We returned from our weeklong trip to Illinois for Thanksgiving and that means that Ben has taken his first plane ride!
Before our trip we put a lot of consideration into how to make the travel experience as easy as possible. I think our research paid off because everything that was within our control went very smoothly.
One of my favorite parts of flying with Ben is that he’s such an easy-going, happy kid and every time someone would look at him or smile at him he would get a gigantic toothless grin and flirt right back. It was absolutely adorable! He’s such a smiler 🙂
We checked our luggage, had TSA pre check, didn’t have to bring the “big extras” like a car seat or pack ‘n play, had a very well-stocked diaper bag and carried Ben through the airport in the baby carrier. We also optimized our schedule and chose the least popular travel days during the Thanksgiving holiday. Overall, our travels were uneventful. We had a couple minor delays both ways – we had to taxi forever and a day at O’hare and then we had a bit of a delay getting out of O’hare on the way home.
Ben slept almost the entire way to Illinois and hardly at all on the way home. On our return flight he was really calm and chatty, though. Sometimes when he’s chatty he’s really loud and it sounds like he’s screaming so we assume most people around us chalked that up to a screaming baby. I suppose they’re not wrong, but I’ll say he was screaming with joy.
We’re certainly not in any hurry to take another trip with an infant, but I’d say it went really well. And now we’ve got his first plane ride out of the way……
