recommend stepping out when the weather is best and child friendly.
• We ran out of our food pouches and diapers during the last week of our travel in India. Luckily that was our week home but we still struggled quite a bit with food. Diapers though was smooth as pampers is available at almost every small shop round the corner. For food, I did end up picking some Nestle baby formula for our flight back home which did help a bit. So carry food pouches more than you think you need. 

All this information may be little terrifying but trust me when I say, it is always better to be prepared when it comes to your little munchkin. So prepare well and enjoy your trip. I picked a lot of beautiful traditional dresses for my daughter both at Mumbai and Udaipur. And it is always nice to be back home and re-live the energy you see around on a day to day basis. So good luck with your trip.