So providing the borders stay open I will be traveling from the Midwest to London over the holidays with my almost 2 year old (we return the day before his second birthday). I will be traveling alone with my almost 2 year old. I have booked two economy tickets for us, as the idea of having an almost 2 year old on my lap on an overnight flight for 8+ hours sounds absolutely horrendous (unless we move into business class, which I’m still debating, although I think it’s the less safe option as he’d need to be a lap baby). The seats on the long-haul section of the plane are 3-3-3. So unless we get lucky we will have a stranger as a seat mate. So now I am debating if it would be better to bring my kiddos car seat or use the CARES harness. I had originally just planned to use the CARES harness.

While I’m not thrilled about the idea of dragging a car seat through the airport (especially during our 3+ hour layover), I think my kiddo would likely be more comfortable and may sleep better. The con of the car seat is that he would have go in the window seat, which would put me on the middle, and it would mean we would be disturbing our seat mate for aisle access (it might only be a couple of times during the flight, but it could be far more depending on well my kid sleeps). The other option is the CARES harness, which could go in the middle seat giving me the aisle seat. This would give us as much access as needed to the aisle, but I’m not sure how comfortable it would be. So I was wondering what would you recommend?

I will not need a car seat at my destination.