injera

Taking our 6 month old son on his first flight in a couple weeks (LGA<-->RSW on Delta). He's a pretty calm/mild-mannered baby but i'm sure the 3 hour flight plus general airport experience will be a challenge.

We have booked 8am Saturday flights in both directions as he tends to nap better early in the morning as opposed to mid-afternoon and will be bringing our 'carrier' so that my wife can 'wear' him during some of the flight. We will bring some toys, a bottle and she's prepared to nurse him on the flight. We have economy comfort seats to give us a little more space. A cousin/babysitter is traveling with us to help during our trip.

Any other thoughts/suggestions on ways to help keep him calm through his first flight? Any thoughts/suggestions on dealing with other passengers on baby's first flight? (we will do the best we can to keep him calm, but lets face it, 4 hours on a CRJ700, he's going to cry at least once - most of us cry on those planes as adults).

Thanks.

CitizenWorld

Make a proactive effort to calm the child, apologise to your neighbour if there are prolonged disruptions. That's about all you can do and as a fellow passenger, I'd be understanding and appreciative. If you're not a parent who ignores their children on aircraft most people won't take issue with a little crying.

injera

I'll have a handful of free drink tickets with me. We're in 5C, 5D and 6C so will be happy to buy 6D all the cocktails he wants at 8am. 4C/D is F.

Admittedly i dont believe in the 'bring bags of candy and ear plugs for the entire plane' approach but am happy to take care of whomever is next to us.

cyclogenesis

My wife breastfed our daughter (then three months) on take off for her first flight.. Fell asleep before the wheels left the tarmac.. I would suggest giving the bottle on take off.. helps calm and the little ears to equalize..

Otherwise just remember travel with an infant is a slower paced thing, take it easy, relax a bit more and don't be in a hurry.. Make memories!

Badenoch

If your child is disruptive take an action that shows you are at least trying to resolve the problem even if it doesn't work. Noisy children are part of travel and I can't blame the child. What does bug me is when parents don't seem to give a damn and let the child howl away.

MSPeconomist

Assuming that this is a DL CRJ-700, IIRC they're all 9 FC in three rows so that row four should be the first row of coach. OTOH the CRJ-900 has 12 FC in the first four rows.

Check out the advice in the Travel with Children forum on FT.

Jaimito Cartero

I tried that on my last flight, but my wife kept hitting me.

obscure2k

Please continue to fellow this thread in The travel With Children Forum
Thanks,
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

injera

(sorry, was unaware that forum existed here)

PWMTrav

You can check some of my older blog posts if you'd like, but the cliff notes are:

* Book according to your child's schedule - not necessarily sleep, but when they're calm vs active. For us, that used to be early mornings and evenings, but never the middle of the day!

* Bring a bag of distractions

* If you're bottle feeding, have your quickest means of deployment ready (if formula, I have a post on a good way to deal with TSA while carrying through baby formula - I think it's against the rules for me to link to it, but check my sig)

* If you bought your child a seat, practice installing it with the seatbelt only once or twice. It's not hard, but if you've literally never done it (as I hadn't) because you have a snap in base for the car, it takes a second to acclimate.

* Great move on economy comfort. The extra space makes a difference when you're constantly reaching for stuff!

rjque

This just makes me laugh. If we were talking about a three year old, that would be one thing, but a crying six month old is totally different. The parents should do what they know to work to try and comfort the infant rather than worrying whether what they are doing is obvious enough to satiate people like this poster.

rjque

You are far better prepared than most parents who fly with their infants. I don't have anything to add other than to say congratulations on being so well prepared!

heraclitus

Morning flight with a 6 month old should not be a huge problem. Crying once or twice is normal for a baby that age and is nothing to really apologize for, let alone hand out drink chits. In my experience my son really only melted down on planes toward the end of the day when he was tired and wanted to be asleep in his crib... relatively speaking, it was a breeze at that age and that hour of the day.

Generally sounds like you're really well prepared, though. Bring more diapers and food than you'll think you need... my son's first flight was at 4 months and he ended up having (of course) several BMs that day, well above his usual average.

injera

And thats a lot of my concern. I think a lot of people without kids automatically assume that a parent is ignoring their child if he/she is crying and they aren't doing fifty things to try and calm him down (admittedly i used to think the same way). My son doesnt cry that much, but when he does i've found that usually he stops on his own in a couple of minutes and that there are better, more subtle ways to get him to stop than by picking up him and making a big obvious gesture that i'm trying to calm him down.

Plus sometimes he's just really tired and will whine/fuss regardless until he gets a good night sleep.

Letting a 4 year old run and scream through the aisles is a little different than a six month old getting tired and scared in a new environment w/ different air pressure.

I'm just trying to avoid being chastized/scolded/glared at when (not if) he cries. Then again, if you really can't stand to be around babies and children - you probably shouldn't be flying a Saturday morning flight NYC to Florida.

Badenoch

Unlike you the OP actually does care about what people around her think to the point of bringing free drink chits to make amends should the child cry.

Your advice is not to worry what anyone else thinks.

I wouldn't accept the chit but I appreciate her efforts. Yours not so much.

She sounds like the type parent I'd be delighted to sit beside. You not so much.