My family is scattered across the globe. That's the simplest explanation I can give for why I found myself flying internationally with a four month old infant and no other adult to help.
In ordinary times, having family all over is the best thing ever - having a very diverse family makes the whole world feel so much smaller and closer together. There's always an excuse to explore a different place and having my mom live in a cozy house in the German countryside where there's always a room ready for me and my husband (and now our daughter!) makes it feel like we have a second home.
It's the perfect counterbalance to our fast-paced Manhattan life. Where Manhattan has skyscrapers, my mother's village has trees. Where Manhattan has 24/7 fine dining delivered, my mother's village has a produce garden in her backyard and a couple cute grocery stores in walking distance.
It's great.
But her first grandchild, our daughter, was born (check out her birth story!) during the pandemic. Germany's vaccine efforts are lagging and even though she's over 50 she's still waiting to be vaccinated.
My husband and I were both fully vaccinated by the start of May and I couldn't wait to introduce our daughter, Emma, to my mom and the rest of the family. So we planned a trip with our infant!
Things rarely go according to plan in life and this trip was the same. My husband ended up being unable to come, Emma ended up having her 4 month vaccines the Monday before our planned Saturday flight, and she was due for her 4 month sleep regression right around our trip weeks.
I considered not going. I considered going for more or less time. I considered not going again. But I wanted to go, so I shortened the trip to just one week from the original two and off we went, just me and my four month old daughter.
And guess what? Traveling solo with an infant surprisingly well!
Emma hates car rides and doesn't have much experience with them, since we live in Manhattan and haven't left our neighborhood much since she was born. It's one of those pandemic pregnancy/early parenthood things!
The drives to and from the airport were the only time during the entire trip that Emma properly cried. And she bawled, it was heartbreaking! Fortunately we quickly learned that pacifiers would calm her right down during car rides - they're not something we usually use, but traveling (especially solo) with an infant is survival mode. We stuck to our no screens rule, even during the long flights, but pacifiers were something I was okay with giving into just for the duration of the trip.
I scoured the web for anything and everything I could find about traveling with infants or traveling solo with a baby before the trip, so I wanted to put together my own list of tips as a trip post-mortem.