Bribes for surrounding passengers
 

Here's a creative idea for flying with little ones. I don't know how effective it would be, though.

I am so using that.

How cute! It also tells surrounding passengers that here are parents who are going to try to teach their child manners and consideration for others. ;)

Cash, vodka or a DS Lite would work equally for me ^

Nice idea. Anything to break the ice is good in my book.

It's a cute idea, but not something I would require. All I want is for people to do their best taking care of their children. Make them wear headphones when they are watching the same DVD for five hours. Keep them from kicking my seat. Don't let them play with the tray table. It's good if you don't think it's cute when they dump juice on the seat next to them. Bring supplies to keep them busy during the flight. Realize that as a parent, you can't just tune out, drink and doze with your headphones on while your child need you. Your days of relaxing flights may be over for a while.

Let me try and "enjoy" mine. I understand the difficulties of flying with children and will not give you the evil eye when you board! Just do your best.

why not spend the money on stuff to keep the child amused, I would be thoroughly creeped out by something like this, I dont need to know any of it,

I'd love to know whether this is worth it or not. I think the earplugs are more thoughtful than the cookies but I get the point of the cookies or a treat or whatever.

How many neighbors would get this? Just those immediately surrounding us?

We never fly with the kids but absolutely have to in a few weeks. We're dreading it and will do everything we can to keep them quiet - but something like this might help. Or is it just silly? Will people pelt us with those cookies when the baby starts crying?

More opinions, please.

I've never been pelted with cookies;)

Seriously, if you keep your kids happy, occupied; ensure they don't kick the seat in front of them, throw their food, drink, toy, etc. I think you'll be fine. I enforced a plane, airline club, hotel executive club et al as "fuss free zones". She's not allowed to act up, use anything but an indoor voice, etc. if she wants to stay there. It's worked for us.

Don't dread it; relax and enjoy the trip. We've stopped bringing the car seat for baglady jr. and instead bought her a pillow (she picked it out and carries it) that helps her to sleep since we have some late night flights on occasion. I bring her favorite snacks; a new toy or activity; her leapster game system (with headphones); dvd player; dvds (again, with headphones); an art kit; some little toys, a blanket and whatever her favorite plush toy is of the day. Also, she likes to have her shoes and socks off in order to get comfy; so I do that after we're settled in. It works for us. Enjoy your trip and if nothing else; don't stress :)

IMO, it's kind of silly. People just want you to pay attention to your kids; cookies are not required. I don't even eat them, and I have my own earphones/plugs. Just make sure your kids have plenty to keep them occupied and realize you may spend your entire flight helping keep them entertained. I don't know how old your kids are, but workbooks, coloring books, post-it-notes, ipods, books, etc. are fun for mine.

If your baby cries, yes some people will be annoyed, may shoot you dirty looks or even make rude comments. Just ignore them; obviously they were never children themselves or never had any! Do the best you can.

It probably will work out fine.

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).

I don't usually venture into this forum, but I saw the thread title under New Posts and you are looking for opinions.

First, thank you for flying with your infant only when it's an absolute necessity and thank you, too, for being concerned for the other passengers.

I'd suggest this:

1. Do your best to keep your child occupied and content. If you're doing that and other passengers aren't happy with your best efforts, well, too bad on them -- you have to fly with your child, so that's that. I don't appreciate people who engage in discretionary travel with young children. However, I completely understand that, sometimes, air travel with kids is unavoidable (I'm thinking, for example, of a flight from HKG to LAX that had a group of parents bringing home adopted babies -- I didn't like the commotion, but what else could they do? Swim? It was unpleasant, yes, but obviously unavoidable.)

2. I wouldn't do the cookie and earplug bit. If, and only if, your child becomes inconsolable for an extended period of time, a short apology and, if you feel it's appropriate, a brief explanation that you had no other option but to fly, should be more than enough. The advance "bribe" sounds too much like, "in exchange for this cookie, I'm going to make your life miserable, and in case you don't like it -- here are earplugs." I would not react well to that. I would react far better to someone saying, "I'm terribly sorry -- we usually don't fly with her, but we had no choice this time." In such instance you'd get my cooperation and even assistance.

3. At least speaking for myself, if you feel really, really guilty, I'm always open to the offer of an alcoholic drink. ;)

Again, thank you for your consideration, and good luck with the flight. I hope you're all flying for something good and happy!

OK! This is great! Thanks so much!

We chose the last two rows in coach - no one will have to be right next to us. We will offer to buy drinks and I will do whatever I can to keep the 9 month old quiet. But I'm still terrified. I just know that she makes noise even when she's happy in her own home.

When I was childfree I handed out my fair share of disapproving looks so I know I have bad plane karma coming back my way.

We've talked about driving but I guess it takes a week to drive from Chicago to California. I've looked into trains and even buses - we just don't have a choice.

If you are going ORD-SJC in June and you are on our flight - I'm truly sorry.

+1
If you stress out, kids will pick up on that and it'll be all over for you.


Here's to hoping karma doesn't bite you in the butt too badly! :D

MrsJonesing just got back from driving CO-DE with the kids....by herself. The trip back was okay because she brought back a friend who came to visit. Took two overnight stays each way. She said if she ever thought about doing it again then (a) shoot her and (b) if she lived then it would have to be 3 overnights because the 7+ hours of driving each day with a baby and toddler was too much. Trains aren't much better. Had family come out by train and there were way too many delays.

OMG! I don't know why I never thought of this, but that's brilliant - next time we fly with the kid on UA, I'll hand out all those drink coupons I never use.... ^