We all had fun. Learned a few lessons... but over all it went well. There's so much I learned in this trip that I might have to break it down a bit more.
Of course I was terrified about flying with Sunshine so we did a few things to help with that. Yes it cost us some extra money, but the peace of mind was totally worth it in my book.
We knew we were flying through Ryanair. They are notorious for charging for every.little.thing. They are also super sticky on carry on luggage sizing. (I saw it happen on my previous trip to Ireland. It cost the poor guy 150€. And he didn't understand English well. I felt bad.)
They also assign seats randomly. Normally thing wouldn't bother me, but I was hoping to score a row with an empty middle seat so we could spread out a bit.
So this is what we did to make it work for us:
- Paid for a checked bag. We had 20kg and we REALLY made it work.
- We were allowed one bag per person (INCLUDING the baby)... so we stuffed those suckers right up with everything we might need/want.
- Paid to choose our seats. The added bonus with this was that we were near the front of the plane. (This made husband very happy!)
- We also got the middle seat free while the rest of the flight was packed in like sardines.
Spreading out like a champ in the middle
- Apparently you're also allowed a carrier which doesn't count towards your final carry on count. Huh. This was awesome since Sunshine traveled in the Ergo.
They let me carry her to the plane and hang out for a bit while keeping her in the carrier. This was great since we had to go outside to board the plane AND she was sound asleep. She got to catch a few extra snoozes while the crew did their thing and people got settled.
Then I had to take her out. I almost cried, but rules are rules. Ryanair gives you an infant seat belt which attaches to your seat belt. Thankfully Husband was able to help me finagle this while she was sleeping on the way out. On the way back, she was wide awake.
Taking it all in - notice her red infant belt
When the seat belt sign goes off, so did hers. And she spread back out nice and comfy like.
The trip back was much worse than the trip out. Hearing her cry is like electricity straight to my brain, so I can't imagine what it's like to others. Luckily we were able to contain her crying spells to no more than 3-4 minutes and they only happened about 3 times. Thankfully they were quick fixes; she was hungry, wanted mom or just needed a diaper change. She settled pretty well after that.
When it came to her ears popping, I couldn't really get a good sense of if it bothered her or not. On the flight out, she slept almost the entire time. I kept tapping her paci to make sure she would suck. Thinking back, I'm pretty sure I irritated the daylights out of her. I fed her immediately when she woke up and she fell back asleep for landing. There was no crying at all for this leg of the trip.
On the way back, she cried a lot more but my gut feeling is that it was due to having a nap interrupted, wet diaper and being hungry. Once these needs were met, there was no crying. Maybe I can get a better sense in a week.
All in all, I'd say it went well. We just needed to be prepared to essentially entertain her the entire time. It was the Sunshine show during the entire flight. More than normal. Plenty of toys, singing (oh my gosh... lots of singing) and just generally being goofy.
We even made friends!
Now I get to do an international flight solo in a week. Ugh....
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