Originally Posted by
ftweb
Theoretically adding the lap child at or near the time of reservation should make it less likely for you to lose your seats for invalid assignment. In practice, this doesn't seem to work. For instance, I've flown with a lap child only to find myself seated next to someone else with a lap child, which is not allowed since there's only one extra oxygen mask per row. You'd think the computers could have noticed this and prevented it, but instead the FAs had to force somebody else to switch with my neighbor.
As I said upthread, seems to me that aside from exit rows being blocked, seat assignments are done per normal, as if any seat is eligible for passenger with a lap infant, and any seat issues are sorted out by the GA based on aircraft.
In my first couple of trips with the baby, had issues because I didn't know the restrictions, so there was some shuffling needed - but thanks to my home airport being a UAX-only station, and them flying in pretty much every UAX plane type (CR2, CR7, E70, E75), I know where to sit in what aircraft and when the gate agents call up for infants, I simply go up, let them know that I know I'm in a good seat, and leave it at that.