Six nights in Hawaii with a 6-month-old: yay or nay?

That’s a little extreme. Even a hawaiian shirt?

Hawaiian shirts will be acceptable if the flowers in the print average at least three inches in diameter.

Also – all shirts must have sleeves. A man’s gotta have standards, after all.

When we had our third, I referred to it as “switching to zone defense.” I really like the 8-10 range. They are competent little people, no teen attitude yet, so you can do lots of fun things together.

I think you’ll appreciate this later on, my daughter went everywhere with us and she’s adventurous, she’ll travel anywhere, have sleepovers with friends, loves hotels and loves camping.

My youngest didn’t go anywhere, probably because three is where the going places stops for the most part for a while. He loves being at home in bed and has a hard time anywhere new.

Anecdotal and there may be genetic difference influencing this but I like to think it was fitting my oldest into my life instead of adapting to hers when it wasn’t necessary that made the difference. I remember plenty of times when she slept next to Mom at a restaurant or a friend’s house on her blanket.

That’s probably the one thing that she hasn’t adapted out of, she still sleeps under that blanket every night.

Arise, thread!

I am taking my 8-month-old on a trip to Arizona. We will be flying with a stop (but no plane change). I am going with a girl friend.

I pretty much need to bring a car seat: either a friend is meeting us at the airport (she has no kids) or the shuttle requires a car seat. Or we rent a car, and the abysmal state of car seat rentals make me wary. The problem is my car seat is huge; there is no way I can lug around this enormous thing along with a diaper bag and the babe. The kid is big enough to need a convertible seat, so smaller options are few and far between.

So, I need logistic advice. How do you do it?

Alternately, if you live in Tucson and have a car seat we can borrow for 4 days, let me know!

My wife and I just got back from Scottsdale on Tuesday with our 19 month old. We brought his carseat and lugged it through the airport on a small luggage cart from Walmart with a bungie to secure it. Once we checked the two suitcases, it wasn’t too bad getting around, just a bit cumbersome.

We checked the two suitcases, gate-checked the stroller, and brought on board the carseat (which we used on the plane - we bought him a seat). Carseat dolly went in overhead, my laptop under my seat, and a backpack with all of the toys, snacks, and other stuff we’d need went under the wifes seat.

When we flew to Santa Fe, from NYC, we just checked the car seat. Wasn’t any worse for wear. We had securely fastened all the various straps so they wouldn’t be flopping around. Why haul it around the airports and the plane at all?

There are car seat wheelers that attach safely to the seat. If you get one of those, you can have the kid in the car seat while navigating the airport, further freeing your hands to carry other stuff.

I’ll be wearing the baby in a wrap, so I wasn’t planning on taking a stroller. Is this a bad idea? My stroller folds up nicely, but it’s huge and heavy. I’m just worried that this is our only car seat, so if it gets destroyed by the airline, not only can I not get around while in Tucson, but also I can’t go home afterwards. Does baggage check eat car seats?

You should be able to just use the stroller all the way to the gate and they should gate check it, meaning you get it back as soon as you exit the flight, it wont be on a converyor or anything.

We’ve never had a problem checking the car seats. Many airlines will let you wrap it up so it doesn’t get dirty as well as check it for free.

This reminds me I need to write a letter to Delta telling them how insane their car seat policy is. We rented a car and we were getting ready to board the plane. However, Delta only checks car seats inside instead of outside. So I left wife with car and went inside to check car seats, b/c the idea of having the wife do it with 2 mobile toddlers and 2 car seats is insane. (rental car return was one where you needed to bus a ways to airport)

Security goes bonkers yelling at my wife to move the car, because it takes a while to go through a luggage line. She asks if she should drive off with kids not in carseats and asking cop if that’s what he’s telling her to do. Security ended up telling wife to abandon car and find me to move it. Ugly scene all around.

Was like a logic puzzle with all bad choices. So if you do want to check your car seat, I’d advise parking the car before or have hubbie drop you off. Otherwise you’re stuck with the mom/carseat/baby in line problem vs. baby stranded with the car security problem. If you’re girl is still immobile, then you can do the former but just realize it’s a logistical dance. You can check all your bags outside but Delta told us at 2/3 airports (Thx Spokane for being helpful) that car seats must be checked inside!

If your concern is lugging a bunch of stuff through the airport while trying to manage the baby, then don’t take the stroller. The biggest difficulty isn’t folding it and gate checking it, it’s wrestling it through security while you’re trying to keep in mind everything else you have to do to placate the TSA (including taking your baby out of the wrap, explaining your liquids, removing your shoes, opening laptops, etc.). The good thing is that you’ll have a traveling companion to help wrangle things at security.

The thing you lose is that the stroller works as sort of a luggage cart as you maneuver the airport. If you have the kind of snap-on car seat/stroller combo that Leah C is alluding to (I think), then you can just roll the car seat and diaper bag and whatever other carry on you have on the stroller, even if you are carrying your baby. But, again, having a traveling companion mitigates the difficulty.

I never had a problem checking our car seat. We only did it a couple of times, and it always came through fine. Some airlines do require you to show up with the seat wrapped in plastic, or they used to, so you might want to check.

To cut down on some of the lugging difficulties, if you do decide to check the seat, do it curbside. Yes you’ll have to tip a few extra bucks, but you’ll probably face a shorter line and won’t have to manage the winding queue inside. Also, those dudes who work the curb are usually pretty attentive.

Most of the time we rented car seats–either from the rental car company or from a local vendor (someplace like this will deliver the car seat to the airport I think)–and that worked okay most of the time. But it seems you don’t have or trust this option.

The only other thing I would suggest is that if you can get somebody you know to pick you up, have them pick up a car seat at Walmart. After the trip, return it. I know. I know. This is evil. And I’m sorry for even mentioning it. It has bad George Costanza idea written all over it.

-xtien

I was talking about this kind, for the larger convertible car seats: http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?order_num=-1&sku=14973508

Oooh. That’s nifty! I’ve never seen one of those.

-xtien

The GoGo Kidz is reputedly awesome, but at $80 pretty spendy if you dont plan to fly very often. If you have a local moms messageboard type thing, see if anyone else has one you can borrow.

If you don’t think you will need the stroller at the other end, then don’t take one. Wearing your baby through the airport is just fine. Last time I did it I didn’t even need to remove him at security, we just walked through together. If he’s going to be flying on your lap, then personally I would gate-check the car seat, as it gets treated better than luggage that is curbside checked.

I’ve gate-checked my stroller on three or four trips, and each time I got it back in much worse condition than I turned it in.

The stroller is permanently damaged. In addition to a lot of superficial scratches, now one of the metal supports is bent and so the handles are twisted. I assume that’s from a heavy weight lying on it.

On the last trip we only checked the carseat and left the stroller at home. I guess I’m a slow learner.

Yeah I don’t recommend checking the stroller, even at the gate. Whenever my bosses go out of town, the strollers come back a wreck.

I don’t know what it’s like where you’re going but here, there are places in the Mission district and Chinatown where you can get a POS umbrella stroller for twenty bucks. It’d at least last through a short trip.

OK - stroller is staying home. If I were to bring one, it would be for the half-mile walk to the conference center from the hotel (I’ve been phasing out the wrap and phasing in the stroller). But if it’s bound to get damaged, I’ll leave it at home and use the wrap instead. I walk more than that with him daily anyhow.

We tend the bring disposable umbrella stollers (the kind you can get for $10) when we travel. We’ve had 2 of them banged up in the half dozen flights we’ve taken with the kid, but it’s not like your $200 stroller is getting ruined.

We have the GoGo Kidz thing, and used that, too. It’s nice, but a pain to attach to the carseat (particularly in a hurry). We eventually bought a carseat bag (sort of like this cheapie from Amazon) and it has been fantastic – plus you can totally dump extra stuff (like jackets) into the bag once you get to the airport. While the backpack makes you look like a fool, it’s actually amazingly comfortable, and leaves your hands free.

Why the hell does anyone need to take their baby on the plane?

I know this is super old but I was researching something about Hawaii and came across this.

If you want to fly without the nuisances other people might cause, whether it be a baby or an adult, you should probably fly on a private plane. Either way, I’m going to continue flying with my children on commercial airlines. :-)