The Ultimate Packing List for Traveling with Baby

Ah, to travel with Baby. Blowouts, shakes to the routine, and potentially disastrous missed naps might discourage you. But for us, traveling means seeing family, taking a step back from work, and showing Christopher a new piece of our fascinating world.

I’m mainly publishing this packing list for baby travel so I can continue to reference it. I’ve drafted a thousand incomplete lists on my phone, in emails to my husband, in texts to my mother—and on! The madness must end.

Bonus: Before becoming a new mom, I crowdsourced my friends’ favorite products for city living and travel. At the bottom of this post is a list of the most important items we’ve used over the past year to get Christopher from point A to point B.

A few reminders for flying with baby:

These are guidelines based on my experience. Always check your airliner’s specific family policies.

  • For domestic flights in the U.S., a child can typically sit on your lap for free until they are two years old. You need to specify when buying a ticket that you will have a child on your lap.  

  • For most domestic flights, you can check your stroller and car seat at the gate for free. They don’t count toward your luggage allowance.

  • For carry-on bags, most airlines will allow you to bring a diaper bag PLUS the airline’s regular carry-on allowance. At the time of publishing, the only airliner I know of that doesn’t allow this is Alaska Air.

  • Typically, infants flying on paid tickets get the same baggage allowance as adults, but if your child is on your lap, they don’t receive a luggage allowance.

  • Nursing or feeding during take-off and landing helped us distract Christopher and minimized ear popping. Even if it isn’t “feeding time,” a few ounces can go a long way. Also, I learned the hard way (rerouted in air!) that most flights don’t have anything besides coffee creamer on the plane, so always have extra milk.

  • Here are the TSA’s guidelines on traveling with breast milk and formula.

Packing Checklist for Baby (2 - 12 months):

In Diaper Bag

  • At least 2 day’s worth of diapers, in case of delays

  • Wipes

  • Foldable changing pad

  • Dog waste bags/plastic bags for dirty diapers

  • Light blanket

  • Spit up cloth

  • Bib

  • Extra outfit

  • Light jacket

  • 2 bottles, prefilled with water (after going through security, if flying)—or milk

  • Travel-size dish soap

  • Pacifiers, if your baby uses them

  • Snacks, if your baby is eating solid food

  • Favorite toys: Sophie, crinkle books, Captain Calamari, teething rings

  • Antibacterial wipes

  • Baby Tylenol

  • Copy of birth certificate

  • Passport, if needed

  • Optional: Your cell phone, charger, wallet, ID, insurance card, and necessary documents

  • Optional: Your breast pump, charger, and milk bags

  • Optional: Extra outfit for parent (I’ve needed this)

In Suitecase

Sleeping:

Clothing:

  • Two outfits per day (if no laundry) + maybe one more!

  • Socks

  • Swimsuit

  • Coat

  • Sun hat or winter cap

Toiletries

  • More diapers

  • More wipes

  • Butt cream

  • Nail file

  • Boogie Wipes

  • Sunscreen

  • Brush

  • Baby shampoo

  • Gas drops

  • Lotion

  • Snot sucker

Feeding:

  • Two additional bottles in suitcase

  • Additional formula in suitcase

  • Additional spit-up cloths

  • Optional: Bottle brush

  • Optional: Ice packs/cooler for milk

Equipment:

Baby traveling to Central Park, laying on a foldable changing map and waterproof blanket

Here’s Christopher in Central Park with his foldable diaper mat. The larger, waterproof blanket underneath him is from Little Unicorn. While I don’t travel with it on a plane, I would recommend it for picnics in the park and day trips to outside attractions.

Packing Checklist for Babies (6 - 18 Months)

All of the above (minus the gas drops, BabyBjörn, and pacifiers in our case), plus:

  • Squeeze pouches of food

  • Mum-Mum crackers

  • Baby toothbrush / tooth paste

  • At least two pairs of shoes

  • Easy-to-clean bibs

  • Sippy cups

  • Baby fork and/or spoon

  • Pull-ups or potty seat, if training

  • Outlet plugs / baby-proofing needs

  • Swim diapers / personal flotation device for beach trips

My Top 5 Favorite Baby Travel Products:

Guava Lotus Pack-N-Play
It’s easy to unfold, can fit in checked luggage, and can be carried with a handle or worn as a backpack. My sister recommended this to me as one of her favorite products, and now I pass on our sacred Fitzgerald knowledge to you. And yes, sometimes we use the Lotus as a make-shift (cozy) baby jail.

SlumberPod Blackout Tent
This tent is a lifesaver! It fits perfectly around our pack-n-play/playard. It’s particularly helpful in providing a dark environment for your baby when you’re in a hotel room—you can watch TV (quietly) or have on a light without waking your kiddo. There’s also strategically-placed pouches for your monitor and fan. We typically stick the sound machine right beside the SlumberPod.

Hiccapop OmniBoost Travel Booster Seat
We take this seat with us everywhere. Lots of restaurants don’t have high chairs; the OmniBoost Travel seat unfolds and hooks to most normal dining chairs. It can also sit on the floor at your friend’s house, in the sand, and in the grass at a picnic. When Christopher was about 4 months old, he started sitting up on his own. Since that time, he’s probably eaten at least two meals a week in the OmniBoost. It’s one of my favorite, most-used purchases.

Willow Breast Pump
You can’t (legally) nurse in moving car—but you can pump! The Willow is a cordless, battery-powered pump that is designed for on-the-go parents. It’s an expensive purchase, but most insurance companies will give you half off for this product. (I got my discount through Aeroflow Breast Pumps.) The Willow saved my family so much time on roadtrips: Before I was pumping, we’d have to pull over at rest stops for about an hour every two to three hours. This quickly turned a five-hour-roadtrip in an eight hour adventure. But no longer!

I found it convenient to purchase both the plastic milk bags and the reusable milk containers. I used the reusable containers when I was pumping at work or home and the plastic bags when out of the house. To keep the milk cold, I put ice in a 26-ounce Yeti Rambler and stuffed the milk bags on top of the ice. Random places I pumped: museums, LaGuardia Airport, the beach, Marie’s Crisis Piano Bar, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and on.

BabyZen YoYo 2 Stroller
I really, really, really pushed back when my friends told me I needed two strollers. I’d already received the UppaBaby as an (incredibly generous) gift—how could I possibly need another one? Well, we live in Brooklyn, off a subway station with no elevator. I very quickly realized I could not carry my 20-pound kiddo up and down all the stairs in a 30-pound stroller. While the UppaBaby is still one of the most well-built and useful products we own, as we got more active around the 6-month mark, we found it didn’t always fit in a restaurant or the back of someone’s car. Enter, the YoYo. It folds up to fit in your closet or in the overhead bin of a plane. The aluminum stroller weighs only about 13 pounds, and it takes up much less real estate in small New York City spaces.

I hope this packing list helps with the chaos—and best of luck on your next adventure with Baby!

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”
— Anthony Bourdain