We have taken our baby on two trips now with an upcoming international trip! While it was admittedly a little daunting at first, we are happy to report flying with a baby isn’t nearly as bad as it looks. The worst part is the extra stuff, but many of our registry picks made that aspect doable.

Tip 1: Buy Diapers at Your Destination

The first piece of advice I would offer for traveling with an infant is to buy the diapers at your destination. Diapers are especially bulky and you have enough to carry. Bring enough to get through the travel day, but don’t fill your entire carry on with diapers.

Tip 2: Choose Your Stroller Wisely

The travel stroller we had selected worked out swimmingly. It is nice and compact for daily use as well. We would choose the same stroller if we had to do it again. The single-hand fold is convenient and the removable wheels combined with the travel bag make it perfect for flying.

Tip 3: Gate Checking When Flying With a Baby

Gate check your stroller and car seat, but make sure to have travel bags so they don’t get dirty and have some protection. Since you already know you’ll have to gate check, go ahead and get pink tags from the gate agent when it isn’t busy. We chose to check the pack and play so we didn’t have to carry it through the airport. Consider checking your personal bag for this same reason.

We had thought baby wearing would be our airport hack, but with a 98th percentile baby, that wasn’t in the cards. Having the stroller to lug him around in the airport turned out to be much easier. We also decided we preferred bringing our own car seat because we knew how to install it and trusted its safety ratings. Having the adapters to put the car seat onto the stroller was essential.

Tip 4: Navigating TSA

If using a travel diaper bag like ours, make sure to let TSA know that you have icepacks, formula and/or breast milk in your bag. They will most likely need to screen it. If you keep it all in the same compartment of the bag for easy removal, you will be glad you did.

The baby will also need to be taken out of the stroller/car seat to go through the scanner/metal detector. The stroller/car seat has to go through the scanner with your bags. Compact things are your friend! Admittedly, the other hack here is traveling with someone else. It would be very difficult to handle TSA along with all of the stuff by yourself.

Tip 5: Pack Light When Flying With a Baby

Since you have to bring so much extra stuff when flying with a baby, it’s essential that your own packing list is as small as possible. Be sure to pack light and only bring the essentials. You’ll be glad to have a lighter bag.

Tip 6: Consider When to Take Your First Trip

If you can swing it, avoid flying with a baby when they are a newborn. We decided it wasn’t worth the risk of our newborn getting sick after exposure from the many people you encounter in the airport and on the plane. Consider staying home until they’ve developed some immunity.

Tip 7: Pumping When Flying with a Baby

Utilize the mother’s rooms for pumping. I was very pleased to have a private place to pump while traveling with an infant. If you’re a pumping mom, I’d also recommend purchasing a wearable pump for travel. The spectra is heavy and large, thereby annoying to travel with.

Tip 8: Ear Pressure

Try to ensure your baby is sucking on something on take off or landing. It didn’t always go to planned for us, but we’d read this can help the baby with ear pressure.

Tip 9: Noise Familiarity

Get the baby used to the sound of an airplane. We have programmed our sound machine to airplane white noise so that he would be used to the sounds of flying.

Tip 10: More on Diapers

Change the diaper before boarding. It is much easier to change them in the airport bathroom than in the cramped airplane bathroom. The seatbelt sign also tends to be on more often than not, making mid-flight bathroom trips difficult.

Tip 11: Ticket Counter

When flying with a baby, make sure to go to the ticket counter before security to add your baby as an infant and arms. You don’t want your baby to be denied boarding at the gate.

Tip 12: Screens

The plane isn’t the time to be strict on your no screen policy. Bend the rules a little bit to help keep the calm. I’d also recommend bringing a toy that isn’t noisy to entertain the baby.

Now that you know how to go about flying with a baby, take the leap and see how it goes. We ended up having a lot of fun and making some good memories. We are excited to show him the world as he grows up. He’s all set to go international now with his passport and global entry in tow!