Adventures in Baby-Traveling

We're back in Sacramento after our week-long trip to Chicagoland. Let me start right off the bat by saying that we had a great time and for the most part, the trip went off without a hitch. However, we discovered many things about traveling with an infant that would have never crossed our minds before and definitely are worthy of a rant.

Airlines - how much worse can they treat a family traveling with an infant?

Our flight to Chicago last Thursday was an extremely early one -- 6AM. We had packed almost everything the night before so we could just get up, feed the baby, and hit the road. I woke up at 3AM, got dressed, and woke up Charlotte. She was completely dead to the world, so it was hard to wake her up enough to be interested in eating, but I managed to get her to eat a little bit before she passed out again.

We got to the airport with no trouble, even managed to shove two suitcases, the car seat, the car seat base, the stroller, the Boppy pillow, the diaper bag, the bag with my breast pump and bottles in it, the backpack, and Chris' work laptop all onto the parking lot shuttle in one try. Checking in was no problem and security was fine, although I had to pull a sleeping Charlotte out of the car seat in order to carry her through security and she didn't like that very much. The lady at the United check-in desk even changed our seats so we would have a center and aisle instead of a center and window.

It was when boarding was about to start that we discovered something new. We watched an old lady with a portable oxygen machine pre-board and then a middle-aged man in a wheelchair. So Chris and I went over to the lady at the gate and asked when they were pre-boarding families with infants. The lady curtly replied that United no longer pre-boards families with children and that we would have to get in line with everyone else. My jaw just about dropped to the floor. I mean, I can understand a family with a four year old, but here's my clearly infant daughter, sleeping in her car seat. How could we would not qualify for pre-boarding? So of course, by this point, we weren't even in line to board, so we had to sort of shove our way in once they called our boarding group. Chris, who was pushing the stroller, was practically run over once they called our group number by the masses of people trying to board the plane, which I don't understand since we all have reserved seating. At the plane door, Chris hurriedly unstrapped Charlotte, handed her to me, while he pulled the car seat off the stroller frame and attempted to collapse the stroller. Meanwhile, the people behind us were simply going around us and boarding the plane, which was fine. Once we were almost ready to board the plane, a nice lady told us to go in front of her, but I waved her forward since Chris was still busy collapsing the stroller. The next lady, however, gave me the nastiest, most exasperated look I've ever seen, as if we were purposely holding up the line. I was appalled - what on earth had we done to deserve that nasty scoff? I actually shouted to her as she walked in front of us: "I hope we sit right next to you, and I hope the baby cries the entire time!" Fortunately for this lady, we didn't sit next to her, and Charlotte didn't make a peep the entire time. But this all goes to show the entire point of pre-boarding! If we had been given the opportunity to pre-board, we could have had a few extra minutes to get situated without holding up the line or feeling stressed out.

Once on board, things went fine. Charlotte mostly slept, and I fed her about halfway through the 3 1/2 hour flight. The real problem happened when Charlotte had her usual post-feeding poop explosion. This one was a blowout, shooting up her back and getting everywhere. Luckily, it was at a point when we could actually get out of the seat and go to the lavatory. Now, I've been on planes several times since I got pregnant and noticed that most of the them have changing tables above the toilet. This plane, however, did not because, in the words of the flight attendant, it's an older plane (which is a ridiculous excuse, we're not the first people to have traveled with a baby before). Chris and I were forced to change her (outfit, diaper and all) on the floor at the rear of the plane. The flight attendants were actually somewhat helpful in that one of them held Charlotte briefly while I went to wash my hands and attempt to wash out her soiled clothes.

On the subject of changing tables.

You just don't think about things like that until you have a baby. And it's bizarre the places they show up or fail to show up. For example, when we went to Mammoth a few weeks ago and stopped in Gardnerville to feed and change her, neither the Starbucks nor the Burger King had a changing table. You'd think that at the very least Burger King, with it's marketing to children, would have one. Then, about two weeks ago, we went to Total Wine, which is a huge store with, you guessed it, wine, and lots of it. Charlotte had another explosion while we were there, and that place, which clearly does not count children as its customers, had a changing table! So it's completely random. However, you'd expect them to be in at least one of the lavatories on a plane. I mean, come on!

Why I Now Have Fully Come to Appreciate the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The rest of the flight went really smoothly. I'm super grateful that I brought the Boppy pillow with me as it was a great way to hold the baby without feeling like your arm would fall off after a four hour flight. When we got off the plane in Chicago, changed the baby again (this time in a convenient and private "family restroom"), we followed the signs for the baggage claims area and came straight up to down escalators, no elevators in sight. After walking one hundred yards in each direction, and still not finding the elevator, we gave up and pulled the car seat off the stroller base and go down the escalator. I'm sure the elevator was somewhere (by law they have to have one), but don't you think it would make sense to put it near the escalator? Oy.

The Spoiled White Gold
One of the main reasons for our trip to Chicago was so I could go to the committee meetings at our national association's conference. In order to be in meetings all day, I brought along my breastpump and several ounces of frozen expressed milk in a small cooler so that Chris could feed Charlotte in my absence. When we checked in at the hotel last Thursday, I asked for a crib and a refrigerator. We received both within minutes of getting to our room, and the gentleman who brought them plugged the mini-fridge into an outlet and went on his way. It wasn't until 1PM the next day that Chris called me out of a meeting to tell me that the outlet didn't work and, consequently, the refrigerator had not been on the entire time we were there! The milk, which we have dubbed white gold, was completely spoiled. I was so mad. You're never as effective at pumping milk as your baby is, so those ounces represented a lot of time and effort. Luckily, I was mostly able to leave meetings early in order to feed Charlotte, but I still had to pump to build up enough supply so that Chris' mom could watch her while Chris, his dad, and I went to a White Sox game. So another lesson learned -- make sure the fridge is up and running. Don't count on it being plugged in to work. Needless to say, I called the front desk and complained and got them to comp the fridge rental.

All these annoyances aside, Charlotte was amazingly well behaved the entire time we were traveling. So many people on the plane from the flight to and from Chicago remarked about how good she was and how, if they hadn't physically seen her, they wouldn't have known she was there. Charlotte also learned some new skills on her vacation. She is cooing a lot more and has discovered her hands. She interlaces them constantly now, which we've learned is a precursor to grasping things. In addition, she managed to roll over from belly to back for the first time, albeit, she did use the back of the couch as leverage for her feet.

We did a lot of fun things, and Charlotte was with us for the entirety (except for the White Sox game). It's so great that we can take her everywhere. I just wish that other people and corporations would be more baby-friendly. On the way back to Sacramento, a number of people who were in the line with us to board the plane were astounded by the fact that United doesn't pre-board infants. I hope they'll write a letter. I know I'm inclined to. I just can't see how spending five extra minutes to help families board safely could so severely impact their bottom line. Oh well.