Tell me whether this is an insane idea or not.

March 10, 2013 6:55 PM

We want to go on a round-the-world trip in July with an active 9-month-old. Good or bad idea? Tricks to make it work?

We currently live in Australia, but our families are either in the US (mine) or the UK (my husband's). We are contemplating a round-the-world trip to see both families in July, when our infant son will be 8-9 months old. Is this an crazy idea?

Part of me thinks that taking a kid that young on not one, but three very long flights (Australia to US, US to UK, UK to Australia) in the space of about a month is crazy talk. On the other hand, this trip would be great to not only see both families, but also because we can time it so that I can attend a very important conference in my field for a few days (and thus have my plane fare partially reimbursed). And I'm not sure things will be better when he is a year or two years old, so if we don't do this now, it might be a long time before he meets his grandparents - my family especially doesn't really have the money to come visit us.

Some additional details / questions:

- Our son is very active. Already (at four months) he sits and holds himself up on furniture without support for indefinitely long periods of time. I would not be surprised if he is walking by 9 months. I am unsure therefore how to keep him entertained, because he will be too young for a lot of the tricks (e.g., iPad).. but he will probably be mobile and want to move a lot, which removes a lot of the benefit of being really young.

- We have gone on a short trip (2-hour plane flight, a few days long) within country, and he did very well. Slept fine in the hotel crib and also our friends' bed (co-sleeping with us); on the other hand, there was no time change and thus no jet lag to worry about. He loved the plane, had no problem with ears, nursed well.

- He really loves novelty and people. Which meant he loved the short plane flight and the time in the airport but I am quite nervous this could translate badly when he is stuck on a plane for 15+ hours.

I'm looking for advice from people who have done anything along these lines. If you tried something like this and it worked for you, what made it work? (I'm looking for hints especially for surviving the plane ride and also dealing with jet lag / sleeping on the other end. I have read other questions but many of them seem to apply to children of different ages and/or shorter flights). If you tried it and it really didn't work, or you would advise against it, I would love to hear that too, and why.

posted by forza to Travel & Transportation (17 answers total)

We flew with our five month old from U.S. west coast to Frankfurt, Germany. It was about 15 hours of travel time. On the international flight we got a bassinet which hooked into the bulkhead. And that was awesome. However, at five months, she was just starting to rollover and she fit nicely in the bassinet but I don't know that she would have at 9 months. That said, it would be worth it to see if you could get the bulkhead row so that baby has some room to roam and sit up that isn't solely in your lap.

Here's the thing: yes, I would be extremely hesitant to do this. But, on the other hand, it's a couple horrible days. You get through them and move on. That's my attitude about flying with an infant and now toddler. At 2, she recently traveled with me shockingly well. Having her own seat helped. But a full day of travel -- it would be hard. Plus the transition on the other end. I'd say the ease of wrangling a 9 month old makes now the time to do it.
posted by amanda at 7:10 PM on March 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

I flew from the U.S. to Germany with an 8 month old by myself. He was still nursing. Letting him feed solved the ear pressure issue. When we got to Germany, he was initially up all night and slept all day, for about three weeks I think. Then we got transportation, were able to Get A Life during daylight hours and that rapidly resolved.

This was a move to Germany, not "travel". But he was a very travel-friendly kid. My second was not. My second child had trouble sleeping any place but his own bed. My first child was cool with being lugged all over the place. He slept anywhere and got easily bored, so going places was fine with him. I often lived out of my car.

Even though your child is little, I would try to make sure he understands some of what is going on. When I took care of my infant niece for a month, my sister woke her up when she took us to the airport to leave. She did not want her to sleep through my departure and then have no idea where I went.

I wish I had my sister's good sense. When the movers came to pack our household goods to leave Germany, I took my not-quite-two-year-old and my four-year-old elsewhere to make things easier. The youngest freaked out when we came back home and all our stuff was simply gone. After that, I did my damnedest to announce "This is our last night in this hotel room. Please say goodbye to it. We are leaving and never coming back." And they would wave and say goodbye and I did get anymore histrionics from confused, scared kids.

So if I were traveling with a kid of 9 months, I think I would try to let them see me check my luggage and get it back, etc. They likely won't understand at first but by airplane trip three it will be "Yeah. Yeah. Luggage check is boring. Bring on the doting stewardesses all ready!" Or something like that.

Also, carry snacks and drinks in your carry on bag. Toddlers can't wait for airline food, the vending machines may contain nothing you would want, etc. Make sure you can feed your tot yourself if necessary. View good pizza options or the like as a Bonus!
posted by Michele in California at 7:21 PM on March 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

I recently flew from Kuala Lumpur to JFK to Seoul to Kuala Lumpur with a very active nine month old and it was extremely tiring and difficult. The bassinets provided by Qatar airways aren't really meant to hold a large nine month old baby, so I basically had to hold her the entire trip. The leg from Seoul to Kuala Lumpur was on Air Asia which didn't provide a bulkhead, so we were stuck in a tiny space holding the baby for like 8 hours. Not pleasant. However, the baby took it about as well as could be expected and it was definitely doable if not enjoyable.

BUT! It also depends on the mood of the baby at the time. Make sure he is well rested and well fed beforehand, because on a recent short trip (Kuala Lumpur to Phnom Penh) my daughter completely lost her cool and it was the worst 1.5 hours of my life.

I agree with Amanda, though. Suck it up and deal with it. It isn't going to cause any long term harm to you or your baby and visiting family with a young child is such a fantastic experience.
posted by Literaryhero at 7:23 PM on March 10, 2013

I would be very hesitant. At 3 months, my little guy slept GREAT when we traveled and we had a fantastic time. At 8 months he wouldn't sleep anywhere but his own crib, and was teething, and we had the worst two weeks of his life. I have never been so sleep-deprived. Mine is super active and really easy-going normally, but travelling made him into a monster.
posted by arcticwoman at 7:25 PM on March 10, 2013

This sounds horrible to me, which is different from impossible. I just remember taking a kid that age to Yosemite for a weekend, and the whole trip ended up being about finding accommodations for my daughter. Can you do it and keep a baby more or less not a raging mess? Yeah. Can you do it and keep a baby not a raging mess and still get to see and experience all the things you spent all that money to come see? Not really. You'll spend a lot of time around the hotel, or looking for places to nap or nurse, and you'll be coming home early every night for bedtime so you'll miss nightlife and fancy dinners out. You'll constantly be re-baby-proofing every new place you go because your crawling or walking child will be getting into everything. It just won't be fun, it'll be a baby-handling exercise.

You don't go on a trip like this for your child, they're too young to even remember it. You go for yourself, but it's near impossible to enjoy it to the fullest while caring for a child that age.

I'd save the money and do it later when the kid's old enough to enjoy and remember the trip.
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 7:29 PM on March 10, 2013 [6 favorites]

Uh, my previous comment is stupid, I don't know why I thought you were going sightseeing and traveling for fun instead of visiting family. Ignore me.
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 7:31 PM on March 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Good point, tylerkaraszewski, although just to be clear: we'd just be visiting family. We won't be interested in seeing any sights or doing anything but hanging around their homes with them. So we won't be dealing with hotels or worrying about nightlife or things like that. [My conference is separate, only a few days long, and I would be going down there by myself for that.]
posted by forza at 7:33 PM on March 10, 2013

Response by poster: Ha ha, just crossed in the ether of the internet. No worries. :)
posted by forza at 7:34 PM on March 10, 2013

I don't know how important this is to you but I can tell you that it is possible that every other passenger will hate you forever if this goes badly and you will be making three plane-loads of people very unhappy for three long flights. A crying baby for two hours isn't the end of the world but anything international might be problematic, especially if the other passengers need to sleep and are worried about jet-lag.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 7:55 PM on March 10, 2013 [6 favorites]

There's lots of threads about flying with an infant -- so here's a tip specifically for a long flight with a partner. Don't both of you watch the baby the whole time. Take shifts. And if the baby is sleeping (either in a bassinet or on one of you) -- one of you needs to be sleeping. So you say, okay your 45 min (or an hour) -- go! Because on the flight over, we were both kind of "on" the whole time which was stupid. We all arrived exhausted. On the way back we spent more concerted efforts on settling the baby for sleeps and then making sure that one of us was getting some shut-eye (bring eye masks and ear plugs for both of you). We'd set our phones with an alarm and while we weren't exactly chipper on arrival, we felt much better.
posted by amanda at 7:57 PM on March 10, 2013

9 months is hard. They want to be moving and need a lot if entertainment. We did la to Australia when my son was about that age and it was not super fun. It was boob city for me, difficult to feed him baby food on plane. He was too big for the bassinet so we used it to store toys.

If you can do it now while he is littler, do it.
posted by k8t at 8:17 PM on March 10, 2013

At 9 mo I would worry more about his health than anything else. I'm not sure what the radiation exposure would be - clearly not critical for an adult I don't know about babies. More important is probably the exposure to a whole host of new pathogens. 9 month olds are robust and I'm sure he would get over anything he picked up in due time - but do you really want him to be sick just after you land in the US with only a few days to recover before a trip to the UK.

If you do go through with it - my one suggestion bring extra shirts in your carry on. Not just for him, but for everyone involved - you don't want to be stuck landing or sitting on a plane with much of the last bottle on your shirt...(ask me how I know :) )

It does get much better after age 2 - especially with an ipad...
posted by NoDef at 8:30 PM on March 10, 2013

We did a US west coast to UK with a one year old without any major issues and it was definitely worthwhile to allow the grandparents to meet their granddaughter. A couple of caveats, however. We split the journey up by stopping over on the East coast for a few days(with the other grandparents) and that was very worthwhile. Being able to keep any one journey to under nine or so hours (i.e. a normal day) made things a lot less disruptive. Secondly my daughter never fully adjusted to the time difference, certainly not on the UK, so we had to adjust accordingly (for us this meant late bedtimes) but that. also made it slightly easier on the return (the worst of the jet lag came at home).


Flying, itself, was mostly about LOTS of snacks and walking the little one around the plane.
posted by tallus at 12:59 AM on March 11, 2013

Best answer: I feel like 9-12 months is exactly the window where kids are truly difficult to travel with for long, cramped stretches of time. As you said, he'll be too young to be overly entertained by iPads, too old to just sleep and eat, and if (holy crap!) if he's pulling himself up on the things at 4mo he'll likely be sprinting down the aisles in 5 months.

When we honeymooned in Thailand last year, the couple behind us flew from LaGuardia to Narita Japan with a 3ish year old and a 9ish month old. I expected the 3 year old would be giving us hell, but after 3 hours of whining about being bored, she accepted her fate and watched endless rounds of cartoons on the iPad, napped, and played games with me and other equally bored passengers. The 9 month old basically sobbed hysterically when he was prevented from climbing over everyone's laps, then would nap in 30 minute spurts, then wake and see that he was still on this damn plane, then sob hysterically for another 2 hours, rinse and repeat. 19 hours of it.

To be clear, I am a big fan of traveling with kids if the spirit is willing. There's no reason that having a baby or a child should be the end of your life as a traveler, and I'm really happy that my own parents dragged us along on trips even when they would have likely just wanted a break from us. HOWEVER, I do think that a flight from Australia/Japan to the US during your kid's active crawling/unsteady walking/not too great at understanding explanations age is just asking for misery.

I love children and give parents a LOT of leeway when traveling because I know it's tough on little ones, but that poor kid on our honeymoon flight is at least part of the reason we decided to wait on the breeding thing a bit longer.
posted by zoomorphic at 5:36 AM on March 11, 2013 [1 favorite]

One thing I'd do, is buy a seat for the baby and bring his car seat. He'll be more into the car seat because it will be familiar. You and your partner will be more comfortable without having to constantly contain a squirmy baby.

Look for people like me on the flight, you'll notice them in the departure lounge. They'll be the folks who are showing an interest in your son. Find them on the flight and see if they'll play some baby games with your son to keep things interesting.

Let him sleep when he's sleepy. Let him eat when he's hungry. Bring his favorite and familiar noms (if he's into solids).

An Anecdote: My parents relocated from Pittsburgh, PA to Northern California when I was about 10 months old. My dad went ahead and my mom flew out with me alone. I was an early walker (and talker) and according to legend, I walked up and down the aisle of that plane, talking to anyone who would talk back to me. I refused to sit in my seat, because apparently there were all these neat people who I wanted to meet. My mother arrived exhausted after only a 5 hour flight.

I think if you plan well, and based on past experience, that this is doable. But be prepared for it to be difficult and tiring.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 7:05 AM on March 11, 2013

Response by poster: Never let it be said that AskMe doesn't change people's minds. I was leaning toward trying to make a go of it before writing this question, but then I read some of the horror stories as well as possibilities I hadn't even contemplated (teething, illness, three planes full of irate passengers wanting to commit (justifiable) homicide on us, etc).

Given that even the most optimistic of responses here acknowledge that it will be difficult at best -- and that the worst case could be very, very bad -- we'll probably stay home this year. Hopefully next year, at 21 months, it will be more doable; at least he'll have some language by then, and would get more out of meeting his grandparents anyway. It's sad to put it off but, I think, for the best. Thank you all.
posted by forza at 3:33 PM on March 11, 2013

I traveled NYC to New Zealand and back by myself with an 11 month old. It was... not the most fun I've had in the world, but we got through it and it was fine. The worst bit was that I couldn't sleep because I was so paranoid that she'd wake up and start hollering. Try to avoid US airlines, because they are not so sympathetic.
posted by gaspode at 8:03 PM on March 11, 2013