Stresses weren’t part of preparation

I’m hopeful our travels can only get better from here.

All the planning, all of the anxiety-ridden days leading up to our trip to Ireland didn’t prepare me for one thing.

The stress of it all.

The stress of forgetting something. The stress of how my daughter will handle her first two — although exceptionally long — rides on an airplane. The stress of not wanting to disrupt the travel of the passengers around us.

Let me say, broadly speaking, the vacation went well. We had a great visit with Baby Schanz’s aunt and uncle. I got to be in the Motherland on St. Patrick’s Day. The wedding we attended — on her first birthday — was tremendous. The 18th-century hotel made for a splendid venue. 

I never cease to enjoy my time on the Emerald Isle.

Baby Schanz behaved better than I anticipated during our flights. The change in air pressure had zero impact on her. Sure, she could have been better, but for the most part, she did well.

Taking an Aer Lingus flight direct from Toronto to Dublin, we requested the bassinet seat for her. It allows us to have a bassinet that clips into the bulkhead between business class and economy. All children on Aer Lingus flights ages 2 or older require a ticket, whereas those younger can either be kept in a lap or a bassinet upon request. 

We chose the bassinet to potentially make her overnight flight as easy on her little body as possible. We wanted her to be comfortable, as well as ourselves, so we could try to get some sleep.

It didn’t work out as planned.

Infants are only allowed in the bassinet at cruising altitude so long as the seatbelt sign isn’t illuminated. Unfortunately, we experienced some unexpected turbulence, so the pilot kept the seatbelt sign illuminated for nearly the duration of the flight.

Therefore, she ended up being a lap infant. To make matters worse, the plane was rather warm, and it made the three of us uncomfortable. The conditions were not conducive to sleeping. For any of us.

And we had difficulty getting the flight attendants to warm up some milk for us to feed her.

While Ireland is only a four-hour difference in terms of the time zone, it wreaked havoc on my daughter’s internal clock. Her nap schedule was interrupted by the time of day. Additionally, we tried to pack as much as we could into each day, therefore she wasn’t able to get in her normal naps even if her body clock adjusted correctly.

Even the wedding day was tough on her little body. Between the ceremony, the cocktail hour during which the bride and groom surprised her (and us) with a Bluey birthday cake, and dinner, she was being held either by us or others for the better part of eight hours. For an infant who wants to be on the move, that’s a long time to not be able to crawl around. By the end of the post-dinner speeches, Chrissy took our daughter back to the room to get some sleep while I stayed up with the Irish folk and enjoyed the reception until the wee hours of the morning.

Throughout the next few days, the people we spoke to mentioned how well Baby Schanz had done during the wedding. I, however, was stressed the whole time because I didn’t want her to be a distraction and take away from the festivities. It was a no-children wedding, but the bride was kind enough to make an exception for us because of how far we traveled. Once the wedding was over, though, the stresses of the visit subsided as we still had another week. We visited a friend to get some family photos taken for our daughter’s monumental birthday. We took a trip to the Dublin Zoo, went to the Howth Lighthouse and Castle Roche, a 13th-century Norman castle north of Dublin.

It was a much more carefree time.

The flight back to Toronto was an hour longer than the way there, and far less stressful for all of us despite getting to the airport much later than we should have.

Baby Schanz slept more on the return trip and it was overall a better experience for our family of three.

We learned a lot taking a transatlantic trip with our infant daughter, and we will do some things a lot differently the next time we travel.

I’m just hopeful the worst excursion is behind us.