Tag: train

How to do airport transfers with a baby or toddler

On By jocairdwp
A man with a baby in a sling eats a salad on a train.
On the train on our way home from the baby girl’s first trip abroad, to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, when she was six-weeks-old.

Public transport used to be my go-to method for getting to and from the airport but that’s all changed since the arrival of the baby girl. Unless our trip is a super short one, these days we travel with too much stuff to mess around with trains and buses for airport transfers.

On the couple of occasions that we used public transport for transfers when the baby girl was still very little, we carried her in her sling, having packed the pushchair away before leaving the house, ready to be checked in with the rest of the luggage. Doing so meant there was one fewer thing to manoeuvre on and off trains and up and down escalators.

Now that she’s too big for the sling but not big enough to go without a pushchair, we make sure that we’ve packed in such a way that we’re able to manage both suitcases and pushchair. (When it comes to the practicalities of these journeys with pushchairs, my posts on train travel and navigating public transport might come in handy.)

Taxis are the easiest option, but can be very expensive once you’ve factored in a car big enough for all your luggage and your baby’s car seat. More often than not, therefore, we drive our van and leave it in a car park near the airport, then take a shuttle bus to the terminal. If you’re willing to pay a little more, but still less than forking out for cabs, there’s always onsite parking, or valet services where your car is parked for you – usually available for car parks both on and off site.

When it comes to getting to your final destination from the airport, I highly recommend booking a transfer in advance, particularly if you’re arriving late at night, don’t speak the language or are visiting for the first time. You can request a car seat when you book your transfer, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll get one, so it’s usually safer to bring your own. (Most airlines won’t charge you for checking in a child car seat, but do check before you book.) It’s worth checking the laws around child car seats in your destination before you travel though, to ensure that your car seat meets the requirements. Here’s a very helpful list of the rules in different popular holiday destinations from the consumer group Which?

If you can’t bring your own car seat and end up having to take your baby in a taxi or private car without one, make sure you have a sling with you. The adult who will be carrying the baby sits in the back seat, straps himself in and then puts on the sling so the baby is held by the sling and not the seat belt. To be clear, I’m not advocating that you do this: it’s a safer option than having your baby loose on your lap or strapping her in with your seat belt, but it’s not a safe way to travel.

Hiring a car can be a very convenient way of doing things, if it suits the rest of your holiday plans. Car seats can be an issue here too, with some parents reporting having booked a car seat but finding none available on arrival. This doesn’t happen very often, but again, you can avoid worrying about it by bringing your own.

Essential kit: baby sleeping bag

On By jocairdwp

When the baby girl was born my mum gave me the beautiful blanket that my aunt knitted for me when I was a baby. After just a few months, alas, we had to stop using it – the baby girl is such an active sleeper that she always ends up at the other end of the cot from where you put her, kicking off blankets and wriggling out of pyjamas in the process. Fortunately we had a hand-me-down baby sleeping bag given to us by a friend, and have since amassed quite the collection of different sizes, styles and tog values.

The benefits of a baby sleeping bag

The primary benefit of the baby sleeping bag is that it keeps your little one warm (the Gro Company has a helpful guide to tog ratings and what your baby should be wearing underneath her sleeping bag), but it’s handy in other respects too. Zipping her into her sleeping bag is an important part of the bedtime and nap routine, working as an effective sleep cue whether she’s at home in her own bed or out adventuring with us. The baby girl is a pretty good sleeper when we’re travelling, which is probably as much to do with luck as anything else, but the presence of familiar objects like her sleeping bag surely can’t hurt.

Baby sleeping bags for travel

The most practical baby sleeping bags are those designed with travel in mind – they have a two-way zip and slot at the back so you can use them with a car seat or five-point harness. This means you can dress your baby in her pyjamas and sleeping bag when travelling at night, put her to bed in her car seat or pushchair, then transfer her to her cot when you reach your destination, all without messing around with blankets or coats. We do this on journeys, but also on holiday, doing the standard bedtime routine, then heading out to a restaurant with the baby girl all wrapped up in her pushchair. I prefer this style for use at home in fact too – it’s easier to get the baby girl in and out with a zip down the front than it is with the standard ones that do up at the side.

A sleeping bag is better than blankets on planes and trains too, or indeed in any potentially chilly environment where you might have your baby napping in your arms or on your lap. You can even put it on over a sling, though you probably won’t be able to zip it up.

A baby wearing a sleeping bag sleeps curled up in a ball at one end of a cot.
A baby sleeping bag is the perfect solution for active sleepers

Train journeys with babies and toddlers

On By jocairdwp

It pays to be very organised when it comes to taking a baby or toddler on a train, particularly if it’s going to be a long journey. Not all train companies will let you reserve a seat, and even the train companies that do don’t necessarily offer reservations on all their routes, but if you can book a seat, you should.
And the seat you should book, if it’s possible to specify (you can when booking direct through the Virgin trains website, for example, right at the very end of the booking process, or in person or on the phone with Great Western Railway), is one of ones closest to the wheelchair accessible seats. That way, if there’s no wheelchair user on your train, you can park the pushchair – unfolded – in the wheelchair space (it goes without saying that if a wheelchair user gets on, you have to give up the area for them). This avoids the faff of folding and stowing the pushchair in the luggage rack, but it also means you’ve got a place to put your baby down for a nap during the journey if need be. The wheelchair seats are also the closest to the disabled toilet, which is where you’ll usually find the baby change.

A pushchair with a cloth draped over it in the wheelchair area of a long-distance train, with the countryside rushing past outside.
Snoozing in the wheelchair area on a long-distance train.

If you can’t choose your actual seats when making a reservation (the case with the majority of operators), the next best thing is to select the ‘near the toilet’ option, as this will at least mean that you’ll be as close to the end of the carriage as possible. You might then have the option of leaving the pushchair unfolded, and standing with it while your baby sleeps, while at the same time keeping an eye on your stuff (less of an issue if you’re travelling with someone else of course).
This plan won’t work if the space between the carriages is small or if the train is busy, so be prepared to fold your pushchair. The underneath of the baby girl’s pushchair is perpetually in chaos, making it difficult to fold in a hurry, so before I set out on a train journey I try to remember to do an audit, taking out the non-essentials and making sure all the bits and bobs I might need are in one bag that I can quickly grab out of the pushchair and take with me to my seat. Travelling off-peak is always going to be preferable, but if that’s not an option consider leaving the pushchair at home. If you can get away with a sling instead you’ll have a much less stressful experience on a busy train.
A pram with a sleeping baby in the vestibule of a train.
The baby girl in her buggy in the area at the end of a train carriage.

In situations where you haven’t been able to reserve the seat you want, get to the platform as early as possible and ask a member of staff where the carriage with the wheelchair seats will be stopping, so you can be first to those seats. There’s a website and app called Realtime Trains that train staff use to get advance information on which platform trains are coming into – it’s a useful way to get ahead of the crowd on busy routes.
Once you’re seated, other things to consider are food and activities. I learnt the hard way that the staff in the café carriage can’t heat up baby food for you in the microwave – the ones on trains are too powerful apparently. They’ll give you hot water though, so heating up milk isn’t a problem. If you want to give your child hot solid food, pouches are a good idea.
A quick note about milk while I’m on the topic – while I’ve found breastfeeding to be far and away the most convenient option when it comes to travelling with a baby, the one situation in which I was glad to have a bottle with me was on an extremely busy train on the way to Hull when the baby girl was seven-weeks-old. It’s not impossible to breastfeed standing up on a tightly packed train, but it’s not ideal, especially if you’ve also got a couple of bags with you.
As far as activities are concerned, bring as many books and toys as you can bear to carry – it’s stating the obvious, but long train journeys are boring for small children. If you’ve nabbed those coveted wheelchair seats, put a picnic blanket on the floor to make a play area. The baby girl is only happy sitting on my lap for so long, and when she wants to be on the move, it’s easier to let that happen than to fight it.
Once you’ve reached your destination you may need to take a bus or, if you’re in London, the Underground. Check out my post on navigating public transport with a pushchair for tips on how to do that.
 
 

Essential kit: bone-conducting headphones

On By jocairdwp

Trying to get a baby to sleep can be tedious at the best of times. Throw in an unfamiliar location, early starts, late nights, missed naps, hot weather and jet lag and it’s probable that you’ll be spending more hours than you’d like at the start of your holiday pacing around a dark hotel room with a baby in your arms, or sitting next to a cot soothing a grumpy toddler. Which is where bone-conducting headphones come in.

Your child will settle into their new surroundings at their own pace, depending on various factors (stay tuned for posts on how to deal with jet lag and hot weather), but in the meantime, a pair of bone-conducting headphones can provide some relief.

How bone-conducting headphones work

IMG_8014Bone-conducting headphones allow you to listen to music or podcasts while still being able to hear your baby
Bone-conducting headphones allow you to listen to music or podcasts while still being able to hear your baby

Initially developed for military operations, and now used by some cyclists and runners, these headphones sit just below your temples (see picture) and send the sound through your cheekbones to the inner ear, bypassing the ear drum altogether. With nothing in your ears, you can hear the world around you – including the baby being rocked to sleep in your arms – while keeping your brain occupied listening to podcasts, music or audio books. The fact that they’re wireless means no cord to get tangled up in.

My partner bought me a pair of these headphones when I was pregnant and I’ve used them practically every day since the baby girl was born. They came in particularly handy those first few months when I was still feeding her frequently at night and needed something to keep me awake (I recommend getting an Audible account too), but these days it’s when we’re travelling that they’re really useful, whether we’re heading off long distance or just around the local area.

It’s possible to push a buggy one-handed while having a conversation on a mobile, but it’s safer and easier to use wireless headphones instead, and bone-conducting ones mean you’re still aware of traffic noise. I don’t generally listen to podcasts when I’m with the baby girl unless she’s sleeping, but there have been a couple of occasions when I’ve broken that rule, like on the four and half hour train journey back to London after a month at the Edinburgh festival, when I hit a wall of tiredness and had to keep my mind occupied so as not to nod off. It was only by listening to BBC World Service documentaries that I was able to stay awake for yet another round of take-things-out-of-all-the-bags-and-hit-them-against-the-table. I stand by my choice.

At around £100 a pop, these headphones aren’t cheap, but they’re definitely worth it.

Public transport with a pushchair

On By jocairdwp

Even an activity as mundane as taking a bus or local train (you can find my post on longer train journeys, including which seats to reserve, here) can be a scary experience the first time you attempt it with a pushchair. It doesn’t take long for this new way of getting around to become second nature, however, once you get the hang of a few key manoeuvres.

Buses

A baby's feet by a sign on the bus about giving up space for wheelchair users
Another day, another opportunity to take off your shoes and socks on the bus

There’s space on most buses to park a couple of buggies, though if someone in a wheelchair wants to get on, they take priority and you’ll either have to fold your pushchair or get off and wait for the next bus. If it’s just you on the bus, try and position your buggy so another one could fit in without you having to get up and faff around with it mid-journey. I usually end up taking the baby girl out of her buggy on the bus, as she’s easily bored, but if that’s not possible, it pays to have a couple of toys or snacks with you to serve as distraction. When it comes to getting off, wait until the bus has stopped before taking off the pushchair brake, then exit backwards.

Trains

A loaded up pushchair on a train
Trains are a slightly trickier prospect, but are worth the additional hassle in terms of increasing your range of options of places to visit. When dealing with stairs, you’ll find yourself relying on the kindness of strangers…a lot. A reassuring number of people offer to help when they spot you at the top of a flight of stairs with a buggy, but it doesn’t always happen. Sometimes you have to pluck up the courage to ask, and sometimes you have to be quite vocal about it. On several occasions I’ve been known to call out, ‘excuse me, man carrying the duffle bag/woman in the trench coat…’  Once you’ve done a particular journey a few times, you get to know which carriage to travel in so that you can get to the stairs before all the other passengers have already rushed away – getting stuck on an empty platform waiting for a potential helper to get off the next train is no fun at all.

Escalators

 
It’s nerve-wracking taking a pushchair on escalators, but actually very doable. As you board a down escalator, keep your focus on the back wheels, positioning them against the upright of the step; the front wheels will be hanging in mid-air. To board an up escalator, position your front wheels against the upright of the step, holding the buggy handle up high so the wheels are level (this time the back wheels will be in mid-air).
Some stations have lifts, which are obviously the safest and easiest option when travelling with a pushchair. The only downside is that beeping doors risk waking a sleeping baby, so I’ll sometimes take the escalator even if there’s a lift.
Finally, and this might be stating the obvious, but try and avoid rush hour. Some of the most stressful times in those first few months after the baby girl was born were on super busy buses and trains, having mistimed my journey home. Not recommended.