A babywearing holiday: travelling with the kids

This blog is a business blog but I hope you won't mind me sharing some personal stories...

Our little guy was born in August, it was time we went to France and visit our relatives. I booked our plane tickets and said to myself, I'll think about the practicalities of travelling with the two children on my own later! I have my wrap, I'll be fine!

Baby in the wrap, we're off. He fell asleep between the checkout and the boarding gate in a front wrap cross carry. My little girl is proudly dragging her little suitcase with her things.

I'm glad to go through security and the metal detectors without having to take the baby out of the wrap. Only once in 3 years of baby wearing through airports have I been asked to remove my daughter from her baby carrier. The regulations do specify the child should be removed from the baby carrier but with no buckle, no clip, no ring, it doesn't set off metal detectors.

I'm really annoyed when the stewardess makes me take the baby out of the wrap and hold him. She is worried that if I fell forward abruptly I could bend his spine. Of course he wakes up, which means I have to hold him. That leaves me only one hand to help my daughter with her colouring, help her change into clean clothes after a smoothie incident (I'm glad she packed an extra outfit in her little suitcase!).
On the flight back, I managed to wrap him in a cradle carry. That carry holds him just in the same position as if you were holding the baby without a sling. You can slide the extra seat belt around the child.

He happily breastfeeds through take off and falls asleep half way through the flight. Still asleep, I manage to put him back in the wrap, we get off the plane, down the outside stairs in freezing rain, in the bus and back into the freezing rain. At passport control, I hand out both our passports and the woman looks at me with a puzzled face, why do you have two passports, she says. Cos I have a baby! She hadn't seen him still tucked in the wrap. He only wakes up when I pop him into the car seat.

And off we drive to Paris, our first stop.