Traveling with Baby – Under 6 Months

Welcome to my traveling with baby series, where I share my travel tips with a baby in tow. First, I want to share tips for traveling with a baby 6 months and younger before diving into the older babies. I found that traveling with our daughter under 6 months was a lot different than traveling with her at 8 months and then it changed again once she was a year old!

Our first air travel experience with our daughter was when she was 5 months old and we took a flight from Portland to Las Vegas (just under 2 hours). I wasn’t overly worried about the actual flight since it wasn’t very long and our daughter is pretty easy going but I planned a lot around the airport portion of our trip as that was the unknown! What would it be like to get through security with a baby when many adults have issues getting through smoothly on their own! We got lucky to have my sister come with us on this first trip and it was during COVID so the airport was not packed like it normally would be!

• 

• 

Here is our airport and flight experience, with recommendations added in, for our first flight with our 5 month old daughter:

If you are looking for recommendations on what to pack, check out my post here.

In addition to our packed bag and a diaper bag, we brought a car seat and this portable stroller. My mom lives outside of Las Vegas so we had to bring her car seat for this trip. We flew Alaska and they allow a free checked car seat if you are traveling with a baby. Check with the individual airlines, as some will charge you for the car seat if your child does not have their own, paid seat (Hawaiian Airlines happens to do this).

If you won’t be traveling by car when you get to your destination, you can try to go without a car seat. Another option in many tourist destinations is to rent one, I haven’t personally tried this but have heard it works just fine. Some car rental companies can even have them ready and in the car for you. If you need to take your own car seat, I recommend a bag to carry and check it with. This is the bag we have used many times and love it. It’s held up on 5 roundtrip flights with her infant car seat and much larger toddler car seat as well.

Instead of taking our bulky everyday stroller, we like to take the Mountain Buggy Nano stroller. It is lightweight and folds up to fit under your airplane seat. We don’t use it in the airport but love to have it with us at our destination, it does count as a carry on if you decide to take it on the plane with you but you can check it at the gate at no additional charge if needed.

Speaking of the airport, we carry our daughter in a front pack so we have both hands free. Also, we have always been able to go through the metal detectors with her still strapped and that makes it super convenient to get through quickly. Once we get to our gate, we usually let her out and change her diaper before we board. Even on a short flight, changing her diaper ahead of time and getting her out of the front pack to look around and stretch is super important. I recommend the parents try to go to the restroom at this time as well, it’s a lot easier at the airport than on the plane when baby has fallen asleep!

• 

• 

• 

For boarding, the airlines always offer early boarding for families and we decide on a trip by trip basis if we will take up that offer. For instance, this first trip, we did board ahead of time since she was young enough to sit/lay still and we could get set up in our seats the way we wanted. Also, we had plenty of carry on luggage we wanted to make sure we could have in our overhead bins nearby and didn’t have to search for an empty spot with a bunch of people waiting for us. We keep our daughter in the front pack while boarding so she is contained and, again, we have both hands free for everything we need to do (handing tickets over, putting luggage in overhead bins, stowing carry-on’s, etc).

Once we are in our seat, we get everything set up and within arms reach right away. Once she falls asleep, it is much easier to get to anything you need if this is already done and you don’t have to worry about waking them up to grab your water, etc. For takeoff and landing, I try to nurse my daughter which usually puts her right to sleep and I’ve heard it keeps babies ears from hurting due to the pressure. If your child takes a bottle or uses pacifiers, those are great options too. My biggest tip for getting them to sleep is to wait until after the pilot announcements and the flight attendants safety routine, otherwise, the loud voices may wake them up. This has happened to us on occasion but thankfully, the noise of the airplane usually put her back to sleep quickly. The airplane noise is a built in sound machine for most babies! For the remainder of the flight, our daughter slept and it was very peaceful, I don’t wake her up for landing but will nurse her if she does wake up.

• 

• 

• 

Upon landing, we strap her back into the front pack for leaving the plane and getting all our belongings. I hope these tips help with your next flight. Feel free to leave a comment or question below and check out the other posts in this travel series.

• 

• 

•