This would help immensely while you're at the wedding. It actually MIGHT work out if your wife is in the back of the car taking care of the baby and you drive and other parent is up front.

Just remember : the child must be in the care seat at all times, and strapped in. The kid throws up/poops/pees, you'll have to stop the car to to change them. If your wife breast-feeds, I think it would even be illegal to take the baby out of the car seat to hold her and feed her while driving, but I'm not sure about that. Something like this might be doable if you have large mini-van or something.

I do know the hospital would not let us leave without verifying there was indeed a car seat for the baby in the car, so the above is somewhat of an assumption. We've never gone anywhere without a car seat. Of course, we tend to stay home and I rarely travel with our baby unless it is to my mom's her my wife's parents house. I'm a bit overly fanatic about staying home while she's an infant though.

We have a pretty large SUV and a very flexible timetable, since she'll be on maternity leave and I gamble on my own hours. If we go, we plan to leave a full 2.5-3 days one each end knowing that we'll likely be stopping every hour or so. And there's no chance we would take the baby out of the car seat under any circumstances while driving.

I'm still not quite sure what to think tbh. Given the forum's advice, we've decided to sit down with the couple and make it clear that things are going to be touch and go, but we're still going to do our best to make it. I feel much more open to cancelling if there are any complications, but I do still think it can be done if everyone is feeling healthy.

Very much appreciate all the advice. It's helped us to realize that we at least need to address to the couple that it might not be as feasible as we once thought, and that might save us a lot of trouble later since we won't be springing any surprises on them come wedding-time.

It's so rare that people on here actually listen to good advice. Props for at least listening to those with kids.

I think you are right in that it can be done. I just think it's slim odds and not really sure it's worth it. But that's obviously for you and your wife to determine. Good luck.

Dudes, flying with an infant is not that bad. It's flying with a toddler that sucks. Get a moby wrap or an ergo carrier and strap the baby to your chest, much less risk of germs.

But you are still cutting it close, time wise. It takes weeks to recover from childbirth, and if your wife goes past her due date, you could be looking at traveling only a couple weeks after. No bueno. I wouldn't do that unless it was an actual emergency.

Flying with an infant is not that bad compared to what?

Are you comparing it only to flying with a toddler? Or with "not flying with an infant"?

I think your plan of driving and allowing for multiple days to make the drive is the best plan.

5-6 days of sleep deprived driving over something like an 8 day period sounds pretty miserable to me.

Pongo is so right. It takes at least six weeks, and depending on circumstances sometimes much longer, for a woman to recover from childbirth. The bodily changes don't simply reverse themselves by magic as soon as the child is delivered. It takes ages for the stretched and battered abdominal muscles to return to shape (if they ever do). The breasts will remain enlarged and engorged by milk (which sometimes drips at inconvenient moments). Not to mention other post-partum gory details. In addition many women experience emotional issues, ranging from exaggerated mood swings to severe post-partum depression, until the endocrine system readjusts.

And, as every parent here will tell you, moms and dads of newborns get no sleep. Baby needs feeding and care all through the night every night and expresses those needs in earsplitting howls not possible to sleep through. IMO a long car trip under those conditions is not such a good idea.

Also, your wife needs to think about whether she will be comfortable appearing in bridal party attire when her body is still recovering from its pregnant shape--or whether she will even fit into such attire--and whether she will be able to handle being part of the center of attraction when her hormones might still be out of balance, resulting in mood swings and lessened emotional control.

Some women give birth on their due date, have relatively short and easy labors with no complications and a quick recovery. Some women go over term, have long and difficult labors sometimes culminating in a surgical delivery and need extended time for physical and emotional recovery. Most babies are born healthy, but some are born with or develop problems needing extensive medical care. Some babies are "easy," and some cry and scream all the time.

Problem is that no one knows what the specific circumstances will be until they happen. Being classified low-risk does not mean that everything will be "easy."

Just something to think about.....

LOL

We traveled for Christmas when my son was 2.5 months. It was torture. It was a 14 hour drive normally, and turned into 17.5 with him. He made it about 6-7 hours then just demanded to be held and was inconsolable. I highly wouldn't recommend doing it non-stop. Take 2 days to drive. This will be a huge pain in the ass, but it will be manageable if you plan it right. We ended up flying my son home with my wife while I drove home alone. Flying was easy, direct flight, no luggage for my wife since it was in the car with me. Nurse going up, nurse going down, sleep the rest the way. People talking about flying with babies are exaggerating or wrong or have a difficult baby.

Watching what my wife went/is going through, I'm so happy I'm a man.

I am a little bit jealous of the bond between her and the baby, though. I'm sure that'll swing more towards the middle as the baby gets older though.

Edit : Tom, not to sound selfish, but I wouldn't mind having a nice 14 hour drive home in peace. Stop at burger king, turn on some music and drive..

My kids are 22 and 8 months old now, and I wouldn't make that trip driving OR flying with them. It strikes me as inconsiderate to all parties involved. First world problem, all that kind of thing.

If you must ignore the good advice NOT to take the trip at all, AT LEAST make sure you have someone with you, as you said you could. That would cut into the suffering exponentially.

But stay home. It's just a wedding.

Tom it could be that we have "regular" babies (not difficult ones) and that yours is just very docile. It sounds like you and Pongo have very well-behaved babies or something but I'm not sure that's the norm.

That said I've never flown with my boy so I have no idea how it would go down. I just imagine it would be difficult. I know my sister just flew here from California with her 5 month old and I don't recall her complaining.

Easter Pic!

Blake is 1yr 4mo Cadence is 2yr 4mo

Happy Zombie Jesus Day from the Poin clan (Evie (closing in on 5), Amalia and Alex (closing in on 2) ... rare shot of me on the right, and grandma in the lower middle)!

My 2nd was born March 5th. 9 lbs, 21.5" in just under 4 hours. My wife is a champ. Cooper Ian just before going home...



And my older son (3 years, 4 months) trying out being swaddled...

LOLLL

I haven't checked this thread in a while. My daughter will turn four in August (sorry, no pics. My wife doesn't want pics of her on the internet) and if everything goes well she will be a big sister around December 8th.

I think I'll catch up on the last two or three years in this thread in the next few days

Just to check back in.. I think I may have the most beautiful baby on the planet (people in this thread excluded, of course). I'm unsure if the words "she is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen" really do her justice. I almost get choked up looking at her. Cora at 5 months :



(not my wife)





It really is an amazing thing.

Your wife is weird, imo.

She's aware Facebook is the internet right? Or is she not on Facebook? Because yeah, that'd be a bit weird (in a good way, imo).

She is on facebook, but we don't have pictures of our daughter on our profiles.

Can I ask why? Not understanding why she wouldn't want them.

Some people aren't comfortable with that. Nothing wrong with that. There is no rule that a parent has to put pics on FB.

That said, I've got a ton of pics of my son on FB. I thought it was weird for about 8 seconds then figured the enjoyment I'd get out of it far outweighed any possible bad thing that would come from it. Not even sure what that is.

Well the reason behind it is that our daughter can't decide whether she wants them on the internet or not, so we just don't put them there.
As a high-school teacher I see tons of teenagers being very open with personal information without thinking about it. One of the most interesting ways of starting a talk about privacy on the internet is opening your students facebook profiles in class and showing their pictures on the wall. They always object to that even if those pictures are public...

I feel like you would have done better to just not respond.