Traveling with baby

As we embarked on our holiday vacation this year, I spent most of December getting ready to take a 3-year-old and a 6-month baby on an airplane. As any mother knows, pre-travel plans for taking a 6-month-old on an airplane should begin approximately at 6 p.m. the day after your baby is born.

This pretrip period includes deciding which of her outfits she absolutely must wear so her relatives can "ooh and aah" over her and which clothes she can probably do without but you'll take anyway.

Perhaps the most time-consuming portion of packing for a baby is the daunting "products" category. These are all of the little one's various ointments, creams, salves, lotions, medicines, bath soaps, Q-tips and washcloths. Please keep in mind that you must bring every single medicine or cream that your baby has ever used.

It is absolutely vital that you pack as if you will be traveling through the sub-Saharan wilderness with no convenience stores for days, much like I did when I traveled to the remote locale of Phoenix.

By this point, you've got three or four bulging bags ready to sneak through as carry-on luggage so you can avoid the $25 checked-bag fee.

You are now ready for stage 2 — or what I like to call the onset of triptheria. This fun stage is when babies hear you say the word vacation and decide it would be hilarious to spike a 102-degree fever and break out into a rash.

But once you've made it through the pretrip stage, you're ready for the main event. You can be confident that you've packed with care — you've got binkies o'plenty just waiting to be called into action and an array of outfits that will be just right whether your little one is playing in the sand or has to attend an impromptu charity gala.

You can now sit back, relax and try to ignore the scowls from passengers 26D and 28E as your baby screams during takeoff and landing. These sans-baby travelers are under the misguided notion that passengers with baby in tow are secretly pinching their little ones throughout the flight and quietly giggling about how hilarious this is. I mean, why else would we just let them scream like that?

But it's worth it. It's worth all the hassle just to hear those four sweet little words as soon as the airplane's wheels leave the ground, "Are we there yet?" 

How did your travel plans with kids go this year? Any memorable (or horrifying) moments? 

Celebrate the good, the bad and the downright ridiculous moments of motherhood with the Just4Mom blog. From stretch marks to the latest news for moms, Erin Stewart discusses it all.