Stakes on a Plane

As a former frequent flyer and passionate lover of travel, let me say this clearly: I hated crying babies on the plane. I’ll go further and say I even hated the parents of those crying babies. Yes you, random stranger I’ve never met before carrying the adorable baby who’s likely to detonate at some point during my flight to Random Town and ruin my enjoyment of viewing this movie I wanted to see in theaters but never even considersed paying a ticket for. Screaming babies on a plane are the worst and so are their parents for bringing them on this mother f’n plane.

THAT WAS THEN. 

Now that our baby has just lost his flying virginity, I have nothing but the utmost sympathy for all those parents of crying babies!  Spoiler alert: my kid didn’t lose his shit and kept it together like a real champ, but I was worried the whole damn time! 

First, going through TSA, I had trouble collapsing our travel stroller (Babyzen- totally recommend) to fit onto the conveyor belt. The Babyzen normally collapses very easily but we have a Nuna car seat, so we need adapters. Well, you got to take off those adapters to fully collapse the stroller. In my haste, ya boy panicked and forgot to take those off and then a line started to build up behind me. This is TSA precheck so you know those cats have no patience. I know this because just a few months ago, that was me silently judging your slow ass in the TSA fast lane. Yes, I’m George Clooney in “Up in the Air,” analyzing lines and strategically choosing routes to save me seconds at the airport. Anyway, TSA guy saw me fumbling and was like I’ll just take it. Travel: 1. Chows: 0.

After gate checking our Nuna, which we put in a specialized bag cuz baggage handlers don’t give AF about your stuff, we put our stroller into the overhead compartment. Yes, it fits! Anyway, family and friends told us to breastfeed on takeoff to help the little ones adjust to the air pressure and ear popping. Hell yes! So clutch and couldn’t recommend more highly. Be sure to be patient though and don’t whip out them boobies too soon, you might get stuck taxiing or waiting on the runway and run out of milk come crunch time! Travel: 1. Chows: 1. 

Another tip we got was to use our breastfeeding pillow (my breast friend) on the flight to make. It’s feeding and sleeping a little easier. Our little guy passed out early and it was chill. When he woke up, it was all smiles and giggling with the over-accommodating parents.  Chows: 2. Travel: 1.

Unfortunately the family in front of us couldn’t say the same thing. Their infant, a little older, was crying, freaking TF out, and ultimately threw up or shit all over the place. Not sure which one but something foul was in the air. I felt so bad for them. I caught mom, who happened to be pregnant, with the dejected, head-tilted-down-both-hands-covering-face-please-God-get-me-out-of-here look. I’m very familiar with this look. We were worried their kid's screaming was gonna set off our dude but amazingly little man showed far more poise than his old man in the TSA line and kept his shit together. Chows: 3. Travel: 1. 

We only had a 2 hour and 45 minute flight and with less than an hour to go, little man started to kick a little more than we’d prefer. Oh shit. Hurt locker detonation about to go down. Mom and I looked at each other with the telepathic panic. We tried to rock him a little, but here came the slow motion, tape delay sad face of his (that’s when he slowly makes a crying face and then 3 seconds later he actually starts crying - hence, tape delay). Chows: 3. Travel: 2.

Somehow amidst all the rocking, there was only the muffled sound of annoyance versus a full blow out. I put him in the Baby Bjorn carrier and he was getting antsy. It’s kind of hard to put the kid in that shit when your sitting in a middle seat of a plane. Not a lot of room you’re working with. More fussy blurbs but again, no screaming. It was like: “ugh” versus “WHAT THE FORK IS GOING ON I WANT EVERYONE TO KNOW I’M UPSET.” We stayed consistent and stayed with the game plan- keep rocking and hope he calms down. Eventually, he fell back asleep. Chows: 4. Travel: 2.

As we were about to land, flight attendant told me I couldn’t have him in the carrier and we had to hold him. Wake our sleeping baby? GTFOH. They said in case of impact it’s more dangerous to have him attached to me. Ok great. So we wake up baby and give him back to mom for another breastfeeding session upon landing. It worked. We landed. Kid didn’t freak out. We win.

Final score: Chows: 5. Travel: 2.

Postscript: This was all on the outbound flight. There will be another entry if the inbound goes awry. Pray that you don’t hear from me.