Hi Sarah — We don’t know anyone who could lend us a carseat at our destination sight, but I did find one for $30 at Walmart, which must beat the cost of renting. I actually looked into buying a used one, but they cost more than the one I found online. We’ll bring it with us, either stashing it with the rest of the luggage or bringing it on the plane, still to be decided, but I am leaning towards stowing it. I actually considered asking the car company if they want it after we return to the airport. We won’t be needing it, but would prefer not to lug it all the way back home.

Thanks for the comment Kay. It seems a lot of my readers do not think we need to lug a car seat on the plane either. I like the idea of two backpacks and two changes of clothes. We will definitely let my son play with the iPad on the plane, though we scheduled our flights around nap time so I hope he might sleep for a bit on there too.

Something my friend does is finds a car seat that someone is giving away or selling for really cheap (maybe it is close to the expiry date) and takes that with her when she is travelling. She checks and it with her luggage and if it gets lost or damaged it is no big deal as she still has her good seat at home. Since it is a temporary seat to her she leaves it (usually discards it) at her destination.

I’m a big traveller with my child and always try to borrow a seat from family or friends as most of my travels are for visiting and they all have kids too. My parents (who we fly to visit often) actually bought a car seat for my daughter to use when we are there.

We havent travelled on planes yet, after we got the iphone/ipad… but we do use it during long car trips and it is a huge help. We do ration the timing though. one hour of screen time and then do somethign else – liek reading/drawing or anythign else. You bet, we’ll take atleast one device when we travel on planes again.

Ha! I had a hard time leaving when my son was an infant too. It gets easier!

We used a baby Bjorn in the airport and had our two year old walk. We flew southwest so we did board during family boarding to guarantee that we would have seats together. We made sure to do diaper changes and potty breaks shortly before boarding and didn’t have any problems there. On the flight home my two year old used the planned bathroom, which was probably the hardest part of the flight. Those rooms are too small for two people, and then my daughter wanted to touch every button in the bathroom. I think we did let her play some Ipad games to help part the time.