I was all geared up to write about infant sleep, but I decided to save that for another day and just write about our experience traveling with our sweet girl this weekend. This wasn't the first time we have flown with her, since we had to fly all the way across the globe to get here, so I wasn't too worried about the trip. But I knew that there could be some issues with the return flight which didn't arrive in our home city until almost 9:30pm, and her bed time is 8:00.
The reason for the trip was her 4 month vaccinations. We had to travel to the former capital city and the easiest way to do it was to fly in the morning and fly back the same day in the evening, rather than packing for overnight and coming back the next day.
It all went incredibly smooth. She barely cried for her shots! I was so relieved. She was smiling about two minutes after they finished! She really is a happy and social baby. She loves to be out and was just looking around in wonder, taking in all the sights around her the entire day. The good news though is that she sleeps so good in her carseat and there were several times throughout the day when we had to take taxis. After the shots she fell asleep on the taxi ride to a mall that we went to in order to kill time before our next flight. We sat in the food court and just hung out while she slept for about two hours in her car seat.
She then slept again on our way to the airport, but once we got there, she woke up pretty quickly and we weren't able to get her to sleep again before the flight. There was too much excitement and we thought we would have a little bit more time to rock her to sleep. Mistake #1.
I'm not really sure if there was a mistake #2. I just know that we have a very social and excitable baby. She nursed for only 5 minute periods the whole day because we weren't at home and there were too many exciting things happening for her to focus on her eating. I have been finding that this is very usual for her when we are not at home.
But when 9:00 hit and she couldn't calm down to nurse to sleep she was very frustrated. She began to cry, and by cry I mean scream. Amidst her screaming I was trying to get her to nurse, trying the paci, trying to burp her. At the time I thought it could have been several things, but once it was finished, I realized that it was just pure exhaustion. At one point the Steward came over and offered advice that it could perhaps be gas and tried to show me how to rub her back to get the gas out. I was pretty sure that wasn't the case, but I just nodded and tried to calm my baby, who was actually calm for a moment when he came over because he was a new person and that was kind of exciting to her.
What happened next was only okay because I knew we would be home in about an hour. She got so choked up on her spit while she was crying that she began to projectile vomit. And there was A.L.O.T! I was SOAKED. I felt so sad for her, but somehow after that she calmed down enough to start nursing and with Curtis and I both shielding her eyes from distractions and shushing her, she was finally able to get to sleep. Huge sigh of relief from both of us.
After the flight we took our time because she was still sleeping on my nursing pillow and we didn't want to wake her prematurely and have her screaming as all the passengers were exiting. The stewardesses all fussed over her and helped us as we put our precious and calm baby in her winter clothes and into her carseat.
What we DIDN'T know... Everyone from the plane was waiting on a bus. FOR US! EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM! We walked on with our heads down onto the bus apologizing profusely. I'm not sure if they got over it. But to be honest it didn't really matter that much.
We did it. The trip was a pretty big success in my book. The fact that about 5 minutes of crying on an airplane, even if it did feel like an eternity, was the only thing that really went wrong is pretty amazing with a four month old. Yeah, I'd call it worthwhile. To get our precious girl vaccinated. I felt really thankful that we could even have that privilege. Especially since the day before we went, a friend of mine from high school wrote this: an open letter to mothers who don't vaccinate. It's a pretty important topic if you ask me.
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