Our experience has been very different from yours. We've carried a sleeping child onto a plane , gotten him strapped into his safety seat still asleep and had him woken up by an FA who wanted to lecture us on his behavior. (Northwest)

On American we've encountered FA's who refused to serve him a beverage until after EVERY adult on the flight was served, even though he had been sitting quietly and patiently in his seat the whole flight.

On KLM I had an FA give a 10+ minute diatribe in the aisle next to my seat about how much she hated having kids on "her" planes - again, my son had been sleeping almost the entire time since boarding.

On every airline there are good FA's and bad FA's. I see the problem arising from the fact that civility seems to have vanished from air travel for the most part, and the airlines (for fear of liability or whatever) no longer are willing to acknowledge or discipline inappropriate behavior on the part of their employees. (refer to thread on "child assaulted on delta")