MCOFlyer

Pretty common, sadly. My favorite was at Boston Market, where Mommy Piggy was changing baby's brown mess on a table right across the rail from the food counter. The woman in front of me was going ballistic because the manager (who she must have called over just before I got there) shrugged and refused to make Mommy Piggy stop. He said "The stuff we wipe the tables with will kill any bacteria." Yeah, but it's a little unappetizing to see/smell that while picking up your food. The woman stormed out, leaving her order and vowing to call their 800 number. I called too and actually got the same agent the original woman talked to but I didn't get the impression they cared any more than the manager did. Never went to that Boston Market again.

marisky23

I'll have to agree with the other poster's description of what a diaper can and cannot hold. While they are filled with superabsorbent polymer, there is a limit to the liquid that can be absorbed. Also, many poopy diapers result in what all parents call a blowout. A poopy diaper that is contained can become a minor blowout if the child moves the wrong way and/or pees on top of it. The poop is not absorbed but stays on the surface and can prevent the pee from being absorbed properly. Also, a poopy diaper smells almost as bad a one that is being changed in the open only the smell keeps on going.

The first time I flew with my 3 month old son, the UA flights did not have a changing table. He was not that large but it was still difficult to change him on top of the toilet seat lid with a changing pad underneath him. on top of that the lavatory was gross and I was risking exposing him to everyone else's bodily fluids. Its difficult for many men/women to pee in a toilet on the ground imagine in air with turbulence/vibrations.

The FA actually told me to change my son in the seat between my huband and me. We chose to take him to the lavatory since he was poopy, but it was a tricky maneuver. I can't imagine it now that he's older and much squirmier.
I do think it would be wrong to change any baby in the seat without a pad to protect the seat. Also, changing a baby at the dinner table in a restaurant is a no non in my book. We have changed a pee diaper in the boarding area but that is because my little guy is afraid of public toilets flushing.

CDTraveler

The words you are looking for are "enterovirus" and "giardia" - both can be transmitted in stool from a person with no symptoms of disease. Trace of poop on the tray table, you're the next pax in the seat, your snack/glass on the tray table, you touch the table as you pick up your snack, and cooties down your throat/playing on your mucus membranes.

1worldtrader

Flying from LAX to YVR last July with my family, kid behind us obviously needs a change (the whole damn cabin reeked) and mother refused to do it. She was pretending she did not smell it. The whole last hour of the flight we had to deal with that smell. Finally, once we landed, she decides to change the kid right there on the seat.

Unbelievably classless.

Tinman

After a diaper change in the lavatory. Is it ok to just put it in the lavatory trash as is? Put in plastic bag?

Efrem

Since the lav trash itself already goes into a strong plastic bag, from a sanitation point of view I don't think it matters. I'd say it would depend on the potential of that particular diaper to cause offensive odors while unwrapped. If it could, wrap it.

(Thinking back to my own long-gone diaper-changing days, nearly all of the ones we felt a need to change would have been in the wrap-it category.)

jonu

In this situation, IF there were no changing table in the lav, what should one do? Wait or change on the seat? Not sure there are always good options here...
(Responding to this old post now that the thread has been revived...)

tkey75

I know it's rude to answer a question with a question, but what would you do if there was no empty seat? The floor? The galley? how about the closed toilet in the lav. Ask the FA for some sort of cleanser if you're worried about germs. It'll probably be cleaner than either the seat or definitely the floor, and you spared all the other pax.

aster

Nothing wrong about a quick nappy change as long as it's invisible liquid... but not "solids" (even if they're in liquid form).

pinworm

I am not sure why ANYONE needs to travel with babies, but they do...ugh. I was on a Southworst flight in which I saw a woman change a baby's poopy diaper and then put the soiled diaper into the seat back pocket. Another reason to avoid coach and/or low cost carriers.

Efrem

Often, it's because leaving a baby home alone for three weeks is frowned upon, and finding competent, trustworthy 24/7 child care at an affordable price is impractical.

Other reasons may include relocating when the family includes a baby they don't want to leave behind, taking a baby to visit relatives when it's more practical for mommy/daddy and the kid to travel than for twenty-three aunts, uncles, aged grandparents and so on to go the other way, etc., etc.

Bottom line: we may be in a position to make suggestions as to how one should travel with a baby here, but to suggest that it's never necessary? That's absurd.

azepine00

Just curious how germophobes and such feel about staying in hotel rooms...
I am pretty sure that more diapers are changed on couches, tables, counters etc than on any plane seat but luckily we are blissfully unaware of that (and who knows what other, ahem, "unsanitary" activities).

Not that I encourage in-seat diaper changes but suggesting that this somehow endangers the rest of us is rather silly. I put the activity in the same group as public breastfeeding - as long as I don't see it i don't care.

sobore

Well now I have something new to think about!

pinworm

OR, you get used to the idea that when you have a baby, you will not be flying or eating in restraunts for at least 5 years. In those 5 years, you still have options: Get a sitter while you dine out. Have your relatives visit you instead of you visting them. Want a vacation? No trustworthy sitters? Too bad. I still fail to see a NEED to travel with an infant, save getting it some sort of medical procedure.

N965VJ

(bolding mine) Gee, I dunno, terminally ill or bedridden folks getting to see their young loved ones before they pass?