GreenTrees

Congrats-
My husband and I have a now 6 month old. We buy tickets for him. He's now gold and started flying mid-May, with upcoming AZ, HI, & CA trips.

A few practical tips/experiences:
-I always pack 6 full bottles; you never know what delays will occur (ahem, IDBed from confirmed 1st).
-We've always been upgraded except for a last minute trip, and I always get the 'look' from someone in 1st. I tried to be cognizant of LO's needs and respectful. Generally, people are complimenting his behavior by the end of the flight.
-Know how your stroller works by practicing in advance and utilize to your advantage for hauling all the stuff. We have the UPPAbaby Vista and have never had an issue with it getting weighed.
-Given seating issues, try to work in advance to get your seats together, particularly with upgrades. Some agents are super helpful, others not at all (Admirals Club rep who suggested I ask another passenger to watch the baby since we weren't seated together and also told me it was "illegal" for him to change someone's seat). Some will suggest just switching on the plane, and I normally suggest that will likely slow down the boarding process. That normally works.
-We've had to change seats on the 737-800 from the bulkhead in 1st, because the seat belts have padding that won't work with car seat.
-It's clearly not common for babies to have a seat, and I usually have to tell check-in agents several times that my son has a seat. Multiple times they've tried to make him a lap child.
-Never had a FA ask to see the approved label until we flew home on Trans States (LGA-CMH). She absolutely insisted on seeing the label even though LO was sleeping, and it's located on the underside.
-Admirals Club membership is always nice for finding a corner to let the LO stretch/play and for diaper changing.

As an aside: flying to FL on first trip and US FA said in all of her years flying she couldn't recall a baby with its own seat in 1st. :-:

ilovetofly

Congrats and thanks for the timely thread as we have 5 months old twins. I know how you feel as we are preparing for their first flight in October and have been doing research and reading a lot. We simply refuse to let them slow down our air travel. LOL.

Good luck to OP and safe travel.

Exec_Plat

When our kids were bigger- 2 month olds you cannot do much- but say 6m to a 5,6 years, we would have a stock of new, never-before-seen toys for them in our bags. A new toy, book, game, whatever will almost always command some attention and/or deflect some behavior. Anywhere for one or two for a short trip down to LA, up to half a dozen across the country.

ilovetofly

That is a great suggestion. We have those waiting in the house and will bring them on board!

GalleyWench

For those commenting on lap children and O2 masks, there are procedures already put into place. On most mainline a/c there is an extra mask in every row. Being that there's only one extra mask that means that if the row is fully occupied then you can't have more than one lap child in it. This is usually only a problem with people traveling with twins or 2 kids under 2 years of age. Simple solution is to book aisles across from each other so at least you're still close to each other.

r415

This is what all airlines should do (at least, if they're going to allow lap children), that's why I find Mesa's behavior puzzling.

For those who think having enough oxygen masks for every passenger is not important, then why bother at all? Why not just have one mask per row, if it's not that critical? Do Mesa flights simply never go high enough for it to matter?

ashill

If you think you can get an empty seat next to you in coach, you can put the car seat in the empty seat which beats the upgrade (both from a safety and comfort point of view). AS blocks the seat next to lap infants, so we have a ~3/4 success rate getting an empty seat when traveling with a lap infant on AS. I don't think AA puts infant blocks on the seat, but it's always something to ask the check-in and gate agents about (of course politely and with the understanding that you paid for two seats and expect two seats, not three).

Three months old is a great age to travel with the kiddo! In about a three week span at that age, we did SYD-AKL-SYD, SYD-LAX-DCA, DCA-SEA, SEA-BOS, then MSN-MSP-LAX-SYD. All no trouble at all. The flight attendants tend to go out of their way to be helpful, perhaps especially to a dad who's walking with the kiddo in back.

It's still not at all bad traveling with the kiddo at 1.5 years, but not nearly as easy since she wants to walk up and down the aisle and is too independent to be content to be held for long stretches.

Congratulations and enjoy!

ashill

I seriously doubt that Mesa will allow a lap infant to travel in a seat pair with only two masks. We've been moved around on regional jets to be on the side with the extra mask, including a gate agent involuntarily moving others out of the seats that have the extra mask. (Of course, that's not a big deal, since all seats are equally bad on a CRJ. We had no way of knowing that our chosen seats didn't have the extra masks. We had chosen the seats before the lap infant was in the reservation, IIRC.)

Perhaps Kate2015 meant that Mesa will let you sit on the AB side with a lap infant if there's only one adult on the AB side (so there are two passengers and two masks)?

Exec_Plat

Until you know what Mesa's policy is for oxygen distribution and infant procedures, why post a diatribe on 'risking childrens' lives'?

There may be an extra mask on the other side, or bottled oxygen or..or..or.

It beggars belief that FAA would allow a situation where kids will die...and that the 'solution' is not to fly that airline- or to imply that people are bad parents for flying mesa.

BrianV

Thanks to all, my wife poured over the advice and has planned around it.

Today is the big day. My upgrade cleared, but there was an issue with my wife's upgrade being dropped when the agent added the birthdate of the lap child. I called this morning, and they were able to re-enter the original June 2nd request date. Given that I cleared at 1am and requested at the same time, I suppose she's next in line. There are at least 4 seats for sale (and more available via seat map) per the agent. Now we're just waiting it out.

Hopefully it's a non-affair as we're a little anxious. Within the past week he has developed a new skill in screaming at new frequencies, let's hope nobody on the flight experiences what we call, "the pterodactyl scream".

GreenTrees

One more thing-- I didn't know the particular item existed/nor was I willing to inquire about trinkets for kids. Yesterday, an AMAZING crew (praise sent in already), was somewhat surprised we didn't have a Junior Aviator Logbook. It's cute, and ours would have needed an expansion pack already had we known about it from the start.

Has destination maps and plane types listed, too.

BrianV

Is this something the FA's carry?

GreenTrees

Not sure how widely circulated these are. These were old school mainline AA FAs, and they clearly believed in being there for the customer^. I can't imagine Envoy/US Airways Express FAs would have them.

Mark_T

That's not 'padding' it is an air-bag.

You must use an extender with those seats if you do want to use a car seat as it disables the air-bag.

BrianV

I'm on a mainline 737-8 today, not necessarily an old legacy route, nor does the route usually have the most seasoned FAs (and by seasoned, I mean tenure), but they do generally have good service and professional FAs.