Traveling with a one-year-old.

When I wasn't a mom, I used to travel on airplanes and GLARE at mothers and their babies, thinking to myself, "why would you ever bring a baby on a plane?". Oh how those days are over, and oh how I want to slap myself in the face for judging those mothers.

Don't judge. I washed her hands when she was
finished crawling around on the airport floor:)

We just got off a 19-hour flight (12 hours from Minneapolis to Tokyo, and 6.5 hours from Tokyo to Singapore) with our one-year-old, and all I have to say is that moms who travel with children are my heros. Traveling with a baby is hard. Babies are unpredictable, they want to squirm around, and you're confined to a small space with other people giving you the look of death for inconveniencing their lives with your child. Well here's the deal... moms need to travel too.

Airplane entertainment.

I give Linna a lot of credit because she did very well for her first flight. She had a few whiney moments where I wanted to close my eyes, wiggle my nose, and zap us back to the non-judgemental walls of our home in Minnesota. But all in all, she was a trooper. We decided to give Linna some Benadryl to make her sleepy when we got on the plane. We tried to wear her out at the Mpls/St. Paul Airport before we got on board, and sure enough, she fell asleep about an hour into the flight. At one point she woke up, and must have either had a nightmare, or didn't know where she was, because she let out an awful piercing scream. I got her out of the carseat, and she fell asleep on me. I love when she wants to cuddle with her mama!

We decided to bring Linna's car seat, and I am SO happy we did. It kept Linna in her seat and safe. She knows that when she's in her car seat, she needs to stay put. We also decided not to spend money on ANOTHER stroller for travel, and instead we just brought our Britax. It didn't fit through the security screening machine, which made my heart drop for a second, but security just wheeled it over to the side and gave it a "personal search". I'm SO glad we made the choice to bring our "good stroller" to Singapore, instead of some cheap umbrella stroller. We had a lot to carry through the airport, and our Britax gave us a lot of storage space. Plus, having this stroller in Singapore is a necessity, because we walk to the grocery store (and everywhere else we go), so I need the extra storage space to help me carry everything. Also, our Britax reclines, so Linna can take a snooze when we're out and about, without being uncomfortable.

She's a little big, but Linna still fit in the airplane's bassinet.

I brought a LOT of snacks and food for Linna on the plane (I think I over-packed), along with two full bottles of whole organic milk. For some reason, Linna wasn't too interested in her food, and wanted her milk instead. She drank her two full bottles by the time we got to Tokyo, and since Singapore Airlines didn't have pasturized milk on board, I resorted to giving Linna a half apple juice/half water bottle on the way from Tokyo to Singapore. After she had that bottle, she decided to poop, and mid-grunt she puked up the juice all over herself. Between the poop and the puke smell, I thought I was going to be sick, so we made a quick dash to the bathroom. After talking with other moms who have traveled with babies, I brought Linna three changes of clothes in case something like this happened. Thank God!

Chillin'.

I also brought her some toys and DVDs to keep her busy. One thing Linna is really into right now, is taking my wallet and removing all of its contents. She could literally do this and entertain herself for an hour! However, I don't feel like letting her do this on the plane while she loses all my credit cards, IDs, etc., so I improvised. I went to the dollar section of Target and got a mini organizer (something you'd organize your coupons in), and some Dr. Seuss flash cards. I put the flash cards in the organizer, so she can take them out, we can read the flash cards, and I don't care if she loses them. The things that really entertained her were the airline movies (cartoons), and books. She looked so cute in her headphones while she watched Elmo on the airplane. Linna loved saying "hi" and smiling to everyone who would walk by us, or the people sitting behind us, and most of the time people said "hi" back. All of the flight attendants commented on what a good baby she was. One of the flight attendants even stopped to say how much Linna looked like AJ. I felt so left out;)

FYI, the bassinet weight limit is 20 lbs., and Linna is 21 lbs. I lied and said she was 18 lbs. and she was just fine in it. The flight attendant even told me they hold up to 25 lbs. Also, changing a one-year-old's diaper is not the easiest thing to do in an airplane restroom. It's very tight quarters, so make sure you take a deep breath before you go in there! We didn't have any diaper or food pouch explosions on the plane, even though I had heard rumors that this can happen. The "ear pressure" didn't seem to bother Linna too much during landings and take-offs, but she did pull on her ears a bit. I just popped a bottle in her mouth during both landings and take-offs, and she was fine.

You CAN take milk, baby food, juice, medicine, etc. in your carry-on bag, without having to put it in plastic bags (and it's ok if it's over the amount limit). However, those items are subject to inspection at security. In all, we shipped three FedEx boxes, packed six suitcases, and one diaper bag. We shipped things like bedding, a high chair that clips onto tables, shoes, etc. It's pretty expensive to send things to Singapore, but when you're moving for three months, it's kind of necessary. Since the boxes were big, we had FedEx pick them up. I spent WAY too much time on the phone with FedEx customer service, trying to figure out exactly HOW we ship internationally (I've never done this before), which was really frustrating! If you ever have to do something like this, make sure you mention that you are shipping INTERNATIONALLY! I spent about a half-hour on the phone with a customer service representative, trying to plan our pick-up and shipment, only to be transferred to a CSR in the international shipment department. So annoying! However, everything did arrive in good shape.

To pack all of our clothes, toiletries, etc., we got three four-wheeled upright suitcases, and three four-wheeled carry-on suitcases from Eagle Creek Luggage. Both my husband and I have gone through so many cheap suitcases and bags, and have probably spent thousands of dollars on luggage that just ends up breaking, and we have to throw it away. Since we're "older" now, we decided to get some good pieces of luggage, especially since we're traveling internationally. We got a different color set for each one of us. We checked all of our bags except Linna's diaper bag, her travel bag, and one carry on. I did some research online, and after reading a review by Good Housekeeping Magazine, we decided to go with Eagle Creek Luggage because of their great review. We'll see how the luggage holds up after a few months!

Our stuff.

It's only 7:30 p.m. in Singapore, Linna is already sleeping, and I won't be too far behind. I think the heat is really wearing us out. We're up early (around 7 a.m.) and in bed early! We're both looking forward to the weekend so Papa can enjoy some of our adventures in Singapore with his ladies:)