{Tips} Traveling with an Infant – Our Favorite Baby Travel Gear

You’re about to embark on a trip with a baby and may be wondering what you should bring for baby. Following are our recommendations.

With a 6 month old infant in tow, we went on a 3-week trip to Europe, covering 8 countries. We were on 7 flights, 1 long distance train ride, 1 long distance bus ride, 1 long distance car ride and various subway, cabs and car rides.

We learnt a lot about traveling with an infant from this trip and among it is which items make great baby travel gear!

1. Baby Carrier or Baby Wrap

Baby loves being carried in a wrap. It’s also more convenient than pushing a stroller around. In this picture, our baby Liam is fast asleep while I stand in line to board a boat.

We usually do not bring our stroller along on trips because it’s very bulky and is hard to maneuver  on stairs, cobblestone alleys and other uneven surfaces.

We knew we’d be on foot most of the time in Europe, so we carried along our woven wrap.

Baby loves being carried that way and we were able to move around very easily (I’ve lost count of the number of stairs we encountered on our trip!).

There are different wraps/carriers you can choose from.

The specific wrap we use here in this picture is a Girasol woven wrap. It does require a bit of practice to get the ties right.

An easier alternative are buckle carriers. Our favorite is the Boba 3G which we also own.

2. Jeep Car Seat Travel Bag

Car Seat Travel Bag – keeps your car seat from getting scratched up when checked in. Read more for the bonus use of this bag!

We highly recommend purchasing a seat for your baby on flights that are more than 2 hours long. It helps because you have your hands free to eat, drink, go to the restroom and baby gets proper rest in their own seat (vs being held in your arms).

What about the bassinet on planes? Well, you are not always guaranteed a bassinet, so do not always count on that.

For the times when you are  not able to purchase a seat or not able to carry a carseat on board a plane, you will be asked to check your seat in at the gate or at the counter.

To protect our carseat, we bought this car seat bag. It’s very high quality and has kept our car seat free from scratches on the many flights we were on.

Bonus: For the smaller flights where our luggages were overweight, we actually stuffed this carseat bag with some of the additional items removed from our luggages (e.g. clothes) along with the car seat when we checked in. Car seats are not weighed, so it actually saved us a couple hundred dollars in excess baggage weight!

3. OXO Tot On The Go Drying Rack and Bottle Brush

Travel drying rack and bottle brush – convenient, clean way for drying bottles, pacifiers, spoons, bowls etc…

For those who are bottle feeding, this is very helpful because it provides a clean and easy way to dry the bottles.

We tried drying baby’s bottles on hotel/apartment provided washcloths but realized that some of our bottles ended up with a weird scent/smell (probably because of the scent from the detergent used to wash the washcloths?).

Probably not a must have but a nice to have if you have space in your luggage.

4. Cool Wazoo 5-in-1 Convertible Changing Pad

Very versatile changing pad

It’s a changing pad, swing insert, highchair cover, shopping cart cover and carseat cover in 1. I’m not sure how to use it for the carseat but I’ve definitely used it for all the other 4 purposes. It’s also lightweight and folds compactly!

This is not only accompanying us on travels, it’s a permanent piece in our diaper bag now. We highly recommend it!

5. Sassy Ring ‘O’ Links Development Toy

Low noise-making toy to keep baby entertained on flights in addition to regular entertainment throughout travel.

We do not bring on any squeaky toys (e.g. baby’s favorite is Sophie the Giraffe) onto planes so we don’t disturb other passengers, so we needed to find alternative toys that are not too loud, compact, lightweight and can entertain an infant on a flight.

These links provide endless fun for an infant whether they are seated in their carseat or not. You can give them one link at a time, string a few together, string all in one long link etc… the possibilities are endless.

It’s also easy to clean and it can be hooked onto high chairs etc so it won’t fall on the floor when your baby lets go of it.

It’s a must have travel toy for infants, in our opinion!

6. Kidsme Food Feeder Essential Set

Mesh Feeder – easy to clean, great for travel when your baby is not quite ready for solid food requiring chewing.

Our baby do not yet have teeth and since at 6 month old, he had just started solids (pureed food, mostly), we wanted a way for him to be able to try new food without the need for us to chew everything for him or carry a puree tool (forks work too but with this food feeder, baby gets to learn to feed himself).

We found this food feeder and love it! We carry it in our diaper bag as well. It’s much easier to clean than other mesh-type feeders and is small/lightweight.

We’ve had our baby feed himself banana, avocado, peaches, grapes etc.. using this food feeder.

Another must have!

As we identify more useful baby travel gear, we’ll pin it to our Baby Travel Gear Pinterest Board.

Follow us on Pinterest and our Baby Travel Gear Pinterest Board to stay updated on our recommendations!

What are some of your favorite/recommended baby travel gear?