Inspiration for family travel around Florida and the world!
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Kids- they come with a LOT of stuff! And the car seats are a big one. You need them from day one and for every car ride, until they are big enough to not need a booster anymore. But did you know they are also highly recommended and approved for air travel as well? It’s true! You wouldn’t drive around at home without your kids properly restrained in their seats. Traveling shouldn’t be any different, because accidents are still a risk no matter where you are. Read below to learn about travel tips for air and land, product suggestions, advice, why you should never check a car seat at the airport and more. Simply click any bold text to see more product info and read informative posts.
RELATED: Five Common Car Seat Mistakes You Might be Making
Tips for Flying with Babies and Toddlers
Part 1: How to Keep Kids Safe on Vacation
Safety, comfort, cleanliness & reliability are a few words that come to mind when I think about traveling with car seats. Wait- let me back up, that wasn’t what you were thinking too? Okay okay, I know traveling with car seats, going through airport security, rushing to your gates, and installing car seats into rental cars and taxis doesn’t sound like sunshine and rainbows. But I promise with some travel tips, the right gear and a can-do super-mom (or dad) attitude, you too can travel with car seats (without losing your mind)!
Look how excited they are to have their personal car seats down in SoCal! (P.S. We were still at the car rental when I took these. I paused while installing to snap a couple pics, because they were soo giddy and happy! If you look at little man’s straps, you can tell they weren’t properly adjusted yet. Because they are above his shoulders and he looks like he is leaning forward a tiny bit. Please make sure that for all rear facing car seats, the shoulder straps are hitting their shoulders AT or BELOW for a proper fit. And that the straps pass the “pinch” test).
If you’ll be riding in a car at all, your kid(s) will need a car seat to safely ride in. When you make the decision to bring your own car seats with you, you are doing a few things. And the biggest is guaranteeing your child’s as safe as possible, no matter what type of transportation you might take. If you were to borrow one with your rental car, you would never know the history. Was it in a car accident? Always handled properly? Ever dropped? Misused or mistreated? Because no matter how small of an accident, they need to be replaced after every crash (unless your particular brand specifically states you can use it after a really minor incident. But almost all brands do not allow this). Even small accidents can cause unseen internal damage to car seats.
Rental car companies are in the market to make money. They do not teach their employees the latest car seat facts, safety guidelines or to know that they need to be thrown away after accidents. So don’t rely on them to provide you with car seats that are 100% structurally sound, safe for use, and properly fitting for your child’s height/weight and maturity level.
As long as your car seat is FAA approved (if so, you will see a little airplane icon on a sticker) you can bring it on board the plane with you, at no charge. Just strap it to the seat like normal and your child will be better secured vs riding in a lap belt.
Another good selling point to bringing your kiddos car seat(s), is your child won’d be sitting on someone else’s… well I’ll let your imagination go there. Who knows how often they get cleaned by rental companies? Unless they have a foul smell or are clearly gross, I doubt they ever get washed.
In the past where we typically have gate checked our car seats, we will sanitize the airplane seats, tray and windows etc with disinfecting wipes. But if you bring their car seat, you essentially eliminate them from touching the seat (and eating their snack off it). Which saves time getting settled and helps prevent as many germs they come into contact with. Because the last thing you want to deal with on vacation is one of your littles coming down sick with something that they caught on the flight in.
Imagine this- you’ve spent all day traveling with your family, maybe crossing time zones, you’re exhausted and ready to face plant the bed. You just have to pick up the rental car first before getting to your hotel or Airbnb (click here to get $40 off your first stay). No big deal right? That is until you arrive at the counter for your car, and they have no car seats left! Or none of the proper type/size to correctly fit your child. What do you do now? You could drive to the closest store and hope they have a car seat that fits your child, to buy for your trip (while someone stays behind with the kids, because they can’t ride in the car yet..) But who wants to waste time and money on something you’ll only have for such a short while anyway?
OR you can avoid the whole head ache and save your money for something fun. Because you came prepared with you own car seats! Now you can safely get to your hotel and sleep off that jet lag!
We love to travel as often as possible, and having kids hasn’t slowed us down. Which means we have taken all kinds of baby gear on a lot of flights, and learned some different ways to breeze through the airport! Whether you have one kid or five, you too can travel at ease with car seats, strollers and more.
Let the kids walk, or carry them in a baby carrier. We love ours that is designed to support your child’s hips for proper development (which is so important to make sure yours does). This frees up the stroller to haul car seats, carry on bags and anything else you might be traveling with. You can also look into these that are made for toddlers and small kids for when they’ve outgrown the infant carriers. Our double stroller served us well in Europe last spring, by carrying all our gear and more bags then I care to admit. Believe it or not, but all those bags fit on that stroller! What can I say, I like to be prepared!
Worried about your kid not wanting to hold hands or have a frequent runner if they’re not in the stroller? Try using a tether or harness to keep them safe and close. We tried this cute option from Eddie Bauer when A was little. And loved it because it was cute, practical, and well made. We still have it and have gotten such good use out of it. There are so many options now like chest harnesses, backpacks (some even with removable tethers, like the one I just mentioned, so they have a longer lifespan) and this bracelet option for a compact way to stay together, while still letting them have some freedom.
A simple tip if you are traveling with an infant car seat and will be changing vehicles a lot, or want to travel lighter : leave the base at home. Each car seat should have directions printed on the side, to demonstrate out to properly install with out a base. By leaving it at home you are lightening your load a bit for one. And now you can quickly and easily take taxis and ubers without having to install and uninstall the base each time. If you chose to do this, pick up an inexpensive seat belt locking clip to help secure the car seat, if you happen to be in vehicle that doesn’t offer self locking belts. It is a very small and inexpensive item that will help keep your child that much safer and easily tucks into the diaper bag.
RELATED: Five Common Car Seats You Might be Making
Tips for Flying with Babies and Toddlers
Part 1: How to Keep Kids Safe on Vacation
It’s no surprise that our luggage gets a huge beating every time it goes through the airport. But have you ever stopped to think just how bad things are mistreated on their journey? From the check in counter, to the plane, back off the plane, through the system and finally getting to baggage claim. It goes through a lot of handlers and transfers! Even if you labeled your bags and car seats with “fragile” and “handle with care” signs. How do you know if they actually were treated with care?
I get it, they handle hundreds to thousands of bags a day, and with a tight schedule to keep, they aren’t going to stop and inspect each bag for warning signs of fragile contents. But based on videos like the one above and below, and the horrible conditions we have received our checked bags in, it would scare me to send anything fragile through the airport- like car seats.
For something so valuable like car seats, which we all constantly rely on to protect our little ones lives. It’s best to carry them with you all the way on the plane, rather then check or gate check them. It may be convenient and easy. But after thinking about it, do you really want to risk your child’s car seat getting damaged? If the unfortunate happens and it does get damaged, it would not protect your child like it should, in the event of a car crash.
We have never once checked a car seat at the check in counter before at the airport. I will admit though, before researching it or thinking to deeply about it. I thought gate checking was pretty harmless. Because by walking it to the airplane door you are cutting down on a lot of travel time that it goes through. This is what we have done for the majority of the trips where we have brought car seats along. But, it still has to get down the stairs and placed in the cargo hold. So there is still room for error. Not to mention, what if they don’t bring your car seats back up to the gate when you get to your destination, but send them to baggage claim?
This happened on our flight into London last spring, they decided to send all gate checked items through to baggage claim. Which meant our double stroller was not there to help carry the kids or the 7 bags we were lugging around (to avoid checked bag fees.. still deciding if it was a good idea or not 😉 ). It wasn’t the funnest travel moment carrying all that through customs. But at least we didn’t bring car seats on that trip, so we didn’t have to worry about them getting ruined.
Can you image if that happened to your gate checked car seat, or if it was handled by someone like the guy in the video below? Starting on our next trip, I know we are going to be more proactive and take them directly on board with us, to avoid anything like this happening to ours!
If your kids car seats are particularly heavy, large or expensive like ours, you might consider leaving them at home, and opt for lighter more travel friendly car seats. The suggestions listed below were picked because they are lightweight, FAA approved, compact and come highly rated from parents that have used them. Please keep in mind that just because they passed the minimum height and weight for a particular car seat doesn’t necessarily mean its the safest option.
For example, my 5 year passed the minimum requirements for a backless booster seat awhile ago. But that doesn’t mean she is just as safe in one, as her convertible car seat, which she just recently outgrew in rear facing mode! (Thank you Graco Extend2Fit for allowing her to do extended rear facing past her fifth birthday!) Besides height and weight, you also need to factor in the child’s maturity level when choosing a car seat. If they are going to tug and play with the seat belt, fall asleep or move around a lot, they are not ready to move out of a 5 point harness car seat.
If your child has outgrown high back boosters and has met the height, weight and maturity requirements for a back less booster, then the following products are awesome choices! All are travel friendly, come highly rated and weigh 5 pounds or less (one is only 1.7 pounds!).
If you have traveled with young kids before, you know bringing along extra gear is just something that comes with the territory. And since accidents can happen anywhere, not just at home, I hope you found this post helpful and insightful, to decide how to travel best with kids, that works for your family. What do you do when traveling with kids that has helped you? Comment below to share 🙂
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