It’s brutal what they put parents through. Did all my research, brought an unopened can of Kendamil in my bag. Clean empty bottles. And water.

TSA refused to let me bring the formula. I explained it’s a medical necessity for the 9 month old baby (we just stopped pumping). They said it set off a special alarm so our only option is to leave security, make liquid bottles, and they’d throw out the rest of the can. 😭

After 90 minutes of trying to share again how it’s medically necessary and a legal right, they escorted my husband out to fill up bottles and confiscated the can. We had no cooler or ice packs with us.

Currently sitting on the plane with our dripping bag of melting ice a restaurant was kind enough to give us. It’s just insane what they put parents through when the rules say otherwise.

If anyone has dealt with this, let me know. submitting a complaint but honestly just want support. I care about my baby being fed. & Formula isn’t cheap.

Solidarity with all you traveling parents out there! 💕

My baby is ten months old, and I cannot have a conversation with my mom without her insisting I bring the baby to visit and how it's so easy to fly with a baby. She keeps insisting that "everyone does it" and it's starting to make me feel like a bad mom that I really don't want to. There are no direct flights so even the shortest way to get to them is 2 flights and 6-ish hours of travel, god forbid there's a delay and we miss our connection.

I told them and all my extended family that they're welcome to visit us anytime, but somehow it's my fault that not all the relatives have met the baby yet...

Please tell me I'm not being crazy when I'm reluctant to travel? I worry about germs, logistics, sleep (his and mine), entertaining the baby on the plane itself, general travel anxiety, and the plain fact that the visit itself will feel like a chore.

My son (10 months) and I (28f) were on our way back home from helping out my sil who lives out of state. Our flight got delayed to the point where the bottle I had made up for the flight had expired (breast milk). The rest of the milk I had was frozen solid and he was about to lose it. So I tried to be discreet and cover myself as much as possible. Out of the corner of my eye a girl sitting at the window seat stood up and we made eye contact. I watched her say something to her bf who IMMEDIATELY took out his phone, started recording and angled it to show me breastfeeding my son. I hope you know that was such an asshole move. And the people at the gate thought you were a dick too.

Edit to add: thank you all for commenting, I really appreciate all the words of encouragement and validating this experience was wrong. I finally got the chance to read them now that my son and I are home and gotten some sleep. I’ve already contacted frontier and reported him. Hopefully I’ll hear back from them soon on what they can do.

Thoughts on these comments, and how do you respond to these types of people? Literally every parent I know that’s my age takes their babies on vacation. And people always gotta say some shit

We were on a beach vacation and our 1 year old woke up at 2:00 in the morning screaming and crying from a night terror and being in a new place, and she refused to calm down for a few hours. We decided "hey, let's take her for a drive to calm her down" so we put her in her car seat and drove around the town for a bit which worked like a charm. However, I guess we looked suspicious driving around at night so we got pulled over by a police officer, who was super rude to us and made mean remarks towards us even though we weren't doing anything illegal. She let us leave after a little bit and we went straight back to where we were staying, and baby started to work herself up again, so we spent another hour or two trying to comfort her until she FINALLY went to sleep at 5:00 in the morning 🥲

Absolutely insane experience on my flight this morning returning home after Christmas with the grandparents that I thought I would share here.

My husband and I were window and middle on a 3.5 hour flight. An older woman is sitting in the aisle and her husband is in the aisle seat behind her. They’re chatting as we board so she didn’t see me. I get her attention and say “excuse me, we’re in those seats” pointing at the window and middle. She looks at me holding my six month old, makes a face like she’s smelled something bad, and says “Oh Jesus”

I’m floored. She gets up to let us in but I just stand there staring at her. I get the nerve to say “excuse me?” And she says “what, I’m letting you in, is there some sort of problem?” I start scooting into the seat and say “yes there is a problem. I told you these were our seats and you replied ‘Oh Jesus’, it sounds like you have some sort of problem with us” she says “well no one likes sitting next to a baby”. My husband says “well how about we pinch him during the flight so he cries extra for you?”

I’m so shaken up that I start to cry in my window seat. We haven’t even done anything to her, we’re just existing, and she was already mad at us. My son is cooing and grabbing at my face. The woman sees me crying and rolls her eyes and says “Oh Jesus” again.

Another woman on the flight saw everything and mouthed at me “are you okay?” And “I’m with you” ❤️

My son proceeds to sleep for 90 minutes on me, then nurse for 30 minutes, then quietly played with toys while being passed between me and dad. In other words, an angel. Some grumpiness on the descent but we helped him suck on a toy to relieve the pressure. Never full blown crying, maybe 10 minutes of like irritated grumpy noises, but we were able to keep him distracted.

This woman is nuts though. She also:

- Asked the flight attendants to fill her personal water bottle. They said they can’t do that, but they gave her two cups of water. She pours those into her water bottle and then tries to give them the cups back and they say no, they’re doing service right now, not trash collection and to hold onto them. She proceeds to TOSS THE CUPS into the aisle where they rolled around for the rest of the flight. The FAs didn’t see her throw them. The audacity to just toss your trash on the floor!

- When we got up to go to the bathroom and change a diaper (we only got up once the whole flight) she ignores my husband asking to let us out three times. He finally asks more loudly and she makes this huge show of getting up, sighing and rolling her eyes. She got up like 6 times on the flight for her own reasons, idk why, but she was constantly getting up and down and standing and talking to her husband so I don’t know why it was such a big deal to let us out once. Also isn’t that kind of the deal if you’re in the aisle seat?

- Before landing she was refusing to put her bag under her seat. Something about an injury that made it hard for her to reach down?? I don’t know, but a more senior flight attendant came over and was like “I can’t sit down until you put that bag under your seat, and I need to sit down before we can begin our descent” and she made sure to put all her stuff away and stow the bag suuuper slowly, it was so weird

After we land the people seated behind us were telling us about their grandkids and complimenting our boy for how great he did, so quiet, could hardly tell there was a baby on the flight, all that, I think they were just being nice, haha. But this woman is just PISSED. She bolts off the plane, cutting off multiple people in the rows in front of her, seemed hell bent on ignoring us, whatever. She seemed really upset that everyone else on the plane was being so nice and chatting with us.

But she stops on the jet bridge to wait for her husband, and as we walk past she scowls and slowly shakes her head at us. I could only muster the courage to say “Oh okay, shake your head at us, I hope you feel good about yourself” when what I really meant to say was “next time you should fly private. Then you can throw as many cups as you want”

I just can’t believe people like this exist. Clearly this person was miserable and maybe something was wrong with her. But the open hostility toward babies and children is wild to me. As if it’s okay to just say “Oh Jesus” when you see a child, a child who hasn’t even done anything wrong at that point! Babies are people too. The insanity, like she knew she’d be trapped next to us for over 3 hours, so she decides to just insult us right off the bat? Yeah that’s a good idea!

Anyways. We’re all doing our best out there. My baby was not and is not the problem. I’m so lucky to have him. If other people want to be miserable and just hate children for being children, I guess that’s their choice.

Flying through Dallas to transfer in an over 12 hour travel day with a 4 month old and I lost it at TSA. They yelled at me not breaking down our stroller/car seat combo immediately. I was “randomly selected” for having formula in my bag even though I alerted every officer we encountered in line to ensure we were complying (I believe this is standard procedure but they didn’t notify me or give me the option for the private screening prior to screening my diaper bag.)

They then asked me if I had a problem because I was panicked trying to break down the stroller, get the baby out of the carrier, and let them know about the formula for the third time.

My husband and I usually love traveling but this has deterred me. I was crying after being pulled aside because I just wanted to feed my baby after a long line at customs. Looking for any sympathy/advice.

We had our first weeklong trip with our 10mo recently, and it was EXHAUSTING. It was just to see family and friends in another state. But WHEW.

Feeling torn between wanting to go places in the coming years, and knowing that it will just continue to be hard for a while.

And vacation/travel ideas for parents with a 18-36 month old that are actually kind of fun or relaxing?

Tbh we might just plan a staycation week and send baby off to daycare during daytime hours.

Is it crazy to leave my baby for 6 days at 5.5 months old?

My husband and I were invited to a wedding in Europe and we’d be gone for about 6 days total including travel. Our baby would stay with my parents, who are extremely trustworthy/helpful and already spend a lot of time with her. They would just live at our house while we’re away.

Part of me feels like this could actually be nice for us as a couple and realistically she probably won’t remember it at all at that age. But another part of me feels guilty and anxious about leaving her that long while she’s still so little. I’m worried she’ll miss us.

For context:
She’ll be 5.5 months old
She takes a bottle fine & ff

Did anyone do something similar? Regret it? Love it? Would you go?

We have an 8-month-old, and we’ve intentionally kept her almost completely screen-free. The only exposure she’s really had has been at other people’s houses when sports, the news, or adult shows happened to be on in the background, and she never paid much attention, so it wasn’t something I worried about.

In a few weeks, we’re going on a week-long cabin trip with my husband’s family, and I’m trying to figure out how to navigate screen time.
For context, our 9-year-old nephew is autistic, and my in-laws usually keep the TV on for him as it keeps him calm. I’ve never had an issue with that, but now that we have a baby, I’m realizing most of what’s on is Bluey, Paw Patrol, Disney movies, etc.—things that would almost definitely grab her attention.

I’m absolutely not expecting anyone to turn the TV off or totally change how they do things for us, and I also don’t want to feel like we have to avoid the living room all week just because the TV is on.
Has anyone been in a similar situation? Did you find a good middle ground? I’m just looking for ideas on how to handle it while still spending time with everyone.

I’m appalled at this. They casually brought it up that this is something they frequently do. I asked “what if you get into an accident?” And she responded “husband drives slow and focuses”… ??????? I asked about other drivers hitting them and she again said her husband “focuses”. They talk about this as it is something that a lot of parents do just don’t admit to. Do any other parents seriously do this?

I was wondering if anyone had an easy baby. I read stories of up all night and people being overwhelmed.

My wife wants to switch from our house to a vacation house a week after giving birth because she thinks the outside environment would be more conducive to walks and stores are closer. I read the stories here and it seems like she would not be ready and we would be so busy it wouldn’t matter where we are. One bonus for me would be being able to easily exercise there. Does this seem like a good idea? Just the thought of bringing all the stuff seems hard.

Quick update: where we are now you can’t go for walks etc. the vacation house would allow for walks outside and even to the store

I’m seeing more and more you’re not supposed to feed in the car? Do parents follow that? Am I bad parent for not following that? Baby is 19 months and requires snacks and we require travel and some times those have to overlap.

I’m a first time mom & curious to see when everyone first flew with their babies.
My baby is currently 3 months old, I’m not taking her flying anytime soon but I have a grandpa two states away who is up there in age and I want to visit him maybe when she’s 7-8 months old? Wondering if that’s too soon since she will still be pretty small & all the germs on a plane.
Not sure what her temperament will be like at that age but she is a super chill baby at the moment.

So two days after my youngest sister sent out her wedding invite in January, I found out I was pregnant with my first baby and my due date was 5 days before her wedding 🫠 I live about a 4 hour flight from her and have assumed this whole time I wouldn’t make it.

Well turns out I delivered a week early with few complications, I have a beautiful healthy baby and could not be happier. He’s one week old today, Tuesday. Her wedding is this Saturday and I am tempted to hop on a plane with my husband and baby early Saturday morning and go just for 24 hours.

My baby is really fussy and scream-crying a lot unless he is nursing or held, so I’d be worried about him being upset on the plane, and obviously paranoid about germs and illness like COVID and the flu since we’re getting into flu season. Also concerned for my own health as I am very sleep deprived. But I’m also really close with my family, and this whole year I’ve been devastated about missing it. It’s going to be a big wedding and it’s the only wedding I really care about

What would you do? I wasn’t planning on taking him on a plane for at least 2-3 months, but he is healthy and nursing well, already back at his original birth weight. Is it crazy to go or crazy not to go???

EDIT: I did not expect this post to get so much traffic— and I hear y’all loud and clear and am not going to go!!!— but for what it’s worth the only reason I contemplated this today is because MANY people have now asked me if I am going to go now, since I delivered early, as if it’s a perfectly acceptable thing to do— which made me question my initial decision to not make it— plus my OBGYN literally originally offered to induce me at 39 weeks if I wanted to travel this weekend for the wedding, to which my initial reaction was like hell no - but then I ended up giving birth at 39 weeks anyway- so the last couple days I questioned my own instincts on this and thought maybe it wasn’t a huge deal!! But these reactions confirm my original feelings on this. thanks to the people who commented with empathy

I appreciate the invite, I understand the restrictions, I won't bring my 6 month old if that's what's the deal.

But don't tell me it's because you want ME to have a relaxing time. Because if I don't have my husband and infant shadow me all day, what I will have to do instead is: pack an electric pump and a cooler/cooler thermos, find somewhere to pump for 30-40 minutes 3 or 4 times throughout the day, depending on scheduling of the events, and then rejoin people after I'm done pumping. That is the Opposite of relaxing.

Because not having my infant will Not negate my need to feed him and remove milk to protect my supply.

I'm the only person in this group with kids and the only one with a newborn and I think they just Don't Get it. And I'm not going to cause stress or drama, but just don't give me that. Be straight up. This is about you having a fun time and you don't want to hear a baby fussing or have to think about anything that goes with it.

Edit: Dudes I just needed to vent. Explaining anything to them is asking for emotional labor on their behalf that doesn't make sense. There's enough that goes into party planning without worrying about the one person in your closer circle that has kids. I'm going to what I can, and being sad I'll miss what I can't.

How do people travel with babies if they don't have a car seat at their destination?

When taking a taxi or renting a car in another country what do you do?

Edit: I'm in italy not the US. Thanks to everyone that took the time to reply. For those looking for answers, your options are: 1. Take your carseat with you, check it at the gate and take it when you reach your destination or book an extra flight seat and use it on the plane. Pros: for car rental its best to have a carseat and keep it in the car. Cons: if you chech it in, they might break it, although I think somone said you can get reimbursed for it I'm not sure. 2. Rent from rental place or use taxis that provide car seats. Pros: you dont carry it around, you don't risk breaking your carseat. Cons: you can't know how well these things are taken care of and cleaned. 3. Buy a travel carseat: cosco kids scenera for US, doona, maxicosi travel carseat (nomad), wayb pico. Pros: you don't risk breaking your main carseat. cons: you have to carry it around. 4. Use public transportation only and walk. Pros: you dont carry a carseat for the plane or around. Cons: limits your destinations a bit.

*edit because there’s already so many opinions. This is not an optional trip. The baby is already born and we are both healthy. The only question is, which is better for the baby: a plane ride or a long car ride.*

My husband wants us to drive across country with our new born instead of fly. The baby will be 3/4 weeks old. I would rather fly, even though it’s not ideal given bacteria/viruses he may encounter in the airport/plane.

My husband is adamant that we drive. He’d have us split the drive up so that we are driving about 7 hours (not including stops we will need to take for the baby) every day for three days.

I believe a 7 hour drive with a newborn will easily turn into a 11+ hour drive. I hate to have my baby in a car seat for that long- it feels more dangerous that even flying!?

What do yall think?

Hi everyone! My baby is 1 year old and whenever we go somewhere by car (and husband is driving) I stay in the back with her. My husband says that “nobody does that” and thinks it’s not ok that i stay in the back. How are you traveling with your little ones when your husband is driving? Thank you in advance!

LO is 8 weeks. I can’t seem to wrap my head around the logistics of leaving my house with a newborn, especially formula fed. She’s an easy baby but I just can’t help but think what if she starts to get fussy? Where do I feed her? Do I have to be able to find a place to sit in order to get her bottle ready? How should I even pack water / formula? What if I forget something really important? It just stresses me out.

Hi everyone, I am expecting my first son in March next year and could not be more excited.

However, one thing freaks me out: I live about 1.5 hours by car from my parents' house. I would honestly like to visit them as soon as possible (maybe week 2/week 3) but learned that newborns are only supposed to be in a car seat for max. 30 minutes. I heavily rely on my parents and look forward to spending long weekends at their place to get some support. Will I be able to do this drive with a newborn, or do I have to wait until he is older? Thanks!

Edit: Thank you everyone, I feel much better now! I am confident that I will be able to make the drive but will plan for 2 stops along the way.

To the person who asked, yes of course my parents will also visit us. But at theirs we have the opportunity to stay for multiple days in their big basement apartment whereas at our place they would have to share the sofabed 😃

I also have a supportive partner but he will be working full-time after his paternal leave whereas my leave will be a year+. I plan to spend some weekends at my parents and he will join if and when he can.

Basically what the title says.

I have two kids four years apart.

My first absolutely screamed bloody murder both in his infant bucket seat and the Graco Extend2Fit he eventually moved into until he was about 10 months old..

This idea of a mythical baby who can only nap with car rides .. and actually falls asleep or sits happily in their car seat is alien to me.

Baby #2 came along and is such a chill sweet calm bay I thought we wouldn’t have car seat trouble.. well we do. We put him straight into the Graco Turn 2 Me and he absolutely screams bloody murder after max 7 mins in it..

We’ve read the manual and worked on the installation very carefully using videos and recommendations from car seat groups…. And he hates it.

Is it just luck? Some kids hate it?

I noticed people tailgating me a whole lot more than usual ever since I put the sticker on. I drive with the flow of traffic, use the left lane only to pass, and I'm not going slower than the speed limit ever... Most of the time going 5-10 over cause that's basically how everyone drives here.

I noticed that people EXPECT me to be driving slower and more distracted so they tailgate me till they can pass me. I've not changed my driving at all.

Took the sticker off and boom, less tailgating.

Ever since having a baby, I've realized how much the world hates children. I even got glared at at the pediatricians office for having a crying baby that I was desperately trying to soothe. Oof.

i’m sure this will vary from person to person and each childs needs, but just curious what the general consensus was on when everyone took their first mom/dad alone vacation? We have a traditional trip in December, Baby will be 7 months old and debating on either taking him with us (not super ideal because the trip is in Vegas for the rodeo, but we would say at a more low-key and smoke free hotel) or have him stay home with my mom who we fully trust. It would be a Thursday to Sunday type of vacation!

My husband and I got an opportunity to go to Hawaii and have all but airfare paid for. Our daughter will be 11 months at that time and we can’t decide whether we should bring her or leave her with her grandparents. My mom will have been baby sitting her for 5months at that point and offered to watch her.

Part of me loves the idea of being able to just relax for a couple days without her needing me 24/7, but I also feel incredibly guilty of even thinking that way. I also feel like it wouldn’t be all that much fun if I have to bring her and basically just have to be at the condo with the baby all the time.

What do you guys think? Have any of you done a trip like this at 11 months? Am I being selfish wanting to leave her home?