how to travel overseas with an infant (part iii)

In case you didn't remember that I was writing this (since I wrote part 1 and part 2 last year), you might want to review. Just so it all makes sense, and not because you're actually trying to glean something from this :)

When we got back from Texas, Berlin's passport was in the mailbox, two weeks before takeoff. Which was nice, because then it was one less thing to stress over. And I had plenty to stress over.

I just wanted to make sure we had everything we could possibly think of needing. Extra clothes, extra diapers, extra wipes, extra formula, extra blankets, stain remover so I could get vomit and poop stains out when we got home...

Our bag was over the weight limit, don't worry.

Our first flight, to JFK, was about 4 hours. We woke Berlin up to go to the airport, and he fell asleep right as we were taking off in Salt Lake. This was great for Jeremy and I, since neither of us know how to pack until very late the night before flights that are very early the next morning. I would like to say Berlin, Jeremy, and I enjoyed sleeping the whole way to New York. Berlin did. Jeremy and I learned that trying to sleep while trying to hold an infant still enough to sleep is no easy feat. And for us proved mostly impossible. 

So, evidently, this is how I spent my time during our layover. I don't remember most of it.

We boarded our plane to Frankfurt around 5 or 6 in the evening, and Berlin, who'd been awake during most of the layover, was acting like he was ready to sleep. We hoped it would be as smooth and seamless for him to fall asleep and stay asleep all the way to Frankfurt as it was to New York. 

Everybody walking past us to board the plane was commenting on how cute he was, how smiley he was, etc. Jeremy took him to the restroom to change his diaper so that he was clean and could fall asleep during nursing/takeoff without us needing to worry about his diaper. He did nurse during takeoff.  But then he didn't fall asleep. And instead, started to scream. 

We had no idea what to do. He wouldn't continue to nurse, he wouldn't take a bottle, even being held (while standing) didn't have the calming effect that it usually had. After a few cycles of picking him up, trying a bottle again, patting his back to see if he would burp, laying him on our laps, panicking, and wondering how much our neighbors hated us (all of this lasted about an hour and a half), Jeremy took Berlin back into the bathroom. At this point Berlin was alternating between crying and screaming, and fortunately, it was more crying than screaming, but it the bathroom, it was so incredibly muffled. I'm the baby's mom, I know what his cry sounds like and I know how to hear it, but I had to listen hard for it while they were in the bathroom. As it turns out, you just can't hear a lot of noise from inside the bathroom if you are outside the bathroom. Who knew? Jeremy gently bounced Berlin in his arms until he'd completely stopped crying, which took another half an hour. While the boys were in the bathroom, I was panicking in my seat, wondering how we were going to get Berlin to sleep, how we were going to sleep and not be exhausted when we landed in the morning the following day in Germany, and how we're going to avoid scowls and glares from our fellow passengers, when I realized that the faint crying had stopped. I looked over to the restrooms and saw Jeremy coming out with a very quiet baby. He was still awake, but not making any noise. Jeremy handed me Berlin, he snuggled up against me, started to nurse, and was asleep within 10 minutes of the boys coming out of the bathroom. 

He proceeded to sleep for the rest of the 8-hour flight (6 hours), then through customs, and all the way to our host's house, for a total of 8 hours of sleep.

I don't get it. I don't even pretend to know what was wrong and what calmed him down. But I'm keeping the airplane bathroom idea in my back pocket.

We had a fabulous time in Germany. Berlin adjusted to the time difference beautifully because he slept so long on the airplane. He started sleeping through the night while we were there, which was wonderful; he had just barely turned 3 months old and I expected that sleeping through the night would take much longer. And it made for a pleasant trip all the way around.

Visiting a castle. And loving being toted around. About an hour later, he pooped through his clothes and all over the carrier, but whatever.

Berlin with our host's mom, Ruthilde. 

She and her husband adored having Berlin to play with and dote on. 

We loved it too.

Uncle Lee got to make this trip with us too. 

I think he had just landed in this pic, but he was a good enough sport to hold Berlin in his groggy state.

Who wouldn't have a great trip being pushed around in a miniature sleeping bag?!

(Okay, so maybe it drowned him a little bit, but this is borrowed. Now we want one.)

how to travel overseas with an infant (part ii)

In the three weeks between submitting a passport application and waiting for it to arrive, we had an airplane test-run with Berlin and we flew to Lubbock to stay with my siblings for a week.

Test-run is the wrong word. If it went poorly, we were still going to Germany, so... preview. We had an airplane preview with Berlin. 

Overall, it went pretty well. Jeremy gave Berlin a grade on each flight, based on a scale of 0-100 and assigning the appropriate letter, and Berlin got As on both flights on the way down to Texas. Granted, they were short, but we were still grateful that they were smooth. That was certainly promising.

 

We used the advice we'd been given to feed him during takeoff and landing (the sucking and swallowing helps with babies' ears and the pressure changes), and he didn't ever cry about his ears, so it's something we'll continue. I guess we couldn't really say if it helped or not, but I'm not really willing to have him scream because I skipped that step. We fed him when he got the least bit fussy (because thus far in his life, the only reason he ever cries is because he's hungry), took turns taking him to the bathroom to change his diaper, and held him carefully for the 20 minutes he fell asleep. He was a pretty happy camper. 

Until we got to my mom's. And it was bedtime.

There's no way to know for sure if it's related, but Berlin was really constipated that first night. He's never had this happen before, and we've been on several flights since this one and it's never happened again, but he had a really rough night because we had no idea what was going on. After about an hour of just screaming, he finally fell asleep. He woke up in the middle of the night screaming, ate and fell back asleep, and then in the morning he woke up and was just unhappy. My mom remembered, randomly, that some of her kids had that problem after flying, and so she and my step-dad grabbed some generic suppositories from Walgreens. 10 minutes later he had a gross diaper and the tears were over for good. Like I said, Berlin's never had this problem before flying, and even flying several times after the problem has never repeated itself, but I always travel with suppositories now. Just in case.

We had a fun week, and at the end of it, we flew home. The flights home were mostly uneventful, though I think Jeremy did give Berlin an 85 on the very last leg. Probably because he cried once or twice because he was exhausted but tries to keep himself awake always. He's so afraid of missing something.

 Oh. Looking at the pictures and realizing there's an outfit change, I remembered. We did have one event. Why would you need to change an outfit for a kid who doesn't vomit or spit up? Considering the first flight, was a good sign because, hey, he's not constipated!

But Jeremy was the one who took him to the bathroom. That's why he got an 85. 

Still not too bad. And even though he was smiling and good-natured for the drive from the airport, the poor kid was so worn out, he fell asleep almost as soon as we got home. Even before we got home. We stopped by my cousins' house to see my aunt, and he fell asleep during the introductions.

So after a mostly uneventful trip, we felt like we had some really good experience. We can handle flying to Germany, right?

...right?

how to travel overseas with an infant (part i)

Spoiler Alert: I still don't feel like either of us would say we actually know what we're doing, so the title is a lie. But here's what worked and didn't work, so maybe this would be better titled, "Some things we learned when we attempted traveling overseas with our infant, some things that worked, and some things we might do differently next time," but that's really long and I don't really want to change it.

For almost every year for the last seven years, Jeremy has spent the week or so surrounding Easter in Russelsheim, Germany, teaching at or, more recently, running a jump rope camp. In Germany, and a lot of places in Europe, they take their Easter holiday a little more seriously than we do in America, so students, and many adults, have the two weeks surrounding Easter off. This also means that the schools are not being used, so this camp is held the week after Easter at a school, camp runs all day in the gyms with short breaks in the cafeteria, everybody showers in the gym showers and then sleeps in the classrooms, etc. It really is so much fun, and I wish I'd had more camps like that growing up. I also always loved any reason to use school things, property or otherwise, for non-academic things, so really, this was a little kid dream come true for me.

Last year, I went with Jeremy and helped teach a tiny little bit (insert link for future post on how little I actually know about jump rope), and I absolutely loved it. We both had a great time and Jeremy was excited for me to be able to come again, but this year with a young baby, we only considered going for a minute. For a month or two, the plan was that Jeremy would go by himself and Berlin and I would kick it at home for the week. And then, about a month before Easter, Jeremy said, "Why not? We don't have any idea how long we're going to have this opportunity. And Berlin is only going to fly for free for so long."

So the next day I took Berlin to get his passport pictures taken.

Lesson number one: Babies need passports. Who knew?
Number 2: It is possible to take your own pictures at home, size them right, cut them out, etc. I've done it before. But, especially with an infant, I would not recommend it. Lots of places will take them for you for $7 or so, and then your work is done. To me, it is $7 well spent.
Number 3: When you call whichever place you've decided to get aforementioned pictures, make sure they know the passport pictures are for an infant. So they can prep.

I went to Maceys' photo center and told the guy at the counter I needed passport pictures. He had me walk back to the area with the white backdrop and asked me to stand facing him, when I said, "Oh, these pictures aren't for me. They're for him," and held up Berlin. The guy and his friend working with him both looked completely confused. "Babies need passports?" "Do you know the specifications for those?" "Do you need a picture of the whole baby?" "Maybe just his head and shoulders?" One of the guys hopped on the computer and started to google baby passport pics. I'd done my research and told them what I knew, the pages they'd found confirmed it, so then started the circus of trying to hold Berlin and his head up in front of the white background, trying to keep my hands out of the picture, trying to get Berlin to look at the camera, and trying with everything to get Berlin to squeak out one of his giant smiles.

In case you haven't seen it on Facebook already, here is the result:

Baby mug shot. I don't even think this looks like him. But all things considered, the guys did a really good job. And the U.S. Department of State accepted it, so we went with it. He'll get a new one in five years and still won't be old enough to know that he should never forgive us.

So passport application, check. We had just over three weeks before we were leaving, so with the door-to-door promise of three weeks, we hoped their wouldn't be any issues.