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I was on an airplane, traveling at over 400mph, somewhere over Greenland. Max pulled away from my grasp. He wanted to explore. I wanted him to sit down and sleep. I wanted his brother Nico to stop crying. I wanted a break.
BAM! He slipped from my hand. His chin hit the metal arm of the fold-away video monitor on a front row seat. His cries filled the plane as blood filled his mouth. How on earth did I end up here with Nico on me in the carrier and Max on my hip, blood dripping onto his shirt?
A week earlier…
A text came in from my Dad in our family group chat on WhatsApp. “For those able to get here: on the afternoon of Saturday, 7th May there will be a BBQ with special guest the Revernd Alan Wilcocks and his wife, Catherine…” he wrote.
The Wilcocks? What a treat. Rev. Wilcocks was the minister at our church when I was very young, like under 9 years old. I don’t remember a lot, but I have fond memories of him. I remember him as someone funny, friendly and kind. I haven’t seen him or his wife in well over 20 years, maybe not since they left.
“I wish I could be there” I thought, sad to be missing out on another event.
My family all live close to each other in the town where I was raised. Living 6,000 miles away means I often miss out on get-togethers. Whether they’re special occasions or just weekend playdates for my nieces.
“Wait a minute… I could be there. Maybe I should go,” I thought to myself, opening my computer to search for flights. To my surprise, they happened to be relatively inexpensive, probably before summer travel picks up.
I was missing my family, and my sisters hadn’t seen Max since he was born. I knew that I should make the trip before I go back to work, before all the summer weddings to attend, before we move. So the time was NOW.
Steve had been training all year for a triathlon that was only a few weeks away, so I asked if he wouldn’t mind if I went without him. I’ll take the kids, I offered. Mind? He was thrilled! Two weeks alone without any childcare responsibility? What a dream!
And that’s what led me to boarding a United Airlines flight from San Francisco to London with a two year old and 3.5 month old baby. By myself.
Max was fine by the way. A flight attendant gave us some ice to put on his lip. The bleeding stopped and he never complained about his bruised lip or the cut on his tongue. And he did eventually go to sleep.
Waiting at the gate.
It’s the jet lag that’ll kill ya
Many folks have been shocked when I said I flew with them both by myself, especially on an 11 hour flight. It wasn’t easy, I was pretty exhausted by the end of it. But, it wasn’t the flight that was the hard part. It was the jet lag they both had! The absolute hardest moments of my life happened in the nights that followed. Both of them had their internal clocks scrambled and I was not prepared at all for the fallout.
The UK is 8 hours ahead of California, so flying there just warped these kiddos' internal clocks. They slept for 3 hours on the plane after “bedtime” (instead of their usual 12 hours/night) but then we landed and it was morning. Both were awake, Max was wired with excitement!
For the first three nights they were both waking up throughout the night, both needing my attention at the same time but in different ways. Max was awake the first night from 10pm until about 3am. In the end, I had to hold him down, basically just hug him, while he wriggled and screamed for me to let him go.
“No, Mommy No!” he screamed at me, crying. I felt so bad, but I didn’t know what else to do. After 20 minutes he finally fell asleep.
The next night, Max woke up a few hours after going to bed and was being very loud while I was trying to settle Nico. I asked my parents to help. They took Max downstairs to watch TV. It wasn’t what I wanted for Max, and not what a lot of internet advice suggests for jet lag (keep lights off as much as possible and don’t do anything fun!), but how could I argue? I was exhausted and needed their help. They were tired too.
One of the nights I remember trying to get Max to sleep in the early hours of the morning. Nico was crying too. My mom came to help me, she took Nico into Max’s room and slept on the bed with him. He just needed a cuddle and fell right back to sleep. Again, I had to hold Max until he exhausted himself from crying.
The third night it got easier. I think I hugged Max to sleep earlier in the night, around 8pm and he slept for a longer chunk of time before coming into my room.
As time went on, Nico just fell back into his usual routine with one feed around 3am, which I gradually cut while we were in England. Max, however, did not get back to his perfect 12 hours of sleep.
He was challenging to put to bed - constantly coming out of his room. Often needing other people to put him to bed. And he always came into my room in the middle of the night, once or twice.
Unfortunately, when we got home to California some of this behavior continued and it was quite a journey to work on getting Max back into a smooth bedtime routine. A few months on now and he’s much better. He does occasionally open his door and make noise or whine in the early hours. But he’s getting better about putting himself back to bed and waiting for his green light to turn on.
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| This view. It was all worth it. |
Lessons learned
I’m not sure I’ll be flying solo with them both again any time soon. But I do think the trip was worth it to spend time with my family and to see Max playing with his cousins. Meanwhile, I learned some lessons I can apply on future trips, even when Steve’s with me!
Always get a window seat
Max loves going on planes, but he loves looking out the window more. We bulkhead seats in the center so that I could put Nico down for a nap in a bassinet. But when we first got on the plane, Max really wanted to look out of the window.
When we boarded our flights (there and back), I asked the flight attendant in our cabin if there was an empty row with a window. Luckily, there were both times. So we took off in the window seat. While I enjoyed taking Nico off me for a few hours, I had more enjoyment keeping Max contained in the row with a window.
I didn’t realize this, but I think you can actually have the bassinet on the bulkhead seats with a window. I noticed the wall had the same attachment points. Next time I will definitely ask for that, because window seat plus bassinet would be a total win!
Accept Help and Ask for What You Need
As we boarded the plane, I had Nico on me in the baby carrier and Max at my side wanting to hold my hand. I had two large backpacks to carry on board. Two men boarding the plane behind us offered to help carry my bags to our seats. I gladly accepted the help. It made boarding the plane a whole lot easier.
When we landed in England, I prepared Max for deplaning by explaining that he would walk ahead of me following the people and I’d be right behind him with Nico and our bags. I didn’t have an extra hand for him.
But when the time came to deplane, Max wouldn’t move without me holding his hand. I kept trying to convince him, until an older lady ahead of us turned around and offered to hold his hand as we walked off the plane. Luckily, Max accepted the hand of a total stranger and walked with her off the plane. It was really nice of her to offer.
Don’t take too much for your toddler
All Max really needed was some good snacks, his two little vehicle toys (an airplane and bus), which he played with a lot, and an hour worth of screen time (he loved watching videos of trains, and Cocomelon), and a couple of books.
He did not want to color. He didn’t want to play with the travel activity board. And he definitely wasn’t going to sit and just watch TV. Even with his favorite, Cocomelon, he got bored after 20-30 minutes.
The snacks and good food was also key to keeping him happy and entertained. I tried to keep to our schedule as much as possible. Having lunch and dinner at regular times, and not too many snacks in between.
Babies are easy. Bassinets are great.
Nico did amazing on the flights. The first flight he was a lot fussier, but I realized it was because we were all too hot. I was hot on the plane and he was attached to me in the carrier, so probably also too warm. I think I was so focused on Max that I wasn’t taking care of myself enough!
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| Waiting for the plane to fill up. I see I'm already hot/red in the face! |
Toddlers are actually pretty well behaved
I worried a little bit about feeding Nico a bottle while Max roamed free. At the airports I would keep Max in his stroller and feed him snacks. This kept him still long enough for me to feed Nico. On the plane, I also tried to be strategic about what toy or food item to offer him when I needed to give Nico my attention.
In the end though, there were a few times when Max wasn’t physically restrained or dazzled by a novel toy and yet he stayed close by and played quietly. It was nice to see and helped me feel more confident that I could survive this big trip on my own with the two of them.
I was also able to give Nico to the flight attendant and leave Max in the seat so I would go to the bathroom in peace. Max was fine being left for short times. On the way to England the flight attendant was so sweet to him. Her name was Lisa. Now whenever we talk about flight attendants he says, “like Lisa.
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| Finally Sleeping! |
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