Baby's First Trip = Success

We had to get up around 6:00 this morning to get ourselves ready and to the airport for our flight, which was around 10:00. We actually made really good time, and we were off to the airport earlier than we originally expected. We snapped one last photo of Nora in South Carolina (in the parking garage, how exciting!) and hit the road.

I am happy to say that once again, Nora.was.PERFECT. She slept for the majority of the first flight (Charleston to D.C.), then literally slept from take-off to touch-down on the second flight (from D.C. to Buffalo). SUCH A GOOD GIRL!!

Michael snapped this cute pic of Nora and me on the plane:

It's in pics like these that I realize how small she still is. Gah, I love her.

On three of our four flights on this trip, no one had any problems with me flying with Nora in the Ergo carrier. It was only on one flight (where the flight attendant was seriously "by the book") when I was told that I had to be holding her. It wasn't a problem, really, but having my hands free (especially since she was sleeping) was certainly nice. As you can see above, I was actually able to READ! Amazing.

Things we learned about traveling with a baby:

• Having both a stroller AND a carrier was really convenient, both at the airport and while out and about in Charleston. We just made sure to stash the carrier in the basket under the stroller so we had it at all times.
• No need for a diaper bag. For the air travel, we just stuffed diapers, extra outfits, and other things of Nora's in our carry-ons or my pump bag. When we were out during the days during our trip, we simply put a few diapers and our travel wipes case in the basket under the stroller.
• It's worth bringing your own car seat. We bought this car seat bag by J.L. Childress, and brought Nora's car seat with us (sans base). All of the airlines let you check a car seat for free. And guess what? The bag is so big, we were able to fit a ton of other stuff in there, too. We packed most of Nora's stuff--sleep stuff, clothing, diapers, wipes--plus a few things of ours (extra clothing, toiletries, etc.) in there as well, and it was all FREE to check because it was in the car seat bag. SWEET.
• A pacifier clippy thing is a necessity. This is a must-have for us in all public places, but when traveling, it was especially helpful. We didn't have to worry about Nora spitting out or dropping her pacifier on dirty, nasty floors or airplane seats.
• This probably goes without saying, but make sure you have extra clothing for the baby in your carry-on. Nora had a blow-out diaper (thank you, disposables!) just as we were supposed to be boarding our connecting flight in D.C. If I hadn't had an extra outfit in our bag, we would've been screwed.
• Speaking of disposables... if you're cloth diapering, consider using disposables for travel. We couldn't imagine trying to deal with our cloth dipes on a trip like this (maybe if we were staying in a house or condo with access to a washer, but in a hotel? No.), so we made it easy on ourselves and picked up a pack of disposables instead. Aside from the blow-out in the airport, they worked out just fine.

Those are the tips that immediately come to mind!

All in all, an amazingly successful first trip with Nora. Now, we have our sights set on our trip out west this spring. It will involve longer flights AND a longer period away from home, so we're still a little nervous. But at the very least, this trip gave us a little bit of experience to have under our belts!