Anyway, I've been putting the Zoe travel checklist I made last year to good use. It really helps to make sure we don't forget anything. I know it is just so totally dorky but it really works :-)
Our first flight left Sydney for Singapore at 3.15pm so Zoe was ready for a sleep by the time we took off, since she'd missed her post-lunch sleep. In fact she actually fell asleep in my arms before we took off. The ear equalising doesn't seem to be a problem for her, because she kept sleeping and seemed totally unconcerned about it.
The bassinets they have on Singapore airlines are quite good and she did fit into it - just! But she just wasn't really interested in sleeping in it for the first flight. Every time we tried to put her in, she just cried and squirmed around. All was going well until about 6 hours in when, as she was sleeping in my arms, she suddenly woke up and projectile vomited everywhere! Luckily I had a blanket over me so not much of it ended up on me.
It wasn't just her old regurgitation trick - this was a real vomit. She chucked up a few more times, which was just bile. She didn't seem remotely concerned about it though but we were still a bit worried.
When we got to Singapore, she excelled herself by managing to stay asleep in my arms as I got off the plane and walked around the terminal. We decided to take her to the doctor in the airport because we were worried about dehydration. He said it looked like she had travel sickness and so he gave her a suppository to stop the vomiting. It was Motilium - my old friend from the early days of breastfeeding. I'd forgotten it was an anti-nausea agent.
He told us to give her fruit juice, not milk, to help with hydration. She was still completely fine - having a grand old time crawling around the terminal. On the next flight, she wasn't sick again and seemed pretty keen on the apple juice we were giving her in the bottle.
I kept thinking everyone was looking at me and thinking 'BAD MOTHER' for giving her juice but it was the right thing to do. We got to England with no further mishaps and she slept quite a bit but was very tired when we got there. She even managed to fall asleep in the Baby Bjorn while we were getting the hire car organised. She hasn't done that since she was a wee girl.
We had a really wonderful time with the family. Zoe's great grandmother, who is 92, was absolutely besotted with her, as were her cousins (aged 10, 8, 6 and 4). She even had an audience when we changed her pants. They all seemed fascinated with her poo!
We managed to navigate our way around the countryside and London with no problems at all. Zoe took all the new venues in her stride and got over the jetlag pretty quickly. She woke a few times in the night for the first couple of nights, and it took about 5 days before she stopped waking at 5am instead of 7am but then she was back onto normal routine.
Coming home, the only bad incident we had was waiting to get on the plane at Heathrow at 10pm at night. She was really tired and ready to sleep but we just had to wait. She was crying and wouldn't stop until I put her in the Baby Bjorn and went for a walk around the terminal, when she calmed down until we got on the plane. Then she slept for 8 hours on the way to Singapore - what a legend!
Once again, she wouldn't sleep in the bassinet on the second leg, I think because she wasn't as tired and her body clock wasn't telling her it was night time. But she did sleep quite a bit in my arms, which was fine except that it meant I couldn't get any sleep myself.
Zoe's jetlag has been much worse coming back this way. For the first three nights, she woke up at 9, 10 and 11pm and cried quite a lot. We gave her a bottle a couple of times, which did settle her down but I was a bit wary of starting that as a new habit.
On night 4, she sleep right through from 7-8am but then again last night she woke twice at 10pm and again at 12am. She settled down again though, and then slept through to 8.30am when I woke her!
It was tempting to let her sleep but I fear if we don't get her back onto her normal routine, life will be difficult. I think she's almost back on track and certainly she is eating really well again too. Her eating was pretty random while we were away, I think because of the gastro bug she caught and then a minor cold.
So my advice for travelling is to time the flights if possible. I think she slept best when we got on a night flight but not so well during the day. Having all the lights on during the flight didn't help at all either. But the downside of that strategy is that if its past bedtime there will be tears while waiting to get on the plane, so every tactic has a downside I guess.
Now its time to get ready for my return to work on September 15, so we are getting her used to childcare (will update in next post).
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