Flying With Babies
First off, the flight. When we booked the holiday, I rang Virgin (who we're flying with), to reserve 2 skycots. The lady I spoke to was super helpful and advised the plane had the capacity of 3 on the way there and 3 on the way back. She said only 1 had been taken on the way there so the other 2 were ours and that on our return flight, none had been reserved so we could have 2 no problem at all.
We called again the evening before to check that we could still have the 2 skycots. This guy wasn't so helpful. He was very rude and basically said they're not able to reserve them
Our flight wasn't until 1pm but I wanted to get there super easily just to make sure that the sky cots were ours.
To my horror, they advised you're only allowed 1 skycot per family. I mean, I do understand that there's a limited amount but in all fairness, this doesn't help me when I have 2 babies. I didn't choose to have 2 babies at the same time, it just happens. So if anyone working at Virgin is reading this, could you please pass that on? Twin parents struggle enough on a daily basis, it's not fair to penalise is for having 2 babies. Luckily though, they upgraded us free of charge to extra leg room which was super kind.
We were lucky that it wasn't a full flight and the people we were sat next to had twin grandchildren and understood the struggle we were facing of holding a baby for a 9 hour flight. They kindly moved to empty seats which meant we could have the extra sky cot.
The boys were amazing. Although they only slept for about 2 hours in total, they played quite happily with their toys in the cots and entertained all the other passengers.
On the way home it was an overnight flight so Louie actually slept from before take off to landing. Ollie fell asleep about 30 minutes into the flight and stayed asleep until we put him in his pram getting off the plane.
So, my top tips for flying with babies:
1) Order food and milk to the boots at the airport. This saves you packing it and taking it in your luggage and also means they can't throw it away as its over the 100ml allowance.
2) For a long haul flight especially, I strongly advise you call the airline you're flying with a few months in advance to request a sky cot. They will just allocate your seats at the bulkhead of the plane. You also don't have people reclyining their seats onto your lap and you have tons of room for long legs and toys etc.
3) Get to the airport a little bit earlier. We got there about 2 hours before we needed to but it meant we could relax when we were checked in. We flew from Gatwick and they had a little soft play area for children so the boys just crawled around there and it tired them out for the flight.
4) Take a change of clothes for the baby(s). I actually forgot to do this and Ollie puked everywhere. He stank so bad I ran into cath kidston and had to buy him a new top!
5) Take sterilising bags. They're super handy for log flights if you need to sterilise bottles. The boys only have 3 bottles a day now so I literally just have 6 bottles. They used all 3 before the end of the flight so I just asked the cabin crew to fill the bag with cold water and that was it. Pop the bottles in and it's all sterilised in 30 minutes.
Let me know if you think I've missed anything in the comments or on my Instagram and I'll add to the list to help others!
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