Tips for Airplane Travel with Your Onya Carrier

A guest post by Marae of Brave Free Travel (Instagram)

"Summer is here, and many of us are eager to start our family travels..."

Some of us with more than one kid - and so it is for this reason I’d love to share some plane travel tips.

Plane travel can be very intimidating for new parents, especially for long flights. It’s no secret babies are unpredictable and toddlers…. Well… there needs to be a new word.

During the past 2 years of our daughter's life, we have traveled to over 10 countries, and taken well over 100 flights. Flights can be stressful for the regular traveler, let alone for a mom with a toddler! The one item that has simplified our travels has been our Onya Carrier.

Here are some practical tips to maximize the use of your Onya carrier during airplane travel:

• Have the carrier handy and ready to go: I usually keep mine in the basket of the stroller. We do the check in and go through security (if she’s awake) and right before we board, I remove the carrier from the bottom basket of the stroller and strap it on. It helps if the carrier is already set up for me (my husband wears her too, so it’s best if it’s adjusted to whichever parent will be carrying the baby).

• Wear your kid through TSA: If our toddler is asleep I keep her on me to go through security. This affords me free hands for taking computers and cameras out of the bags, and it saves me from having to run after a toddler barefoot after crossing through security. We have the Onya Baby Cruiser soft carrier and we have been allowed to keep the baby in the carrier as we go through security, which is very handy if you don’t want to wake the baby up.

• Sightseeing around the airport: I know airports are not the most exciting of places, but for a toddler or baby it can seem like disneyland. Sometimes my daughter gets really tired of sitting on the stroller, especially if the check in process takes a long time. After we cross the TSA, she often fights me to go back on the stroller, so what I do, instead, is strap her on my back and make it fun. We go through the airport pointing at every shiny, bright, and colorful thing that she could find interesting and this usually buys us some time before we need to start running after her again.

• Wear the baby for boarding: between carry-on luggage, storing your bags, finding the seats, and giving the stroller at the gate, boarding a plane is not a walk in the park. I wear our baby so I can have free hands but this also serves other purposes. Wearing her to board helps me go through the boarding process easier and it helps me calm her down. We usually have her run and walk about before the flight so she can release any extra energy, and so when I wear her for boarding she starts settling into a calmer mood which then translates into sleeping right after take off. For flights in the USA I can keep her on me for take off and this results in a sleepy baby within the first 30 minutes of every flight. For European flights the child must be out of the carrier and wearing a separate seatbelt, but it still helps me to be able to get her on the plane while keeping all my hands free.

Traveling with a child is not very different from caring for a child at home, except you have to carry a few more things. This is why I love our Cruiser Soft Carrier! It allows me to have free hands so I can get to my destination in as stress-free a manner as possible.