Flying with a two year old

[kar888]

My husband and I are thinking about making a trip down to Disney World in November. We usually drive down and have decided that maybe we would fly down instead. Has anyone flown to Florida with a two year old? If so did you take your car seat or just let him sit in one of the seats without it? The car seats that we have are too big to fit in one of the seats on the plane. At least according to the measurements on the website. Is it worth buying a new one for the trip or borrowing one from a friend? Any information anyone can tell me would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

 

[erstwo]

I'm in the same boat as well. Flying alone with my 2 year old in November (DW if flying 3 days earlier with the luggage) and I'm debating on using the carseat or not on the plane. I have a Britax Roundabout and flying Southwest.

We're bringing ours for the rental car, but not sure if I want to let the DW check it on her flight and I take the stroller, or I take the seat to use on the plane and DW takes the stroller.

I'm sure DD would feel more secure and behave better if she's in her seat, but I worry about the 'logistics' of having to manage her and the car seat by myself through security and while boarding. Plan is to have it be me, DD, the diaper bag, and the car seat. Sounds easy, just hope it actually is.

Right now, I'm still leaning towards bringing the carseat.

As far as getting around with the car seat, we now use a regular "business traveler" wheeled laptop bag carrier (purchased at Target for $14) to wheel our car seat around (only DD is in a 5 point now.)

We have a Britax Marathon and we simply place the base of the seat on the "legs" of the laptop carrier and then use the attached bungee cord to hold the seat in place (it stretches from bottom to top.) Then we just lean it back and wheel it around the airport - easy as pie!

We also had one of those $50 wheeled canvas car seat bags, but we didn't like it. You had to lean down to get the wheels to make contact with the ground, so DH ended up carrying it slung over his shoulder with the strap most of the time - no fun if you're DH!

Have a great trip!!!

 

[zipoff]

We put our 1 year old in a car seat and he sat there kicking the seat in front of him. We sat there the whole time trying to get him not to kick the seat. On the return flight we put the seat backwards, but then the person in front of him could not recline their seat at all. When we take our trip to Disney this November we are not going to use a car seat.