Traveling to a Different Time Zone with a 15 Months Old Kid

When I was flying back from Australia I met a lovely girl at the airport in Sydney and she told me that I’m a very brave mom, because she would never fly by herself for such a long time (Sydney – Berlin about 21h plus a transfer time) with her child. It made me think about it and I came to one conclusion – it is awesome to travel with 15 month old child. It’s not super easy, like it used to be, no drinks on a plane and chats with stewardesses, wait, there were drinks and chats. Well, it’s pretty much the same, I just had an extra bag of sugar with me.

Lets start at the beginning, which means packing for a plane trip.

– I took a lot of food that Mia likes – snacks, jars, but also artificial milk. Mia loves it and I always give it to her in a bottle when we take off and land. She’s excited, focuses on sucking and she swallows, so a change of a pressure is not such a big deal. When she sleeps during take off or landing, I just let her be.

– toys, I took far too many. Mia has a favourite soft dog toy (called Haw-Haw) and she kept sleeping with it. It also helped to secure her while she was asleep. The rest of the toys – she wasn’t really interested in. To be honest, she slept around 20h of the flights. You can also check online if airlines you’ll be flying with, have a small “play bags” for children. Mia got few and she loved it.

– I took a blanket for Mia, extra pillow and so on – unnecessary.

A good thing to do is to book a place with a bassinet. It turned out that Mia is to heavy to be in one, but these places have more space for legs and there’s a chance that there will be an extra seat next to you. It happened with us. Mia, who was supposed to share seat with me, had her own. She flew like in a first class, as I transformed her seat into a bed. It was so comfortable. Mia was sleeping and I had some adult time. Thankfully, she didn’t wake up during a meal time, it saved a lot of cleaning I assume.

What I find super helpful while flying with a kid:

– a carrier, which gives an option to face the world. When we were moving from plane to plane it was a salvation. Everything was interesting, Mia kept asking “toto?”, as she was interested in everything around. It also gave her a possibility to flirt with people (she likes it a lot).

– bag for a stroller. We have a Bugaboo Bee stroller which I find perfect for travelling and I got a travel bag for it. It’s amazing how much easier it is with this bag. I used to travel without a bag and it was tricky – stroller got scratched a lot, was dirty, wet. With a bag, it’s easy to drop it and pick it up. Plus, I didn’t worry about my stroller, as I usually do as a “strange mom”. I always have a vision that it will end up totally damaged and I will stay by myself in a foreign country with a heavy kid (this is not a paid post and I write it because I simply love this bag).

What is not necessarily helpful:

– I took a car seat. It was totally unnecessary, as there’s a lot of taxis that have it. Also, you can rent it in a car rental and it saves a lot of effort.

– panicking, as it will be fun. If your kid cries, don’t worry about the other passengers, half of them most probably have kids and they feel you. The rest will have it one day so they will understand you later.

– worrying – I didn’t worry at all, quite opposite, I was super excited about this trip. And I think it made Mia excited as well.

– caring about strange comments. When you travel with a small kid and it get’s occupied with something, it is so cool. The child will make a mess and on the end of a flight be a sweetheart and clean as much as you can. I did it. Mia ate crackers and it kept her occupied for quite some time. But half of them ended up in tiny pieces on a floor. Happens. I did not vacuum, but I cleaned the area as well as I could. And that’s it. If you hear a strange comment about it, just ignore it.

Jet lag. It is a totally different story when you change a time zone with your kid. Personally, I love having a jet lag. It means that I wake up very early and I am rested. I can go for a sunrise, catch up with a book or a movie and all of this is guilt free, as the rest of my time zone is asleep. But jet lag with 15 month old is a bi….ch. Mia had it for around a week and at the end of this period I wanted to shoot myself. Till the first night she slept through and woke up in the morning (proper morning). Then I was happy like a kid. But most probably it was all my fault. Why? Because I refused to sleep during the day. Mia kept waking up at midnight with a big smile and face expression “Good morning day, let’s have fun!”. It means that I’m included in this fun. I got up, took her to a stroller and at 2 am went on a beach. It was so beautiful. Mia fell asleep, so I went back home (we were living 7 minutes away from a beach by walk). Obviously Mia woke up the second we entered home. Again with “lets have fun expression”. So we did. At 4 am, I went for another walk, then at 6 am. During a day Mia got tired, so she kept sleeping in a stroller. I didn’t. I wanted to experience Sydney and take as much as possible out of it. In conclusion – I was tired, Mia not, but after one week time we were all happy again.

Differences – No more late dinners in the city, no more drinks. Sitting in cafe is a totally different experience. Mia is in love with babycino, so this is what she gets straight away. It gives me time, about 10 seconds to drink my coffee. When I order food, I hardly ever have time to take a picture of it, because there’s a flying spoon on the end of a tiny hand, which will not stop until it meets the food. There’s no more just staying in one place because I like it so much, unless Mia is interested. It is different.

What I love – my kid motivated me to discover even more (and I do a lot in general). I wanted to show her everything, I kept explaining things, even though she didn’t care. She made me look at views for longer, because she couldn’t stop sharing. Her excitement made me more excited. Whenever she’s tired, she hugs me and I don’t think that there’s anything better. I love traveling with her. And I’ll do it again and again.