Out of all the exciting things to look forward to for our Hawaiian vacation, there was always that one lingering fear of how Evan would handle the long flights (recall my Tis the Season post). Happily, I can report that Evan did quite well both there and back. Here's how it all went down.
To Hawaii
We flew first class to Hawaii (thanks to frequent flier miles), with one connection in Los Angeles (LAX). Our flight left in the afternoon for LAX, so we hoped Evan might sleep part of the flight since it was over his normal afternoon nap time. We were not that lucky, but in our bulkhead seats he was able to play with the magazines in the pockets on the wall in front of us and he liked opening and closing the window shade (well, he had a hard time opening it, but he could close it on his own and then just demanded us to make it be 'up' again). He also liked playing with the headphones that came in our seat pocket. We read some of his books and he watched some song/videos on John's tablet, and even took a walk up and down the airplane once. I did introduce him to a few of the new toys: the Chicco twist and turn rattle and we looked through the photo brag book. We had planned to give him a bottle during take off, but the flight attendant who warmed it up for us brought it back to us while we were still at the gate and he saw it. Thus, he demanded it right then and so in order to avoid a tantrum we gave it to him early. We did save some of it for take off luckily though, as we didn't want him crying due to his ears hurting from the pressure change. We also fed him some snacks during the flight too, including some of our lunches that we had been served (we had them served one at a time though, so one of us could hold Evan while the other ate). Overall, it wasn't too bad.
When we reached LAX, we had over 2 hours for our connection, and it turned out the gate was right next to where we arrived. Thus, we were wishing he could have been on the earlier flight to Honolulu, yet it left from another concourse and so it figures if we had booked that one (with only 45 min connection time) we would have been too rushed. Rather, we found some seats and let Evan run around and play with toys and have snacks. I walked him in his stroller around and around one area of the terminal also, to burn some time and calories. Evan loves taking walks...it seems that as long as we're moving and there are things for him to look at he is pretty content.
As it came closer to boarding time he got more fussy, as it was approaching his bedtime at home. I carried him around a bit and we made sure we were first in line to board (thanks again for first class seating!). We were again in the bulk head seats, which gave Evan room to stand up and play with the pockets of reading material again without bothering anyone in a seat in front of us. I nursed him on take off and he fell asleep instantly. I held him while he slept, however there were two problems with this scenario: 1) my arms were falling asleep below our 22-lb kiddo, and 2) he likes to stretch out and roll around while sleeping. Thus, we finally decided to move him to the floor. First class bulk head had plenty of space, so we laid some blankets down and put him down there. He stretched out right away, but the flight attendant told us that if the seat belt sign came on we'd need to hold him.
The seat belt sign did come on toward the latter part of the six-hour flight, and so John picked him up to hold him. He was still sleeping, so all was well. At some point, however, toward the end of the flight Evan woke up in John's arms. John and I were both snoozing, so we didn't really notice, but the flight attendant did. After we were awake later, she told us how funny it was to see us both sound asleep and him laying peacefully in John's arms wide awake. I don't know what woke him and/or why he laid there so quietly and calm, but it worked out well. By staying awake for the rest of the flight he was awake for when we arrived, and he eagerly (and almost excitedly) walked alongside me holding my hand as we went to baggage claim. He stayed awake until we reached my sister's house, where we all went to sleep for the night. And most likely because he lost out on about 3 hours of sleep overnight, he slept until about 5am Hawaii time, which is a few hours later than normal in our home time zone. Thus, jet lag didn't screw him up as bad as I thought it would either!
From Hawaii
We flew a direct overnight flight from Honolulu to home, this time in economy with three seats. It was a six-hour flight (same as the LAX-Honolulu flight time!), so it was nice to have a shorter overall travel time. We also hoped that on an overnight flight he'd sleep the whole way and figured that would be easier with him in his car seat (especially on our arms!), so that's why we opted for economy and the extra seat. We got to the airport around his bedtime (in Hawaii time) and it was clear he was ready for bed, as he was really fussy. I kept walking him around to keep him happy, but when we had to go through security there was no where to go. And it was a long and slow security line, since we didn't have the priority first class boarding pass this time. He fussed pretty much the whole time we were in line, and I don't blame him. Once we got through security though, and were moving again, he was pretty good. While United doesn't do priority boarding for families with small children anymore (I could rant about that one in a post on its own!), we were in boarding group 4, which I guess is the first non-premier boarding group. Thus, we lined up first in the economy boarding lane and got on the plane as quickly as we could. John worked on getting Evan's car seat installed in the window seat, while I held onto Evan. It was not easy to fit our big Britax Roundabout car seat in that economy seat! And once we got it in, we realized that if the person in front of Evan reclined it would smash his feet in (unless we helped Evan bend his legs first), so we asked her to give us notice if she was going to recline. Amazingly she never reclined at all, but we sure did once we were able to do so in flight to give him some recline to sleep with (that car seat had to sit so upright to fit in the unreclined seat).
After getting that seat installed, we put Evan in it and figured we'd give him a bottle during take off. However, we didn't need to worry about that. Evan passed out while people were still boarding! We were relieved until the captain announced we had a mechanical problem and would be delayed in taking off. And then after that got fixed and we started to depart the gate, they announced a second mechanical problem! In total, we ended up being delayed about an hour or so, all the while John and I were thinking we were losing good sleeping time from Evan that could have been time spent in the air.
Evan slept until about 2 hours into the flight when he woke up squealing. He had woken up like this the past few nights in Hawaii as well, and I'm not sure if it was him being scared for where he was, or if he was in pain (gas?). Each time it happened he seemed nearly inconsolable, but we noticed he passed some gas and eventually calmed down. I also usually nursed him to comfort him, which I did on the flight and that got him back to sleep for the rest of the night and flight. He didn't wake up when they turned on the lights before landing, and slept right through landing and taxiing. He finally woke up (very dazed and confused, but quiet I must add), as we approached the gate. Ta da! We had made it and didn't have any seriously embarrassing outbursts. Nor had we needed to use half of the new toys we'd brought! In fact, on this flight home we didn't have to use a single toy or book!
Speaking of the new toys, Evan discovered the Lauri foam toys in our bag while we were in Hawaii, so he enjoyed playing with those new toys during the vacation. The Melissa and Doug hide and seek farm toy was actually vetoed once it arrived and we realized how big and heavy it was, as well as the swing open doors don't stay closed so it would have been a pain to travel with. It will now be an early Christmas present/new toy for our next road trip later this month. Instead I bought a small metal tin and some of the basic magnetic alphabet letters for him to play with, however I never brought that one out until the car ride home from the airport! I don't regret having more things than we needed though, as you can never know how a toddler will act!
No comments:
Post a Comment