Motherhood, 13 December 2023.
Flying with a baby:
A stress-free guide for new parents.
By Daniella Kilpatrick
Flying with your baby for the first time can feel a little bit daunting, hey? And like me, I’m sure you have a ton of questions.
From booking tickets to navigating security checks and the actual flight, there’s a lot to consider. We’ve used Safair to fly from Joburg to Cape Town with Annabella a couple times. We flew when she was 3 months old, 6 months old and 11 months old, so here are my best tips and the info I couldn’t find online to help make your travel plans a bit easier.
Booking the flight: what you need to know
We flew with Safair from Joburg to Cape Town and booking tickets was a breeze – we paid 15% of a regular ticket for our little one because she was under two years old, and she just sat on my lap. If you pay for a checked-in bag for yourself, your little one automatically gets a bag too. This can be a bag, a camp cot, or any one piece of luggage of your choice. If you take a bag and a camp cot, you’ll need to pay for an extra piece of luggage.
Choosing flight times that fit in with your little one’s nap schedule is key. We always chose to fly to Cape Town early in the morning over breakfast time or mid-afternoon when she had her naps. Once, we flew over dinner time, and she slept on the plane like a champ. However, when we got home, she was wide awake and didn’t want to go to sleep until way after 10pm, which was not ideal.
Here are some extras that are a must! Paying for priority boarding is worth it because you can be one of the first people to get onto the plane and make sure you have space for all your carry-on bags in the overhead storage. Pre-book your seats for a stress-free boarding experience, and just know that they will always make you sit in an aisle seat if you’re the one with the baby on your lap. It’s better anyways because if you need to get up you can easily get out of your chair. We always prefer sitting in the front of the plane because sitting behind the engines is much louder and a bit uncomfortable for their ears. Also, if it’s raining you won’t have to walk outside in the rain to get in and out of the plane.
Taking a stroller and a car seat: we always took the stroller to the door of the plane so we could get it right away as we landed. We had a bad experience once when we had to taxi from the plane to the airport in a bus, and the baby car seat which clips into our Noola stroller, was just put on the ground next to the plane in the pouring rain. It got soaked, so not great because we had to put Annabella back into it right away. If you’re using a separate car seat, it can be handed in as checked in luggage when you check in your bags if you prefer this.
What can you take on the plane: We took our usual bags like my handbag, the laptop bag, a small luggage bag, a nappy bag, and a bag of snacks. We had way more than we would usually travel with, but no one stopped us or questioned us about the amount of things we had with us.
What you need for baby: You’ll need to bring their original birth certificate or a certified copy of it, not older than 3 months old to show them at the boarding gate.
Top tips for the airport
Allow extra time at the airport (an extra 30 min to an hour), especially for security checks and a possible unexpected nappy change. It takes a lot of time to pass through security and there are not many baby changing areas, so they are always full and you have to wait in line.
When you go through the scanners it can be such a mess – the one time they tried to put our stroller through the scanner where your bags go… It almost got stuck. We had a Noola Bug stroller with a clip in baby car seat so they always made us detach the seat and put that through the machine, but they always wanted to turn it upside down so all the padding and the loose blanket would fall out. After this happening to us once, we changed our game plan. We decided to rather push the hood down ourselves, clip the seatbelts in, and remove any loose blankets etc. before handing it to them. They also make you put the blanket through the machine so rather you put it inside the nappy bag or somewhere that they don’t dirty it. It takes a bit of time once you’ve got through the scanner to be able to put everything together again, pack your laptop away and get going again, all while holding a baby. (Why I say you need extra time before boarding.)
If you need to change their nappy, rather do it before the flight. There is only one tiny change station on the plane which is inside the back toilet cubicle. Now if you’ve been in one of those, you‘ll know how tiny they are, plus that fold out table is so small it barely fits the baby on it, never mind keeps them there when a tiny bit of turbulence hits. What a palaver! So unless absolutely necessary to change a poop, try avoid the plane nappy change as much as possible.
Keep your little one awake as long as possible before the flight and let them do things that would tire them out. If they’re walking – let them walk around and spend their energy before being cooped up in the plane.
Keeping your little one happy on the plane
No matter the age, you need to keep them sucking, swallowing, or chewing on the take-off and the descent while the cabin’s pressure is changing because if you don’t it will build up too much pressure in their ears, making them scream and cry – because of the pain.
For take off – try give them a bottle so that you are covered for a longer time. You might have to get creative for the descent, depending on how long the flight is.
Now packing the right things for different ages will look slightly different, let me take you through a few.
Newborn was definitely the easiest age because they’re so light and they will probably just sleep on you the whole flight with no issues. As long as they are fed and their mouth keeps moving during take-off and landing, they should sleep and not cry or fuss about their ears. We gave Annabella a bottle on take-off and she slept the whole flight. Because she was still sleeping on the descent, I just tapped her dummy to get her to keep sucking it because I thought it was better to have a sleeping baby than a crying one because I woke her up. In addition to her fully stocked nappy bag, we packed two bottles, two dummies and a warm blanket to wrap her in. We really didn’t need anything extra for her at this age.
At about 6 months old, they might be a little bit busier. We were lucky that Annabella actually slept most of the flight, even at this age because we timed the flight that it was over her first morning nap. She was a lot heavier to have nap on me for the whole flight, but I managed. We took everything we took for her as a newborn, plus a Woolies Food Pouch (she had only started solids) and some of her favourite toys.
When we flew at 11 months, it was undoubtedly the toughest flight we had with her, she was way more active, alert and curious about EVERYTHING around her. She just wanted to stand up on our laps, touch the people’s hair sitting in front of us, touch all the things in the seat in front of us, and she just squirmed to try get loose to do her own thing. We definitely worked a lot harder that flight. She also wasn’t always keen to have a snack or a bottle when we needed her to chew or suck on something, so her ears got sore, and she cried a lot more than the other times. She also only slept on me for like 30 minutes, so we had a lot more entertaining to do on the 2-hour flight.
Snacks and her animal picture book were our saving grace! For food – we had a bottle, a Woolies breakfast pouch (which was too messy), biltong sticks, cut strawberries, sliced cheese and dried mango. The biltong sticks and dried mango were used on the descent and were such a winner for her ears (when she’d eat them). Besides wanting to touch everything on the plane, the toys that kept her busy were an animal picture book, balls, a bendy pipe, and suction toys that could stick onto things around her. We passed the time by feeding her a bunch of different snacks. We also took a bottle (which we gave to her on the take-off), her dummy and her blanket for when she had a nap.
Top tips for the plane
- Your little one needs to be chewing or swallowing for take-off and landing while the cabin pressurizes. To be safe, we always start when we are on the runway, and stop worrying when they take the seatbelt sign off. On the landing we start when they put the seatbelt sign on and then stop when we hit the runway. It’s actually quite a long time, so make sure you have a bottle of milk or water, or a very chewy snack for them so their ears can pop. If you have a short flight like Joburg to Durban, it might be hard to have a bottle on take-off, and then something else on the landing, so you can always just put a dummy in their mouth or give them their favourite snack you know they won’t be able to resist, so that their ears don’t get sore.
- Plane noise helps them sleep, so if they love white noise – they’re going to love the plane engines. Just make sure you have a blankie to wrap them up so they don’t get cold with the plane aircon blowing on them. Our little one loved being a blankie-burrito while napping.
- Activities for the plane – bring some of their current favourite toys. Don’t underestimate their favourite book. Last time we flew, we took this book with animals in it – it was honestly our saving grace. It kept Annabella entertained for so long and even on the drive to Hermanus afterwards.
- Avoid bathroom changes unless absolutely necessary. If you’ve ever done a nappy change on a plane, you’ll understand why I say avoid it at all costs.
Choosing your ride
If you’re renting a car or getting family to fetch you from the airport, make sure that you get a car with enough space for all your luggage and the baby stroller. Also something to consider is if you have isofix, to find out if the car you have, has the points to clip it in (most new cars do, but just check in case). We couldn’t fit our three big bags and our stroller into a VW golf, and it all just fitted in a BMW X3 with the stroller folded up on the back seat, so just be mindful of this.
I hope these tips and sharing our experience puts your mind at ease and helps you feel confident to fly with your little one!
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Hello! I'm Daniella Kilpatrick
The mom behind Hello Ma, let’s connect!