happy baby, happy flight.

Our flight to San Francisco was our third time flying with Tatum. The first two times, she was only 3 months old, so she basically just slept the entire flight. This time around she is 8 months old, so I was um, pretty much terrified about flying with her. I would love to be the person who just lets peoples' glares, stares, or snarky comments just roll off their back...but that's not me. I was so nervous that she would cry the entire time and everyone would be giving us those "If looks could kill" eyes.

So, I did everything I could think of to avoid this happening.

+ We thought it would be best to fly at a time when she would be most likely to sleep through the flight. Our first flight and layover, she was awake (fighting sleep towards the end), but really well-behaved (thankfully). Our second flight, she slept all but 45 minutes at the end, when she woke and decided it was time to entertain the plane. So thoughtful.

+ Fly Southwest Airlines. Seriously. Just do it! We almost didn't, but I happened to mention it to Josh right before we purchased tickets. He looked into it and they are so great, especially for families. You can check two bags (per person), a stroller, and a carseat...for free! Yay. Also, they don't have assigned seating, which we really loved. Families with kids under five get to board in the second group, so that makes getting to choose your seats pretty easy. We even had a free seat beside us on both flights. One guy almost sat by us, but when he saw we had a baby he bolted. Thanks, dude!

Most of these items probably seem pretty obvious, but I thought it would be nice to add anything and everything we packed. Sometimes even the best of us have that one little thing we can't seem to remember. 

Obviously if you're a breastfeeding mom, the bottles, brush, and formula won't apply to you. (Less packing, yay!) The first time we flew we just brought a regular container of formula. Boo to that. We never even use that in our day to day anymore. The to go packs are so much easier and way less messy, so they are the perfect choice for a flight.

We downloaded an episode of "Dora the Explorer" on Josh's phone before we left, just in case. Tatum doesn't really watch much tv. She just doesn't care. However, she does occasionally enjoy watching Dora for about two minutes. We figured it wouldn't hurt to download an episode to distract her if she got upset or bored.

We actually didn't bring T's birth certificate or immunization records either time, but when we were checking in we were told we might want to have her immunization records faxed to us. Obviously Tatum is a baby and doesn't look two years old, but she told us that if you get the wrong person you just might run into some trouble, so it's just best to have it on hand. 

You will probably need to tweak this list to suit your child, but I hope it can help even a little bit!