Traveling with a Baby: Going Through Security Checks

Our Adventuring Akiva is now 7 months old and has taken 7 flights.  That should make me a qualified expert on going through airports with a baby.  One thing you will experience when traveling with a baby, especially if you are traveling by air, is the security checks you will have to go through.

I find that actually traveling with an infant has some perks.  In Sydney International Airport today, we encountered an exceptionally long line waiting to go through security.  We bypassed it all and were put in a special line for people with infants or with disabilities.  We did not have to wait in the long line holding an overactive infant.

Usually, people are happy to see a baby, especially if the baby is not crying.   Suddenly the security guards cease to be “guards” and just become “people” – they smile at the baby and will coo at him just like anybody else!  It’s really nice.   And if your baby is crying, usually people will look at you with sympathy and understanding (remember, many of them are parents, too!), and will treat you with kindness as a result.  This came as something of a surprise to me because I expected a crying baby to be greeted with annoyance, but that has not been my experience at all!

Generally, security are very understanding and supportive.  They will help you with the baby, almost always supplying you with a portable “change table” style bed to lay the baby on while you fiddle with your other belongings.  This is incredibly helpful, especially if you can convince someone, whether security guard or fellow passenger, to play with the baby while you get your other belongings in order.

Of course, going through security is still something of an inconvenience, no matter how you look at it.  This is again especially true when you are traveling with a baby.  Often when I travel with a baby, I put him in a carrier (like a Baby Bjorn) or a sling just to make things easier.  In small airports with few people going through security, the security guards will sometimes be very understanding and let you just “wear” the baby through the metal detector, especially if it’s a simple sling made only of fabric.  On the other hand, if you are going through a busy line, are in a big airport, or are traveling internationally, the security guards will be apologetic yet strict.  You must remove the baby and the carrier, sending the carrier through the scanner and carrying the baby in your hands through the metal detector.

If you are traveling with a stroller, you must remove the infant (and anything else that may be hiding underneath the pram or in its pockets), fold up the stroller, and put it through the X-ray machine, while carrying your baby through security.

As for baby food, I have had security ask me before about food for the baby.  When Akiva was very young (he first flew at age 2 months), I brought bottles of expressed milk for him.  Security never said a thing about them; they did not even check to see if they were more than 100 mL (they probably were).  On today’s flight, security asked me if I had baby food for him.  I make my own baby food, so I simply brought “solid” foods for him, like red lentils and roasted pumpkin and sweet potato.  These foods are “solid” enough not to be considered “liquid” (like a puree), yet are soft enough that I can mash them up on the plane for Akiva to eat.  It’s the perfect solution, plus it keeps me in line with my person desire not to feed Akiva premade or processed baby foods.

So I did not find going through security with an infant that difficult at all! Security guards love babies just like everybody else and more often than not they understand how challenging it can be to travel with a baby, so they try to help you out as much as possible.

Happy travels!