Kent's First Adventure

As you can imagine, we were very excited to take Kent on his first adventure to none other than New York! Even though he only 3 weeks old, we figured that Thanksgiving was the perfect time to introduce him to family and for him to experience the wonderful world of flying.

Traveling with a newborn for the first time is definitely nerve-wracking. Nothing quite increases that stress than the flight attendants making comments about how cute your child is the moment you step on the plane. No pressure!

Back when I was at Marist College on the East Coast, I started going to Thanksgiving on Long Island with my extended family. I absolutely loved it. After college I moved back to Oregon and Brad and I decided that every other year we’d go back to New York for Thanksgiving. This was a New York year and I was determined not to miss it.

We flew the nonstop, red-eye flight in hopes that Kent would sleep the entire time. One of the great things about flying the red-eye was that it was around the time that Kent usually slept the best so we were confident he'd sleep well. I decided to surprise Brad and upgrade our seats to First Class because Mama hadn’t drank in 9 months and could use a free glass of champagne. Or two 😉. Thankfully Kent slept the entire flight (except for needing a few snacks and a couple new diapers) and everyone in First Class was happy, including the lady that fell asleep smiling at him.

One thing that lowered my stress about flying with him was realizing what really sets Kent off. Some babies get really fussy when they’re tired, some babies need to be held all the time, and some babies get really hangry and scream. We ended up with the latter one, and if you know me, that should not surprise you. I’ve realized that as long as he has food, we can pretty much keep him quiet. The other issue I was nervous for was the diaper changes. Back when I was pregnant, I was on a flight and watched a dad walk his baby back to the bathroom with a portable diaper pad. I found one that has pockets for diapers and wipes so you just have to grab that and the baby, and leave the giant diaper bag at your seat. Game changer.

Kent did amazing on the flight, wonderful on the car ride to Long Island, and was relatively behaved as we stayed at my uncle’s house. He did become friends with two dogs and was pretty excited about that.

We had a great Thanksgiving with family and decided that the next day we (I) wanted to venture into NYC to show Kent one of my favorite cities. Kent slept the entire train ride into the city (highly recommend this over driving into the city) and missed seeing the tree at Rockefeller Square, the ice rink, giant ornaments, and the dreaded Times Square (I’m not a fan of Times Square but I’ll get into that at a later time). Thankfully Kent was small enough that I could still wrap him in my Solly Wrap and walk through the city with him strapped to me. There was no way I was going to bring a stroller into NYC on Black Friday.

A few challenges we encountered while in NYC were:

· Dressing for the weather. I knew that it was going to be chilly in the city and made sure that he was bundled up and wrapped tightly in my jacket. However, we forgot a hat. I’m blaming this on the mom-brain. Thankfully we were able to find an H&M when we got into the city and got him a baby-sized winter hat to keep his little noggin warm.

· The other struggle was locating a bathroom to change his soggy buns. We ended up grabbing Chop’t for lunch. Unfortunately, there was no changing table in their bathroom, so we had to change him on the floor. Once again, we were thankful to have that portable changing pad with us. Going into the city is much different with an infant, but I was still excited to show him a piece of my heart.

One thing we’ve learned is that it’s hard to be fully prepared traveling with a baby, but we're doing our best to make it as easy and stress free as possible. Very much looking forward to going back when he’s a little bit older and showing him more of my favorite things in NYC. All in all, he had a successful and exciting first trip filled with planes, trains, subways, and cars.