The Jarvii We’ve been to England twice already–once when O was about 5 months and again at his first birthday. Let me tell you there’s a huge difference in how you have to approach traveling with a baby!
At 5 months O wasn’t quite crawling yet, but he was getting there. We lucked out flying to England that our flight wasn’t fully booked, so we had an entire row to ourselves. We thankfully got a free seat for O so that we could strap him in his car seat (always double check to make sure your car seat is FAA approved before you lug it onboard). We flew a red eye and we were so grateful that he slept for most of the entire plane journey in his car seat. The plane ride back wasn’t quite as smooth, but it also wasn’t so bad. Just a lot of cuddling and eating.
As a one year old the ball game totally changed. O was a walker and was into everything. Because we visited in the summer, the flight was booked so he was a lap baby. The trip involved a lot of walking around the cabin and letting him play on the floor. Thankfully they gave us the bulkhead so that there was room for him to play on the floor. The bulkhead also comes with a bassinet, which at first sounded awesome. But in practice was useless since we had a tummy sleeper. Thankfully he slept some in our arms.
England itself is another easy country to travel to because it is very similar to the US. They didn’t have the exact brand of formula we used for O because Europe has different standards for food and nutrition. But we were able to find something he would eat after we ran out of our own stash. They also had the same brand diapers we usually use, except the sizing was a tad different (e.g. know your kid’s weight in kilos).
I’m a bit torn about strollers (they call them a buggy). What’s great about the US is the ADA law, which forces businesses and public areas to be handicap accessible. For example, if you are plan on using the Tube at all in London you need to plan your route carefully. Many stations do not have an elevator and/or step-free access to trains. If you absolutely need a stroller, an umbrella stroller would be ok. If the weather is nice, I would avoid the Tube all together and figure out how to walk around London above ground just to avoid the chaos of catching a train.
Car seats are also a different story there as well. In the US we use the LATCH system and the UK uses ISO-Fix. If you are going to bring along a car seat, be familiar with how to install it with a seat belt. And make sure you read the car’s manual to see how you can get the seat belt to lock (we found out that the car we were using was so old that we couldn’t even do that!!!). If you don’t need to rent a car, I would absolutely leave the car seat behind. You aren’t required to have car seats if you are riding in a taxi. And England’s train and public transportation systems are incredibly extensive and great that you probably won’t need a car anyways.
