I completely agree. Maybe Eclipsepearl was simply talking about parents overusing the ear pain explanation (like the mom at cruising altitude, when the baby's ears should have been fine).

To be clear, ear pressure is a serious thing. We flew a lot when I was a kid and I had very sensitive ears (had to get tubes put in when I was 4 or 5). Take-off was rarely a problem, but if I was the least bit stuffy (forget ear infections, I'm just talking about the sniffles) my ears hurt horribly on descent. This lasted until I was a teenager. I vividly remember a multi-stop 737 flight in Alaska (ANC-FAI-SCC-BRW) from when I was 11 that was particularly bad--I was doing everything I could to keep from crying each time we descended.

My parents almost always gave me decongestants and made sure I had chewing gum for the descent (I don't remember flights from before I was old enough to chew gum). And on one flight a helpful FA introduced us to the concept of "hot cups," where you put a napkin soaked in hot water from the galley into the bottom of a cup and hold that over your ear. It may have been a placebo, but it sure seemed to help, and in later years my parents found some reusable "instant-hot" earpads they could keep in the bag of toys and whatnot for when my little sisters had ear problems on flights and the FAs unable to make us "hot cups." Sadly I haven't seen those for sale for years.

So yeah, I wouldn't wake up a sleeping baby to force her to drink. And I wouldn't withhold liquids if the kid is thirsty before flight. But if you can time your feedings to coincide with takeoff (don't start at taxi, as you can taxi forever--wait for the final roll on the takeoff runway), and then time another to coincide with the last 15 minutes of descent, it can help a lot. And even if you can't time the feedings like that, having an extra bottle or pacifier handy (even if the kid doesn't usually use bottles or pacifiers) can be very key for calming a baby whose ears hurt.