TGflyergirl

Not me. According to my mum I was beamed down from an Alien Starship with 12 arms , a green hue, weighing 2 tons and it took me many surgeries before I started to resemble a human being.

I believe her. She's my mum.

ppp909

OK, I should have said closed headphones. They don't completely cancel out babies but closed headphones do a good job of removing high frequencies. If you're watching a film you can barely hear the baby. I've done this plenty of times over the years, choosing bulkheads in Y knowing fine well there may be babies.

When trying to sleep I'm more disturbed by snorers, who are more appropriate candidates for being banned from premium cabins, the sound of cutlery/crockery or the thump thump of cabin crew pacing up and down. Earplugs aren't good at attenuating low frequency noise.

Doesn't bother me enough to complain though. Unless you call this a complaint.

OldHigsonian

I have a lot of sympathy for people travelling with kids, It looks like hard work. However, there are some parents who seem to assume their problem is everyone's problem.

In January I watched as a mother and very young baby (a few months?) occupied the window seat on the front row of WT+. Along came the unsuspecting occupant of the aisle seat. He showed incredible patience as he helped the mother by getting stuff from the overhead, holding bags and at one point even holding the baby. It all came to a head when the baby vomited. Fortunately it mostly hit the mother and the plane and not him or his laptop.

Anyway, even though travelling with kids is hard work for the parents it doesn't mean the rest of us have to just smile and accept it. Yes, the consistent crying is disturbing me. Yes, I do just want to get on with my sleep, reading, working, whatever. No, I don't want to spend the whole flight pulling funny faces to entertain your child.

I don't mean they shouldn't be on the plane, just that it is OK for the rest of us not to be all smiley and understanding when it is having a negative impact on us.

bradders81

We just did F to BGI with our 17 month old.

On the way out, the crew and passengers were amazing, he made a little noise but we were able to placate him and get a solid four hours sleep.

Coming back however was not good. He was really suffering with the teething and pressure combination for the first 3.5 hours of the flight. I had a gentleman in 2A stand up, shake his head (whilst my wife was taking the child into the galley behind F) and then come down to my seat and take his hearing aids off in front of me before saying "this might make it better". He got told in no uncertain terms that we don't want the baby crying as we realise it's an inconvenience for everyone and we also don't like seeing our son upset so we're doing our best. I may have added a line that he and the majority of the hard faced blue rinse brigade are often worse with the way they carry on.

Luckily, we got him off shortly afterwards and the rest of the people in F were excellent.

JumboJet

Isn't he the King of the Tutters?

What goes around comes around.

stevie

This old debate again. I understand the view that once you pay your money the premium class should be a bastion of calm and elegance. My view is that it is a public transport mode and I am lumped in with a cross section of society. I bought very good noise cancelling head phones to preserve some calm, but completely accept people that snore, fart, cry, wail, etc etc.

For example coming back from HKG on a day flight on CX the person behind me snored so loudly, I could only think of how his wife lived with it. I turned up the volume and forgot about it. If a baby cries I look at the poor mother who feels the pressure.

Live and let live. By the way we were all kids at some stage.

HilFly

I hope your vacation was worth your child's suffering. I never quite understand the need to drag unhappy babies on long haul vacations.

stevie

This I agree with. I never brought my chaps outside of Europe as infants. In fact this weekend we go to Orlando on our first long haul and I am a little concerned with regards tiredness, not behaviour, even though they are 5 and 8.

Paralytic

Was that a recent trip?

bradders81

It was our honeymoon and yes, it was great for the three of us. Given he's 18 months old and that I work away a lot we don't really have much option other than to fly 5 hours + for some winter sun in the honeymoon timeframe.

There are circumstances to each story I guess but it doesn't really excuse the other pax conduct in any way in any case. As a parent, you don't want your kid crying and you spend your time trying to calm them and get them settled. It's one of those things.

ppp909

I took my daughter to Key West in January. She was six months old then and she loved every minute of it.

All babies go through teething. They just have to deal with it, as do the parents. You can keep them locked up and pump them full of paracetamol and ibuprofen or you can distract them so they don't notice the pain so much.

Whether you're on a plane or not, those teeth are still going to come through. And being outside, wandering around in a warm climate is always going to trump sitting on a mat banging some toys together.

If you can't deal with others on public transport, then don't take public transport, simple as that. I'm not a fan of kids on buses in the late afternoon so generally walk if I can.
If you can buy a plane ticket that guarantees silence then go for it.

bradders81

Well said. He really enjoyed the break and has benefitted from the experience in a lot of ways that we can see.