Affiliate links included at no cost to you. As always, my experiences and thoughts are my own.

A few weeks ago we took our maiden plane voyage as parents, with the little one in tow (I actually had some of my students at work ask if the baby would be joining us for the 2 week trip or not…). Anyway, when you are traveling by air with an infant, you are allowed to carry her in your lap free of charge. You are also welcome to purchase a seat for the child and simply put your car seat in the chair. I had better things to do with that $350, and frankly, if the plane was going to crash, the fact that my child would be in a car seat wouldn’t really be making much of a difference, I’m afraid. So Darah was going to be in my lap for the trip.

The problem with this, of course, is that I then really and truly would have to hold her for several hours (we had 2 flights; one was 1 1/2 hours long and the other was 3 hours long). Darah isn’t a crawler yet, but she is a squirmy worm. I knew this was going to be very challenging.

Then I learned about a really cool product designed just for families in the same predicament. Let me introduce you to FlyeBaby, created by a really cool mom named Kadie Flye (seriously, Flye is her last name!). From the website, “FlyeBaby is a portable, hammock-style, fabric seat that folds up and easily fits in a diaper bag. It creates a comfortable, secure place to put your baby on an airplane, at home, at a restaurant or at the beach or pool. It is machine washable and comes with a matching fabric storage bag.”

The FlyeBaby was such a great thing for us to have on the trip. Darah actually slept for a majority of the time on the planes, and I attribute that to pure luck. When she wasn’t sleeping, however, she really wanted to play. At this age, playing to her involves having face time with mom and dad. The FlyeBaby gave us a way to comfortably put Darah right in front of us so that we could read to her, sing songs and make faces, all hands-free! I think this is a large part of the reason why this little one did not cry one bit on the plane. She was comfortable the whole time, and we were definitely more comfortable traveling by air with an infant with her having her own seat, so to speak.

I’m sure we’ll fly with Darah again before she turns two, but maybe only one or two more times. If you don’t fly that often, you may be wondering if this product is worth buying. It most definitely is, and I’ll tell you why: it has also been designed to hold your baby in a lounge or beach chair, as well as in an armless chair. This makes it a terrific thing to take along with you to the homes of others without having to lug around your high chair or your bouncer. Awesome! I know that we will be using our FlyeBaby frequently until Darah outgrows it (which will be around 25 pounds).

Buy it!
This is one invention that parents can get a lot of use out of as their baby grows. Pick one up for yourself at Amazon!

EDIT: This giveaway is closed. Congratulations to #69!

Win it!
One very lucky Stuff Parents Need reader is going to win their very own FlyeBaby in the print of your choice (choices are Jungle, Retro-Mod, or Grey) (a $49.99 value)! This contest will run until January 16th at 7:59pm CST when a winner will be selected via random.org. The winner will have 48 hours to respond to the winning notification email before a new winner will be selected. Open to residents of the United States.

How to Enter

Mandatory Entry:Tell me the first place you would take the flyebaby if you won (on a plane, to someone’s house, etc.)

Additional Entries:
1. Follow my blog via Google Friend Connect
2. Subscribe to my blog via RSS or email
3. Add my button to your blog (2 entries, so leave 2 comments and leave a url to your site)
4. Join the FlyeBaby group on facebook
4. Make a FlyeBaby purchase (5 entries, so leave 5 comments and include the email address you used when purchasing)

I received a complimentary product for review purposes. The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.