My husband and I are planning to take our son, who will be almost 5 months, on a trip from upstate NY to Minnesota in July to meet my husband's parents.
We'll be flying from one small airport to another, and will have to switch planes, probably in Chicago.
I have a million questions:
1) should we buy a third seat? right now the ticket prices are astronomical ($500 each) so I can't really see doing this
2) assuming we don't buy a third seat, should we check the car seat? is there a bag we should buy to check it in? (it's a Chicco KeyFit 30)
3) how do we transport baby in the airport and at our destination? - our strollers are a BJCE (definitely not bringing this) and a Maclaren Easy Traveller (which is obviously useless unless we don't check the car seat). We're probably going to buy a lightweight stroller at some point (Mac Triumph or Quest maybe) so buying it sooner rather than later is an option. Baby has never liked the Moby wrap and used to like the Ergo but has gotten too big for the insert and screamed bloody murder the other day when we tried to put him in with his legs straddled. We're considering getting a bjorn or some other front-facing carrier, but who knows if he would like this.
Other considerations:
At almost 4 months, baby takes a lot of naps and gets very cranky if he's awake for more than 2 hours. My fear is that he won't be able to sleep in transit and will end up miserable.
We're not planning to rent a car at our destination - in-laws will pick us up (so renting a car seat is not an option).
Thanks for any advice you can provide. I just found out we're taking this trip and wasn't prepared to travel with DS so soon (we haven't even traveled overnight yet).