There are oxygen masks at the Flight Attendant jumpseat so I've never heard of needing an extra one. There are also a few in the aisles and in the lavs. I worked for two companies and I never heard of lap babies not being allowed in certain rows because of O2 masks.

You also CAN have lap babies across the aisle from each other, not in the same row (with a few very rare exceptions).

The vests are a non-issue because children's life vests are distributed separately on over water flights.

I don't think the gate agents intentionally "lie" but they may get mixed up, especially if they work for multiple companies. Even worse when they used to work for someone else (experience speaking!)

They have to learn a lot in training and sometimes it gets jumbled up. When under-2's are not lap children, sometimes they get confused. I used to have to tell them "not a lap child. He has his own seat..." multiple times.

When you have an altercation with any airline person, stop before it gets heated and ask for a supervisor. In the air, ask for the Purser. If you're on the aircraft, but still at the gate, direct any seating questions to the ground staff and other details, like special meals, to the crew on board.

Some people might recommend that you ask for it "in writing" but this can get tricky. On board, the crew each has a manual (and it has to be updated regularly and if not, they can be fined by the FAA) which should have information on oxygen masks, etc. But looking things up can be time consuming, especially during boarding. They can label you "uncooperative" and offload you, so it's a risk.

For those of you who fly U.S. airlines and travel with car seats, you may want to look at and print up this document;

http://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/m...%20120-87B.pdf

You can also print up whatever is on the airlines' site (any nationality).

I recommend that if you can't find the information you're looking for, email the airline. Don't call. They can say anything over the phone. Print up the response and take it to the airport with you, in case of a problem.

If things do go wrong, let them "win" but write them up. Get their name, ideally but trust me, they'll track them down with the time, date and flight number if they need to.

Don't tell them what to do with the employee (i.e. punishment, firing, etc.) but stress what exactly they did and said. Do not quote unless you are completely sure of the exact wording they used (they can claim they didn't say that). One person messed up by quoting me with wording we don't use in the airline industry (she made most of it up).

Go ahead and tell them how it made you feel and other remarks like "We paid for a seat to travel safely with our child and this employee was not letting us..."