I flew lately with my 3-month old. I thought about bringing several sets of earplugs for my neighboring passengers just in case. I didn't have the chance to go buy them, though, and thankfully I didn't need them.

I DID, however, offer to buy dinner and drinks for the person in front of my son since they couldn't recline due to his car seat. They were grateful for the offer but declined.

I also offered to buy a drink for my seatmate, but he thanked me and just had juice.

Since I was going to Vegas, I also broke the ice by telling my seatmate that he won the jackpot already even though we weren't even in Vegas yet! (The "jackpot" being the luck of the draw to sit with me and my three-month old, of course!) He laughed.

I know he was a little uneasy the first few minutes, but he was very nice to me, and I took time to thank him at the end of the flight for being understanding during those few minutes pre-taxiing that my son was fussy. (The aircraft was hot and the AC hadn't been turned on yet. Once it cooled off, he stopped fussing.) I even went so far as to tell him that I really appreciated his pleasant disposition because it was my first flight with my son and it would have added a lot of stress to me if he was mean about sitting with us. I hope that made him feel good about himself, too, because of a good deed done.

I sincerely think that a lot of people are appreciative if the parents even bother to acknowledge that it could possibly be annoying to everyone else. I think if your baby melts down, just looking to the neighbors and saying "sorry, I'll try to get him back under control as soon as I can" would go a long way. I think it's the parents who pretend nothing is happening or tune out themselves who really are the ones who tick other people off (and give us GOOD traveling parents a bad name).