It is indeed what babies do, although I have sat in a longhaul premium cabin and seen parents (plural) travelling with one young child literally both ignore it for 10h, much of which it was crying for, whilst sat watching movies with their matching noise cancelling headphones on.

At which even amongst other parents in the cabin all understanding they might have had had pretty much evaporated. People want to engage in that style of hands off, 'don't give him an audience / don't turn it into a game and he'll eventually get bored / knackered' style of parenting then fine but please consider leaving it at the gate for a few hours.

But when I see other parents clearly making whatever efforts they are able to make to keep their kids busy, fed, as quiet as is reasonably possible (words very carefully chosen here) then I have no problem. I have even offered to help / played seat peekaboo etc quite happily.

It's not the noise that stresses me out personally - it's the anger I get from the parents who don't give a damn, and the disempowerment that it causes. I don't think I am alone in this (and I am a parent of a toddler fwiw).

Anyway back on topic and I agree - my experiences of the BA treat kids have been almost uniformly positive.