Thursday 24 March 2011

A grand day out!


Before our first big trip London-Saigon I did lots of research on "flying with a young baby" but most of the time I ended up at some commercial website. People rather selling things than sharing an experience, which is fair enough, I suppose. But after doing that 24 hours long haul flight with just me and the baby I decided I should note something down to pin it as one of the "been there, done that" thing in my life.

On the whole, despite all the warning and worrying I find it such a nice experience. I enjoyed spending time with my 7 month old son and he was a good company.

We flew with Asiana Airline. I chose them because first of all they are cheap and second of all they are the cheapest. I flew with them before when I was 3 month pregnant (for the same reason) and they were OK but this time I have to admit they went to my top list and I am very happy with the service supplied. They have the "Happy Mom" (not "Happy Mum") scheme, which let mother and baby avoid the queue at check-in and boarding. They have quite specific rules about which buggies you could bring to the gate but in reality they are quite relax about that. I have the Bugaboo Bee and it works for me fine. The staff were very helpful. In fact they were too helpful that one of them "fancy" my baby too much and jumped to him anytime he moan in his sleep in order to calm him down while he didn't need it really. She actually kind of woke him up and I had to turn down her offer to take him and asked her nicely to leave the poor boy alone... They also offer breast feeding bib and other stuff that I don't really need. They gave me the bassinet and the seat at the front but I suppose it is the same as other airline so nothing to boast about. Last but not least, I love Incheon Seoul airport! Suppose it is just like another souless airport in the world but I adore all the mini kiddy play yards. They have many of them scattering along the gates. Almost each gate has one so if you are at gate 40 you don't have to walk miles to gate 1 to entertain your kid.

Food: I don't like airlines' food and AA give choices of badly cook Western food or Korean. I am not an expert in Korean food and remember after the first time I flew with them, I swore to myself never have Korean again. But obviously I was making a false judgment as after all you fly to get somewhere, not for a banquet. For little baby, they offered Heinz's jar which wasn't great for us. Jake is a fan of Hipp banana custard and I also had lots of Ella's kitchen pouches with me so we didn't touch their food in the end. As Jake was only around 8 months and he had a roll back - not eating savoury when we reached Saigon so I found the best way to feed him and made things easy for me was giving him bottles every 3-4 hours. No matter what time we got on the airplane in which time zone, just gave him a bottle every now and then so he will sleep well, wakes up, has a bottle, plays a bit and sleeps again. This pattern kept him happy and quiet during the flight and gave him enough energy to crawl around a bit to stretch his legs (but not too much). We had around 2 hours transit outbound so enough time to give him some solid. However there was a long 6 hours transit inbound so I gave him 2 meals. One just before getting on the airplane so he had a good long sleep, same as mummy! I love the Ella's kitchen pouch. They are very handy, light weight and warm up quickly in a bowl of hot water. Jake can't squeeze them out himself and he prefers hot food so I still had to carry a the Tommee Tippee hot water flask everywhere for him. My advice to mummies is to stick with Starbucks when needing hot water. I was surprised when I bought a few donuts + coffee and asked for some hot water from Dunkin Donuts and guess what? They said no, "I am not going to give you hot water". How mean! I am just a desperate mum with a hungry baby, not some terrorists! I asked the same thing at Starbucks and they were more than happy to do so. They even remembered me the second time I bought coffee (and asked for hot water, of course). Maybe I didn't need to drink 2 coffee in 4 hours though! I am sure this is not the airport policy not giving out hot water but the decision from the store. I am so disappointed about Dunkin Donuts with the way they treat customers like that. Never gonna buy donuts or coffee (or hot water) from them ever again!

Back to flying, people often worry about the take off and landing but actually I found that was the bit he was most well-behaved, meaning: he was deep as sleep. I was told to give him dummy or something to suck but as he loves the jiggling (any baby doesn't) he fell asleep straight away when the plane start moving / shaking.

In brief, we might worry about the long flight but babies don't. They just do it and they leave all the hard works to mummy! I actually love that 24 hours fly with my son as I felt attached to him like I never felt before. He was there with me all the time in such a small space in a big world. Only the 2 of us. We travelled thousands miles across the globe with each others. First time we went through the tube to get in the airplane, it was a strange metal tube to him so the sound of footsteps and engine scared him. He turned around and searched my face. We locked eyes, he turned quite and leaned on my shoulder. Then I know there is thing in this world that I could die for a thousands times! x.