It seems a while ago now that I wrote about our first foreign holiday with Little Miss C. We learnt so much in those few days about travelling with a little one and I therefore want to share wih you the three things that we took with us that I would encourage anyone travelling with a toddler to take.
I'm afraid I don't have a photo of me using our carrier, but that's mainly because of the times it was useful. We flew with Easyjet from Stansted airport and I have to say that they were really good when it came to carrying baby equipment with us. We were able to take LMC"s pushchar right to the gate with us and then it was put in the hold for the flight itself. That did mean that we still had to climb down all the stairs at the gate to get to the plane with it before handing it over. But then we next saw it again in the baggage reclaim area when we arrived. It was the same on the return jorney. Left it at the aeroplane steps and then saw it in Stansted in beggage reclaim.
What you need to remember though is that from the gate there is still a walk to the plane – and in our case that involved walking up to the plane and climbing the steps up to it. In Madeira the walk thorugh immigration etc wasn't too bad, but when we returned to Stansted there was a long, long walk from our gate to immigration, a huge queue to wait in, and then another trek to baggage reclaim. At 15 months (as she was at the time) LMC is very good at walking for her age, but there is no way that she could have walked all that way without either getting trampled by other passengers, getting tired or going somewhere she shouldn't have done. The Ergo Baby Carrier was so useful at these stages. I could just pop her in it and still have my hands free to carry bags, show passports etc etc. It also packs really small and is lightweight so wasn't a problem to have with us in general.
2. Totseat
I should start by saying that even before we went on holiday I was completely in love with my Totseat. I use it frequently when out and about with LMC and it is so useful.
If you've not come across it before then it is a fabric portable highchair that folds down so small that it fits into my handbag (and comes in a lovely little puch so it can do just that!) It fits in pretty much any chair that you find and means that you no longer have to worry about whether the place you want to eat in has a free highchair or not. It's adjustable and once you've used it a couple of times very simple to put on to a chair and make your child secure in it. Best of all you can also just throw it all in the washing machine when it gets dirty!
When we were away it gave us a level of freedom about where to eat and meant that we always knew that LMC was securely fastened in when we had meals. Some of the restaurants we went to did have highchairs, but some of them were so broken that we chose not to use them. One was a beautiful wooden one (in a posh restaurant we should add) but seemed to have no straps or bars to actually keep the child in. Within second LMC was stood up in it and trying to stand on the tray part! We pulled out the Totseat and used that with the highchair and instantly had a contained child who could eat her dinner without trying to see if she could freefall or not.
Before buying the Totseat I researched it carefull online and whilst I found several similar products this was the only one that was consistently reviewed well. Other seemed to have failings either in how easy they were to use, or on how few chair types that worked with.
When at home I regularly take mine with me when going round friends' houses so that I can give LMC her tea when out.
3. Wax-crayons and colouring book
This is such a simpel one, but without it things could have got quite diffcult at times. Being able to pull out some crayons and a colouring book diffused many tricky situations where LMC was bored of waiting for something, whether it be during the flight or whilst waiting for food in a restaurant. It was only a last minute thing to throw these into my handbag but I am so glad I did.
However, I did discover that even baby wipes will not remove wax crayon from an aeroplane tray table…
All of these products were things that I bought and took with me on holiday. Both the Totseat and Ergo are available from Amazon by following the links above. This is not a sponsored post, but just simply sharing with you what I found useful. I hope it helps!
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