This may have been covered in a previous thread, but I could not find it. I have just completed the flight from hell seated in business class on an international flight (SWISS) between Zurich and Chicago with two lap infants (twins) seated in the middle two seats right next to me in business class on a 10-hour flight. Today's experience was SWISS (on a United code-share) but my outbound flight on United had a lap child in GF and I find that at least 70% of my flights in the last year in premium cabins have had at least one lap infant in the cabins. I am a mother who traveled extensively with children and love families in general. However, I paid extra today for a single seat with additional space in SWISS business and could not sleep or work because one of both of these babies cried or fussed loudly for at least 8 of the 10 hours of flying time. On a United flight from FRA-ORD in April of this year, a woman actually changed her toddler's diaper in the seat right next to me. This child as well, was noisy for the majority of the trip and I had an 18-hour turnaround before I headed out to China and needed to sleep on this particular trip.

My reason for writing is not to complain but to ask what is the appropriate way to handle these situations. I could not sleep or work for a 10-hour flight because of these twin infants. The parents, while attentive, made no attempt to apologize to those around them, and just seemed to feel that their infants' behavior was to be tolerated by the entire business class cabin. They even walked their infants to the area between the business and first cabins and let them cry and affect the first class passengers.

I personally think that lap children should not be tolerated in premium cabins-they should be required to have their own purchased seats so as not to infringe upon customers who have paid substantial amounts of money to be able to work or sleep. If anyone has experienced a similar experience, please tell me how you have handled it. I travel internationally very frequently, and it seems that at least 70-80% of these flights have an infant--it is not infrequent, and this is the problem. If it were only occasionally, I would manage, but it is not. I really need to sleep on these flights. Today I put on ear phones and tried to sleep with a pillow over my head. I could not extinguish the sounds of the crying.

Please share your ideas on how to handle this when it (inevitably) occurs again.