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Airplanes & White Noise

September 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Babies Aren’t that Bad on a Plane..

I ran across an excerpt on one of my friend’s blogs that captured so many airplane-related travel issues so well…one of which is the unfair shake babies usually get on a plane.

As I approached my seat, which incidentally was supposed to be the window seat, I was greeted by two wide-eyed and frantic-looking parents trying to console their fussing 7 month-old. The mother was attempting to breastfeed her overtired baby while the father looked on in ineffective desperation. With a deer-in-the-headlights expression he said, “Do you mind if we stay where we are?” I told him it was fine and a few minutes later leaned over to reassure him that I had three small children and the crying didn’t bother me. He relaxed slightly explaining that this was their daughter’s first flight (I tried to suppress the look of “no kidding?” that fought to flicker over my face) and tried to encourage him that his baby would fall asleep as soon as we got up into the air, lulled to sleep by the noise of the engine. After all, I’ve been through it a couple of times. He nodded eagerly and said that they were hoping that would happen as this was when their daughter was usually asleep.

Sure enough. As soon as we disembarked and were airborne, the baby fell peacefully asleep and stayed that way the entire flight to Atlanta.

Adults Can Be Much More Obnoxious than Babies

Her sad conclusion was that even though the baby conked out with the white noise provided by the engine, the should-be happy ending was not to be.  The parents began to bicker as their frustration with each other and travel began to have an outlet.  Man, I’ve been there.  There is so much planning and packing and preparing you have to do to get ready for a trip, which is only multiplied with each child, especially babies.  While you don’t have to carry many snacks or activity books or games with you, you do have to think about how much their schedules are being disrupted and how you’re going to restore order to their little lives.  Sleep, in the form of good naps and night time sleep, can be hard to come by.

How to Avoid Travel Stress

I will say that, like my friend, my husband and I have traveled a lot with little kids of varying ages, including 7 or 8 transatlantic flights, as well as that many British and European flights.  And we are just as susceptible to bickering as the couple on the plane.  However, we have found that by dividing the prep between us alleviates the tension of feeling like you’re the one doing everything (or to blame for everything that goes wrong!).  In a nut shell, he finds the best deal, books the tickets, plans the trip.  I prepare the children, pack, and bring everything I think we might need.  Our top pack is a portable travel sound machine.  I’m not kidding.  Losing sleep (the baby, the toddler, the preschooler, or us) is never ideal on a trip.

Lack of sleep and stress can trigger marital discord when traveling.  Do what you can to prevent it by being prepared and providing the best sleep environment you can with a travel sound machine.

 

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White Noise for Afternoons Out

September 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Out & About

We turned down too many invitations our of fear.

It took a while, but we finally got our son sleeping well through the night and during naps.  The problem was that he only slept well in his own bed.  That may not seem like much of an issue, and I’d certainly rather him sleep well in his bed since that’s where he sleeps the majority of the time.  However, we do have times we are traveling, or out, or at a friend’s house and our son still needs to take a nap or go down for the night.  Enter portable white noise.   Even though his bed and surroundings are different, he can still fall asleep peacefully with the relaxing and comforting sound of white noise.

Even though we’ve used white noise machines many times in many places, I still found myself nervous when we were invited over to a friend’s house for Sunday lunch.  There was no way around napping our son.  I knew he would sleep, but I was afraid that new people in a new place in a new bed would make him cry and, therefore, make our friends uneasy.  Fortunately, I packed the white noise machine, plugged it in, and put him down.  Our son was asleep in minutes, even though we were far from quiet!  Not only was he able to fall asleep quickly, he also slept for several hours.  I was so relieved that the afternoon went well- we have been turning down nap-time invitations for ages.  Now we can start socializing again without disrupting his daily routine.

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Traveling cheap (even with kids)

March 1, 2010 By 2 Comments

Spring is coming!

Daffodils almost make the winter worth it. Almost.

March 1st.  Hallelujah!- the worst 2 months of the year are over.  Seriously does anyone even like, much less love, January or February?  If you raised your cyberhand, I’d wager it’s because your birthday is in one of those awful months, and unless you are bringing world peace, then the event of your birth doesn’t count.  Anyway, back to March.   Even though the official advent of spring is not until the 22nd, the promise of hillside daffodils makes up for that 3-week wait.

For my family, it means we are T-2 weeks from our vacation to Paris!  We are trying to travel outside of the UK once a term while we are here.  Interestingly, a Brit recently told me how much cheaper it is to travel outside of the UK than within it.  So, we decided to take advantage of our location, which means toting along the kids.  Traveling with kids is a nightmare at worst and an experiment at best, but after 3 and a half years of doing it across the States and now across the pond, we feel like we have mastered it.    In fact, we know exactly how many bags to take, how many gifts to bring friends and family, how much space to leave for trinkets- and while we do have a scale, I can pick up the bag and tell you if it’s under 50 pounds.

Paris on Ryanair

We can afford these luxurious vacations because of Ryanair (think Southwest Airlines meets Greyhound).  Ryanair views itself as a bus in the sky, so they offer super-cheap tickets, knowing they’ll get you on all the extras (such as checking in on-sight, checking in baggage, infant seats, snacks, etc).  Thus, we have streamlined our packing strategy and, as a result, we (read that all 4 of us) are flying to Paris for under 20 pounds!  You see, my husband is amazing at jumping through the hoops and paying the bare minimum to get from point A (Scotland) to point B (Paris).  We flew to Germany for 20 pounds last fall and we wore a couple layers and purchased carry-ons from Flylite that are an exact fit for Ryanair requirements.  We figured that the minor expense of the bags is worth the number of trips we can not pay for checking in baggage (plus the bags are very lightweight and we got a free rucksack with our order that we were able to fold inside the bag and then use as a backpack for all our kids’ stuff once we were in Germany.).   We were also allowed one small, collapsible stroller/buggy, so we took a sturdy umbrella stroller that could recline a wee bit for our son to snooze. The trip was a huge success, so we booked Paris for March.

What we pack

Our trip is for 5 days.  We booked an apartment, so we will have a washer.  So, I figure a couple changes of clothes are fine.  These are carry-ons, so all toiletries must be small and under 4 ounces since they’ll got through security.  I pack a few snacks for the kids for the plane (both flights), as well as their sleepy things/lovies (pacis, blankies, etc.) .  Fortunately, we had the insight to not let them get attached to huge items, so their necessary items are quite compact.  Our little guy is still in a crib, but even a pack n play is not an option for the plane.  A friend recommended this Peapod for compact, lightweight traveling.  It is 3 pounds and fits in a carry-on with plenty of extra space for other essentials.  Finally, and I am totally serious, we pack portable white noise generators.  This is our vacation, so we are leaving our computers at home (yikes!!), so my usual free generator can’t come with us.  As it is, we invested in a few portable sound machines for our flat, so we’re taking 2 (one for our room and one for the kids’ room).  They’re small and they protect our sleep- I never leave home without them.  (After staying a night in Mexico City after a football victory and therefore not getting a single moment of quiet the entire night, I purposed to never be unprepared again.  I used to use ear plugs- however, my ears are pretty sensitive and I would wake up because they were sore.  So, while  very small, they still didn’t help that much.  Thus, I resorted to white noise generators and fell in love.)

We are thinking Spain (I studied there a bit in college) or Italy for the next trip.  Both paella and pasta sound marvelous to me.  As Michael Scott would say, it’s a win-win-win.

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