Advice on travelling with babies wanted

[gail.crease]

Hi

We're arriving in 4 weeks for our reccie. Getting really excited to see the promised land but getting nervous on how to cope with the flight and jet lag with a 6 month old baby and 3 year old. We're flying with Emirates with a short stop in Dubai.

I'd be really grateful if anyone could answer a couple of questions.

1. What are the rules on taking baby formula on the plane? Will I be able to take 24 hours worth of formula with me? My baby is lactose intolerant so I have to take special formula with me.

2. Regarding jet lag. Is it best to start adjusting the kids to the new time on the flight or as soon as we arrive or is it best to do it gradually over a couple of days. We're only going to be in Australia for 2 weeks so I'm wondering whether to not bother adjusting too much and have them awake in the afternoon and evenings and sleep all morning.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Regards

Gail

[calNgary]

Hiya when we came we arrived early morning and was advised not to sleep but plod along and just have an early night ,we did this both times and can honestly say i dont think jet lag affected us.Our two live wires suprprised me by sleeping on the plane but when its night they turned off all the lights and it was really dark,overall it wasnt half as bad as i thought it would be,if you use a special formula id put some in your case and have just enough on your person if anything at check points you may have to taste it !!yuk!!
good luck ,and when the kids are on your case just keep thinking this time tomorrow ill be there !!
Cal x

[samozsoon]

Hi Gail
Sorry cant help with the baby milk, you might be better checking with Emirates.
What time do you fly? i'm not sure if this makes any difference to the jet lag but we flew Emirates to Brisbane and left Bham at 8.30pm and arrived 7am after a 1hr stop in Dubai & refuel in Singapore.
What we found with jet lag was that when we arrived (7am) we were all wide awake, we went to my parents place then later went shopping and had lunch etc but by 4pm we werereally struggling to stay awake, my mom kept saying we couldnt go to bed til 7pm!
But couldnt stop kids falling asleep - and mine arent babies - I'm not sure you will be able to control when or where they nod off, as i've never fell asleep so quick in all my life, its a very strange feeling. Then we were all up by about 5am!! It got better slowly, bit later to bed each night but still we were never up later than 10pm and we were there 6 wks.

It might be different for your children especially if they sleep a lot on the plane

Have a good trip though, I'm sure you will,

Sam

[gary12]

Hi Gail

Just a bit of advice for the flight really. When we have taken long haul flights before with our son (age 3) we have taken with us a lap top with his favorite dvds/cartoons on them. You will need a spare battery for the laptop as they only last about 3 hrs. We also take a beach ball to play with in the airport, it doesn't hurt anyone if it lands on them. Take a stack of snacks, drinks etc with you we once took a 2 hour flight that ended up taking 24. Also we never board first, although you are given priority boarding it just means you have another 45 minutes of trying to keep a little one still. Don't bother getting a window seat, once you have taken off one cloud looks the same as any other so nothing to keep them busy there! Our son has his own suitcase which he loves to carry along. We filled it with all sorts of his favourite toys and a few new ones although nothing noisy! Thats the quickest way to wind up fellow passengers, 24 hrs of old mac donald.
We also take it in turns to walk up and down the airport/stairs infact anything that will wear out a 3 year old.

In our experience our little one took about a week to get used to the time difference and no amount of waking them early etc worked. I think you just have to go with it.

Our youngest is also lactose intolerant and on formula and I just plan to get a doctors letter stating I have to take the formula and give the airline a call for some advice.

Most of all, don't worry. They will get niggly, tired and fidgety there is nothing you can do about it. you just have to go with it.

Oh one last thing, when we have flown before (BA) put everyone with children together which helped.

Sorry for such a long reply. Have a wonderful time,
regards
Michelle

[steve110]

We took our 5 yr old,and out 9 yr old out to perth last yr.
they just watched the films played games and slept most of the way (all right for some,being 6ft 3in tall and around 20stone,i didn"t get comfy enough to sleep)
anyhows we never had any jet lag going out,coming back to UK was a different matter,we were completely wasted ........
we flew out from brum at 13;00 hrs,arrived dubai midnight local time,left dubai 02:00 hrs arrived Perth 19:00 hrs local time .......

Only side effect i had was waking up at 03:00 hrs absolutly starving .....took a couple of days to acclimatise to that,but that was all,kids seem to cope better than us oldies ....

[gail.crease]

Thanks everyone for the responses. I didn't think about getting a doctors note about the special formula. I'll get on the case with that one.

Regards

Gail