3-4 months infant travel: 1 long trip (13 hours) or 3 medium trips (6+6+4 hours)

A! A! A! I’ve done very long trips with multiple infants. At that age, they’re so tiny and sleeping that changing planes and shuffling around to hotels carrying them is going to be a huge pain. Get on the plane, sit down, put kid on lap, have toys, and other distractions (we always had crinkly pieces of paper), and hopefully partner to spell you while you go to the loo. Kid will just feel like it’s a normal day with a bit more face time. Will sleep. They don’t know they’re on a plane. If possible to get a bulkhead seat with a bassinet and you are golden. If you have a big crier, you’re going to be walking with them either way. May as well get it over with. Remember their ears don’t pop well so give them something to suck on ascent and descent.

I would go for the one long flight. I think the time at the airport is the hardest bit when travelling with an infant.
The longhaul flights often have bassinets that can be attached to the bulkhead. These are great so make sure you get one of those seats when you book. You often have to phone the airline to confirm that.
Make sure to bring food for the baby and keep yourself well fed and hydrated as well. It makes it so much easier.
When it comes to jetlag, I would recommend starting to acclimatise already at home if possible. Make sure your baby gets enough sleep (look at this baby sleep chart http://sleepybud.com/baby-sleep-chart/ ) and then start to change the bedtime, wake up time and naps by about 20 min per day. If you do this for a week then you and baby will have 2:20 min less jet lag when you get there.

If you’re travelling alone, I would strongly suggest you take a single flight. That way, you will (hopefully) be accompanied by your friends or family during your departure until the baggage drop-off, so you won’t have to handle your luggage and the baby at the same time. In case of 3 flights, you’ll have to go through check-in and check-out and commute to the place you’ll spend the next night 3 times instead of one. Plus, you’ll expose the baby to the ear pressure 3 times, and you’ll also wake it up 2 extra times.

If you’ll travel together with your partner, commuting with the baby becomes a lot more manageable, but personally I would still consider taking a single flight.

Traveling with kids very much depends upon traveling with them in a way that they will find enjoyable, and in a way that won’t leave you a wreck.

Fortunately, a 4 month old has a simple definition of “enjoyable”: regular feeding, regular changing, sleep and snuggles. Expecting about 14 hours of sleep a day, in spurting naps of 2 to 3 hours each, you can easily manage a long trip. I’ve done it successfully: just expect to be feeding, changing, and snuggling every few hours.

Planning is essential here: have everything you need at hand when the babe wakes. Change, feed, burp, snuggle/talk/read, then tuck in. Repeat for the flight.

Yes, the pressurization may make babe fussy. Try to avoid travel if your babe has an ear infection, as that narrows the air path ways and intensifies the pain. If babe fusses during equalization, give a bottle: the sucking motion lessens the effect just like chewing gum for an adult.

If you go with multiple flights, consider the stress you will feel lugging babe around concourses, meals, and any checkpoints you have to cross. Personally, I find the logistics of connections more troublesome, because you have to keep your entire party synchronized. If you have to change a diaper and miss your connection, what then?

In my mind, for a 4 month old, it’s better to hunker down, establish a routine, and enjoy the long flight.

Now when babe gets to be a toddler? Split it up, trust me!

Three of our kids have taken 12-hour flights with us when they were younger than 6 months. We never had any problems, so I would take option a). Option b) has shorter flights, but still 6 hours can be eternity if your child is not fine; and I think it is very unlikely that whatever bothers him/her will last more than that.
And then you have, still with the little one,

• security x 3
• check-in x 3
• additional immigration lines
• additional waits at the airports
• additional airport transportation

Also to be taken into account is that what bothers babies the most is the ascent and descent (pressure differential in their ears), and you would also be multiplying that by three.

(and no, we were not those parents in your flight who had a hysterical kid and did nothing nor cared about it)

Another con that despite not affecting you directly is that, sadly, toddlers can be extremely annoying to other passengers.

Most likely, other passengers will thank you for not being locked in with your child for 13 hours straight.

Personally, I would take multiple flights if there is the option to spend a night in a hotel but would rather a single flight than multiple flights in a single day.

Some infants manage to sleep through entire 4-6 flights, although they may get quite cranky during the rest of the flight. It’s hard to predict but I actually had better flights with my daughter as an infant than a toddler since infants sleep much more and are not as used to a certain type of comfort.

The advantage of taking a single flight is only one time going through security, boarding and settling in. That is nice but I prefer the advantages of not being boxed in for so long, taking breaks, breathing fresh air, quiet moments and being more comfortable to feed and change the little one. You’ll have to still do it on the plane, but with a hotel break, you can give the little one a real bath and other ways of soothing.