I've Bean Travelling

We did it! We successfully navigated our first trip as a family of three, with baby Teddy in tow. Over the Easter long weekend, we visited New York City for Teddy’s first international travel.

Preparing for a flight with baby

For our flight, I debated between bringing Teddy as a lap infant for free versus buying him his own seat. After some thought, we opted to purchase his own seat for a multitude of reasons. First, the FAA advises that the safest place for a child under the age of two on a plane is in a child restraint system in their own seat. Second, it would give me more space and the chance to be hands free. Third, Teddy is a very squirmy and active guy who is becoming increasingly difficult to wrangle, so it was nice to have a place for him to sit still and sleep. Fourth, we were planning to bring his car seat anyway (for airport transfer and in case we needed to hop into a taxi) and I did not want to baggage check the seat as it would definitely be thrown around and end up in questionable condition.

We flew via Porter Airlines for the 1.5 hour trip from downtown Toronto to Newark airport, where we would then make way to NYC. We were able to baggage check the travel crib, and then take the stroller through the airport for gate check.

Teddy is exclusively formula fed so I was anxious about issues with getting his formula through security. Although the TSA states that baby formula can be brought through security as carry-on baggage in unlimited quantities, I have heard of some parents being forced to open all their liquid formula for screening, which spoils the batch if unused within two hours. I even came across a horrifying story of a mom being forced to throw away all her pumped breastmilk at airport security. As someone who struggled with pumping and producing breastmilk, I would have had a meltdown if that happened to me.

As such, I opted to pack a tub of powder formula instead and purchased bottled water post-security to mix it. I had no issue with security screening, even with a portion of formula packed in an unlabelled dispenser. As soon as the security agent saw my labelled tub of Enfamil, she waved me through and didn’t even take any swabs for testing.

Baby on the plane

Teddy fell asleep in his stroller as soon as we got past security. He woke up before boarding when I took him to the washroom to change him into an overnight diaper (for better absorbency in case of the dreaded in-flight blow out). We disassembled our stroller into its travel bag for gate check and carried Teddy on the plane in his car seat. He started fussing once we got into our seats, so I quickly prepared a bottle and settled him down with a feed. We played with his suction spinner toy to keep him distracted while we were waiting to take off.

He seemed to enjoy the taxiing down the runway and was intrigued by the sensation of the plane taking off. The ambient noise of the plane acted as an effective white noise machine so he fell asleep pretty soon after we were in the air. I was especially glad that we had purchased the seat for Teddy so I didn’t need to hold him the entire time!

Arrival in New York City

We landed in Newark in early afternoon. Our gate checked stroller arrived without damage and we headed off to Manhattan via our booked airport transfer with Legends Limousine. I highly recommend this company for private car service if you have a lot of luggage like we did and can’t manage the train. After toll fees and tip, the price was comparable to Uber or Lyft, and it came with a clean car and friendly driver.

We arrived at Kimpton Hotel Eventi in Chelsea where we would stay for the next four nights. We booked the one bedroom suite so that we would have a separate space for Teddy to nap in his travel crib. Overall the hotel was pretty nice and family friendly.

Starting our NYC pizza tour

Although we were bringing Teddy along, the activities on this trip were really planned for us adults. One of our goals was to taste test as many New York slices as possible so our first stop after settling in at the hotel was to get started on our pizza tour!

Our first pizza selection was at Joe’s Pizza on Carmine, in Greenwich Village. Seating was limited so we ate at the high tops outside. This ended up being my favourite of all the pizzas we had over the weekend.

Afterward, we took a walk down 6th Avenue to pick up a few supplies — Whole Foods for their large selection of baby food and Trader Joe’s for the grownup snacks.

We were glad that we brought our stroller along for this trip despite being told that it’s hard to navigate in the city sidewalks with a stroller. We saw many other strollers on the streets and we brought ours everywhere, which allowed Teddy to take several “on the go” naps while we were out and about. We also had a pretty easy time with it on the subway as we planned our routes along accessible stations. In the couple cases where there was no elevator, our Uppababy Minu was lightweight enough to carry up the stairs or fold up compactly.

Thoughts on travel with a baby

As you know from my last post, I did quite a lot of research leading up to this trip and had some anxieties about the logistics of air travel and dealing with baby meltdowns. Everything ended up going smoothly and Teddy surprised us by being an excellent traveller! We are lucky to have a baby who is a fairly good sleeper and has a generally cheerful disposition, so I think this made a huge difference. We have aimed to (safely) expose him to being in public spaces as much as possible since he was born, so that he can be integrated into our life which hopefully will continue to involve a lot of travel.

If anyone reading this is thinking about travelling with an infant, I hope this post has given you some inspiration on how doable it can be with a bit of preparation!

Next up, more on our time in NYC.