Emilia was born in December 2024. By March 2025 — three months old — she was on a plane. By mid April, she was on her first cross-country flight.
I’m not telling you that to brag. I’m telling you that because every single thing on this page got tested in real conditions — a cross-country flight with a five-month-old, a car that smells like spit-up, a hotel room at 11pm with a baby who decides 11pm is playtime. I work in travel. I travel for work. And now I travel with Emi. None of those things cancel each other out.
This page exists because I wished someone had just told me the truth. Not the curated, filter-it-through-a-brand-deal truth. The actual truth — what worked, what I returned, what I bought twice, and what my husband Chris thought was a good idea that was absolutely not a good idea. That last category has its own section. I call it “Skip These.”
Everything below is something I’ve used. Some of it I still use every single week. Nothing made this list because it looked good in a flat lay.
Heads up: This page contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases — at no extra cost to you. Everything below is something I’ve actually used. If a product didn’t earn its spot, it didn’t make this list. The “Skip These” section is real.
On the Move: Car Seats & Travel Systems
Evenflo Revolve360 Extend Convertible Car Seat
Emi has been in this seat since day two of her life. Day. Two. We’ve gone through two harness settings, survived several spit-ups, and — I remember both of these individually because I’m the one who cleaned them up — two full throw-ups. The seat lived in my 2008 Infiniti for almost a year. Now it’s in my Tacoma. It actually matches my truck, which I did not plan but absolutely appreciate.
The 360-degree swivel is not a gimmick. It is the entire product. I don’t struggle to get her in. I don’t contort myself over a door frame. I rotate the seat toward me, place her in, rotate it back. That’s it. Every. Single. Time. If you’ve ever wrestled a rear-facing infant into a stationary seat in a parking lot in Florida heat, you understand why I’m this passionate about a swivel.
It’s rear-facing, forward-facing, and booster mode — which means this seat will outlive the diaper years. One seat, the whole journey. Worth every penny.
Evenflo Shyft DualRide Infant Car Seat + Stroller Combo
This is the one that goes with us every time we leave the state. The logic is simple: it’s a car seat that becomes a stroller. One thing instead of two. At the airport, it holds Emi — or it holds Emi’s stuff while I’m wearing her. Either way, I check it at the gate, and nine times out of ten it’s the first thing off the plane. No rental car seat. No rented stroller. No “does this facility have a stroller we can borrow.” No.
And here’s the thing nobody talks about enough: she’s sitting in something that smells like home. That matters. A baby in an unfamiliar city is already working hard to process everything new. The one constant is her seat, her smell, her familiar. Peace of mind — for her and for me.
“Baby smells and sits in something familiar. Peace of mind either way.”
Baby Trend Nexton Travel System
Chris bought this on Black Friday before Emi arrived. Every hospital tour we did said the same thing: you need a car seat carrier, and we need to approve it before baby goes home. So he did his research, bought this, and it was ready and waiting.
Here’s what I’ll tell you about the traditional click-in carrier concept: it requires a functional core. You swing the carrier into the base, you press down to lock it, you confirm the click. That is the move.
I had a three-day-old and a postpartum core made of jell-o. Not J-Lo. Jell-o. Exactly what they serve you in the hospital. I was not swinging anything into anything unless I wanted to ruin a brief pad, and I’d already been through enough of those.
Day three, we switched to the Evenflo. The Baby Trend now lives in our guest bedroom.
EXCEPT — around the one-year mark, that stroller piece became our neighborhood walk workhorse. Emi rides it around the block like she owns the street. For local use it’s great. For travel? That’s what the Shyft is for.
Buy the Evenflo first. Add this one later if you want a dedicated neighborhood stroller.
The Bag
Case-Mate Soap Bubble Large Tote — Iridescent Purple + Emerald Blue
I bought this bag for me. I want to be clear about that. When you become a mom — especially a working mom, especially one who travels — there’s this quiet pressure to disappear into function. To carry the utilitarian backpack. To stop looking like yourself. I wasn’t doing that. I still see the shadow of Mayra in everything I carry, and this bag is hers.
It’s technically marketed as a beach tote. I use it as a diaper bag, a work bag, a convention bag, and soon — I can already feel it — a sports mom snack bag. It’s iridescent. It shifts color in the light. Emi loves it. I love it. It is us.
Here’s what it actually does: the exterior is waterproof, so I set it on airport floors and wipe it clean when I pick it up. I’ve taken it to the beach — no sand in the nooks, no color damage. The base is tip-proof, which means it doesn’t fall over in the overhead compartment. The phone pouch doubles as a waterproof document sleeve, so our passports live there. The teething straws have their own corner. The clean ones stay clean.
There are no pockets — but here’s the thing — it’s see-through. I can see everything at a glance. No digging. No “did I pack the wipes.” I can see the wipes. Nervous you forgot extra clothes? You can see them. Passport in there? Obviously. The “no pockets” is actually the feature.
The only caveat: it’s not gender-neutral. Chris is not carrying this bag and I’m not pretending otherwise. Also — one warning. If you spill milk inside it, you have a bucket. Don’t do that.
“I bought the bag for me — because she’s my vibe. When you’re overwhelmed and overstimulated, you still deserve to look like yourself.”
I loved it so much I bought it twice — the purple iridescent is Emi’s permanent bag now, and the emerald blue is mine for overflow: snacks, waters, extra toys. Same bag, different job, equally cute.
Carry Them Close
Mabe Carriers
When I say babywearing saved my travel life, I mean it literally. Hands free through security. Hands free through boarding. Baby content because she’s warm and she can hear my heartbeat. Me functional because I actually have two hands.
Mabe is a small carrier brand and I recommend them with full chest. The craftsmanship is there, the support is there, and — I’m a Director of Sales who spends a lot of time at conventions and events — I’ve worn Emi through every kind of venue and never once felt like I couldn’t keep up. She travels in this. I wear her in this. It works.
Feeding — From Boobie Juice to Big Girl Food
Tommee Tippee Natural Start Bottles
Emi drank breast milk until she was 13 months old. These are the bottles that made that work. The nipple is designed to feel like — well, like the real thing — which matters enormously if you’re breastfeeding and trying to introduce a bottle. A lot of breastfed babies reject bottles entirely. Emi didn’t. I credit Tommee Tippee.
We started with the 5oz when she was tiny. Upgraded to 9oz at a year. Then 11oz — the max — when she decided she was serious about her intake. Same brand, same nipple feel, the whole way. The bottles are dishwasher-safe and they hold up. The nipples don’t degrade the way other brands do. I’m not even kidding — I’ve seen other bottle nipples that look like something from a creature feature. These hold.
On work trips, I pumped and sent milk home. These were the bottles waiting for her. That’s the review.
“When she wakes us on the head at 2am demanding a refill, they’re easy to find in the dark. They fit perfectly in her hands. That’s the whole review.”
Dr. Brown’s Gentle Pro Baby Formula
I’ve ordered this formula seven times. Seven. When we started incorporating formula around Emi’s first birthday, I tried a few options. This is the one we stayed with. Gentle on her stomach, she transitioned to it without drama, and it became the constant alongside her Tommee Tippees. If you’re in the formula era — or preparing for it — this is what we use.
Nursing & Supply
I want to say something here before we get into the products: keeping your milk supply going while traveling for work is one of the hardest logistical things I’ve done. You’re managing time zones, back-to-back meetings, keynotes, dinners — and you’re also pumping in hotel bathrooms and storing milk in mini-fridges that may or may not actually be cold enough. Everything in this section earned its place in that context.
Haakaa Manual Breast Pump with Base
This little silicone pump is not glamorous and it does not care. You attach it on the letdown side while nursing or pumping on the other, and it catches what would otherwise just — go. Over 13 months, I recovered probably gallons of milk I would have lost. It’s $21. It fits in any bag. It is one of the highest-return purchases on this entire page.
I bought a second one at four months postpartum because I didn’t want to be without it. That says everything.
Momcozy A1Pro Lactation Massager
If you’ve ever dealt with engorgement, clogged ducts, or the particular misery of trying to fully empty while stressed and rushing — this is the product. Heat plus vibration before and during pumping makes a real difference in output and comfort. I brought it on work trips. Discreet, effective, worth it.
Legendairy Milk Lechita
It worked. I want to say that first because my Amazon order history looks suspicious — I ordered it once, kept it, then cancelled five reorder attempts. The reorders were a shipping situation. I ended up buying directly from their website, which is where I’d send you anyway.
The honest truth about lactation supplements is that they work when everything else is also working — sleep (ha), hydration, stress levels, consistent feeding or pumping. When I was traveling and my supply started to dip, I reached for this. It helped. But I’ll also tell you: the most expensive thing in the whole nursing equation is keeping your own nervous system regulated. A stressed, depleted mom will not produce well regardless of what she’s taking. Take the supplement and also take the nap. Both.
Kindred Bravely Reusable Nursing Pads
Washable, soft, and they actually stay put. If you’re nursing or pumping through a work trip, bring these. The disposable alternatives get uncomfortable fast and the waste adds up. These come in a 10-pack and they wash well. Low glamour, high function — exactly what I needed on travel days.
Diapers & Skin
Pampers Swaddlers + Pampers Pure Protection
We use both, and that is intentional. Babies poop a lot. A stashy stash is not optional — it’s survival. We rotate between Swaddlers and Pure depending on what’s on sale, and here’s the tip nobody tells you: combine your Amazon Subscribe & Save with the Pampers app for compounded discounts. Stack them. Double them. Do not pay full price for diapers. I’m saying this as someone who has paid full price for diapers at 11pm at a CVS in a city I didn’t live in. Learn from me.
Both are genuinely good diapers. Emi’s skin is happy in both. We tried other brands. We did not stay with other brands. (More on that in Skip These.)
Aquaphor Baby Healing Ointment
There is a tub of this in my bathroom, one in the diaper bag, and one in the travel kit. It’s not exciting. It doesn’t need to be exciting. Diaper rash, dry skin, chapped face in winter, mystery irritation at 3am — Aquaphor handles it. It is the product I’d put on the list even if no one was paying me to put products on a list. Which, for the record, no one is. This page has affiliate links and full disclosure above, but nothing here is sponsored. Aquaphor is just good.
A+D Original Diaper Rash Ointment
If Aquaphor is the healer, A+D is the bodyguard. I use them for different things. A+D goes on at every diaper change as a barrier — a preventive coat so rash doesn’t start in the first place. Aquaphor comes in when something’s already happening and needs to calm down. They work as a system. I stopped thinking of them as either/or a long time ago.
The travel logic is simple: a baby in a wet diaper on a plane for three hours is a rash waiting to happen. A+D at the last change before boarding means you land without a problem. I learned this the way you learn most baby travel things — by not doing it once and dealing with the consequences.
There’s a tube in the diaper bag. There’s a tube at home. It costs almost nothing. Just put it on the list.
Mom, Too
I walked a theme park group at 10am. By 9pm I was walking into AdventHealth for my induction.
That sentence is the whole story of where my head was when Emilia arrived.
I was back to work by February. Not because anyone forced me — because work was my identity. My career was the thing I’d built, the thing I knew, the thing that didn’t cry at 3am. My boss — a mom herself, which I thought about more than once — started pinging me, and I responded. Because I always respond. That’s the overachiever tax. You train people to expect you available and then feel guilty when you’re not.
Chris — who is a lawyer and therefore professionally allergic to people not advocating for themselves — looked at what was happening and said: why is it always you. Take care of yourself.
He was right. I should’ve taken every single day.
You promote what you allow. First mistake. Won’t be the last. But I know better now.
My body paid the difference. When you run that hard through an entire pregnancy and then ask your postpartum self to just keep up — recovery is slower. Harder. Everything more resistant. I needed the products in this section more than I expected to.
Frida Mom Postpartum Recovery Kit
Get this before the baby comes. Seriously — have it ready. The kit has what you actually need in those first raw days: the peri bottle, the disposable underwear, the pads, the ice maxi pads. I ordered it in November, Emi arrived in December, and I was grateful it was already in the house. Don’t wait.
Belly Bandit C-Section Recovery Undies + Postpartum Sculpting Girdle
Emi came out the old-fashioned way — no incision, no surgery. But my body still needed support, and my mom made sure I knew it. Fajate, she told me. Para que no te cueste tanto regresar a tu figura. She said this with the full authority of a woman who wrapped her belly in lino fabric after each of her five pregnancies — I’m the last of five, so she had practice. She wasn’t asking.
When you’ve been running at full speed through your entire pregnancy and your body barely got a moment to prepare for the finish line — the recovery is harder. Everything is tighter, more resistant, slower to settle. The compression helped. The Belly Bandit undies first, the sculpting girdle a few weeks later. I sized up and down as my body kept changing.
If your mom is also telling you to fajarte — listen. She’s done this more times than you have.
Lululemon Align Leggings + Define Jacket
I’m not going to link to Lululemon on Amazon because honestly, go to their site or a store and try them properly. But I’ll tell you this: the Align leggings are what I wore through the last stretch of pregnancy, through early postpartum, and on the MCO to LAX flight with five-month-old Emi. They’re the most comfortable thing I own. The Define jacket is my travel-day uniform. Together they’re the outfit that says “I am a functioning adult who also has a baby on her lap” — and on a long travel day, that matters more than you think.
Gear Worth the Space
BabyBjörn Bouncer Bliss + Carrier Cover
The bouncer lives in our living room and — I’ll be honest — it has lived in hotel rooms too. We bought the transport bag specifically so we could bring it on longer stays. Emi has strong feelings about where she’ll sit. The BabyBjörn bouncer is one of about three places she’ll tolerate without negotiation. It’s lightweight, it folds flat, the transport bag makes it carry-on friendly, and the gentle bounce is self-propelled — she kicks and bounces herself, which she finds very satisfying and I find very useful when I need five minutes to be a person.
We spent about $250 total between the bouncer, the bag, and the toy attachment. Not a small purchase. Worth it for what it has given us in terms of functional, happy baby time.
Fisher-Price Soothe ‘n Snuggle Otter
The Otter doesn’t travel because of the sounds. It travels because Emi knows it.
It lives in our bed at home. When we pack, it comes with us — not as a sound machine, not as a snuggle toy exactly, but as something familiar in a room that isn’t hers. A face she recognizes when everything else is different. I don’t fully understand the logic of a five-month-old’s sense of comfort but I’ve watched it work enough times to stop questioning it.
(She also travels with Mr. Marshmallow — a gift from the most wonderful hostess at Pier 22 in Bradenton, FL. Incredible food, 10/10 service, and Emi now has a stuffed marshmallow as a travel companion. You can’t plan these things.)
Pack the familiar. Whatever that is for your baby — bring it.
BEBECAN Teething Sticks
These are the teething straws I mentioned in the diaper bag section — the clean ones live in the waterproof pouch of the Case-Mate so they stay separate from everything else. Soft silicone, six colors, easy to pack and easy to replace. When a baby is teething on a plane, you hand her a teething straw. That’s it. That’s the strategy. These are good ones.
Mommy’s Bliss Gripe Water
If you have a gassy, fussy, inconsolable newborn on a flight, you will want this in your bag. You will want it and you will not want to be the parent who didn’t bring it. It’s small. It works. Pack it.
Skip These
This section is the whole point of an honest review page. Anyone can tell you what’s good. Here’s what didn’t work for us.
Honest Company Diapers
We tried them. Emi’s skin was not happy. That’s not a knock on the brand — lots of babies do fine in them — but for our daughter, it was a firm no. We moved on quickly.
Designer / Premium Diapers
Chris, in a very loving gesture, once suggested we get Emi “an upgrade” in the diaper department. We tried a premium boutique brand. Her skin did not agree with the upgrade. Some things are not improved by spending more money on them. Diapers, for our family, is one of those things. Pampers and done.
Huggies Wipes
Not on this tushy. We use WaterWipes for sensitive skin situations and Pampers wipes otherwise. Huggies wipes were returned. Moving on.
The JetKids BedBox
I want to be fair here: the concept is great. It turns a coach seat into a flat surface so a toddler can lie down. In theory, genius. In practice — at least at the age and stage we used it — Emi had her own opinions about lying flat on an airplane and those opinions were loud. It’s a mid for us, not a skip for everyone. If you have an older toddler who actually sleeps on planes, this might be your hero product. We’re not there yet.
One More Thing
This page will keep growing. Chris has a whole Amazon account I haven’t fully raided yet — the Revolve360 lives there, and probably a few other things that quietly became essential without my realizing he’d ordered them. I’ll update as we keep traveling and as Emi keeps changing, because what works at four months is not what works at a year, and what works at a year won’t be what works at two.
We’re figuring it out. Each trip teaches us something. None of the versions of this — the solo traveler, the couple, the new mom on her first flight with a baby on her chest — none of them were less. They were just different.
Buen viaje. Pack the Aquaphor.
— Maii
Last updated: May 2026. This page is updated periodically as products change or our recommendations evolve.