CMR

Does anyone have any advice on travelling with an infant?

We're planning a validation trip for the new year and our baby daughter will be just a year old when we travel. I've had conflicting advice about whether we should pay for a seat on the plane or just go for the infant fare and hope we can get allocated a sky-cot (a small cot that hangs from the bulkhead). The problem is, if we don't get a sky cot we'll have to have her sitting on our laps for 19 odd hours, but then again, what use is a seat for a 1 year old?

any advice would be gratefully accepted

toon williams

You should do a search on this as there have been lots of these questions on here recently, and some replies have been really useful.

I personally having just done a trip with the family to Menorca and had my one and half year old sitting on my lap for just 2 hours would book a seat, as it is a nightmare with the amount of room you get and if they want to sleep they can sort of stretch out on you and the seat they have!! Also if your little one is anything like mine he is better behaved if he thinks he is being a "big" boy ie got a sit like his Mum and Dad and big sister!!

I have two kids my other is 6, so she will be fine but I am dreading the flight with my youngest, but from what alot of the threads I have read on here have said the airlines are really good with the kids!!

Anyway good luck!!

CMR

Thanks

I think I probably will buy a seat for her as I've been given quite a good price with Qantas - it's just that given how hyperactive she is I wonder if she'll stay in it for more than five minutes!

I'm really not looking forward to the flight though, whether she has a seat or not it's going to be a nightmare - I suppose the best I can do is just prepare for the worst!

Three Legs

I am now a fully fledged expert on this subject after enduring the flight to Perth with a six month old and a two year old in February ...

Four bits of advice ... take heed:

1) Pre-book basinette (bulkhead seats) with airline, if you don't you're asking for trouble. No need for dedicated infant seat under 6 months old.

2) Book daytime flights when the baby is more likely to be awake. We didn't ... our son slept from 9pm when we left Manchester for 9 hours. We didn't. When we arrived at our transit hotel in KL for the night, merry F*** kicked off with the time difference. We were left physically goosed whilst the kids partied thru' the night !

3) Pre-book infant meals ... they are excellent and so are the staff.

4) Take the babies favourite play things.

If all this fails, take three 20mg temezapan tablets and let the kids crack on.



Three Legs

CMR

Thanks

Wise words - especially point 4

alexc

We flew out last week

No need to buy a seat, get a basinette seat. Qantas said they couldn't guarantee one when we booked but when I phoned to confirm the flight, I was told that I did have a guaranteed bas. seat for all legs in both directions. Anyway, they will only sit someone next to you if the plane is full so you may well get a seat for your baby anyway. Our flights were full so we had a poor guy next to us out of LHR and shared a row with another family out of LAX

Our 18 month old slept for a couple of hours on the daytime flight to LA. The rest of the time I walked her around the plane. It wasn't too bad but we'd have wasted our money if we'd have bought a seat.

The LA-Auckland leg was overnight for the entire 14 hours and our daughter slept all the way through as did we.The last section was 3 hours and we were all awake and Bella played with the neighbouring child.

elksa

Done the trip to Brisbane in June/July with a hypo 2 year old that can't sit still for more than 20 seconds.

We thought it ws going to be a nightmare but were plesantly surprised. We booked a seat for him, preordered the childrens meals and had an evening flight. He sat still for the take off and then after a couple of hours in the air where he had a play had some dinner had a walk around the plane, etc... he slept for pretty much the rest of the flight to Singapore. At Singapore we had a 7 hour stop over where we took him swimming and did as much as we could to nacker him out (best thing we could have done). It worked perfectly he then fell asleep in the departure lounge before boarding the plane and pretty much slept for most of the flight from Singapore to Brisbane. I think that had we not had the stop over in Singapore where we tired him out the second leg would have been more difficult.

The worst part of the whole flight was probably when the seat belt signs came on (particularily whilst you wait to take off). It was difficult keeping him still on the seat during this period and he was starting to whinge but fortunately apart from take off and landing the seat belt signs weren't on very often.

I would suggest bookng a seat for you baby, at least then you can lay them across your lap and their seat whilst they sleep and you'll probably find it easier sleeping yourself if they're only partly laying across you.

I can't wait to take my son on the flight again I enjoyed almost every minute of it.

Enjoy it really won't be as bad as your anticpating.

toon williams

Well this is exactly how I feel about it!! I am sure it will be ok, on another thread, someone had bought loads of new items for baby, and wrapped them up so it was like a birthday present, I liked that idea as thought it would keep my terror amused for a while!!

My cousin went to USA with her three boys 6, 3, and 6 months last month, she bought a Portable DVD player and took all their favourite DVDS, she said it was brilliant, they just sat and watched them over and over, even thought the seats had built in DVD players, they got to watch their favourites!!

I know they are older than your little one, but hey I could do the Tweenies for 20 odd hours if it really meant he didnt ransack the plane!!

Another idea I saw was to completely knock them out with Phenigan (I think that is how it is spelt) thought this was a really good one to!!

I saw another thread on here about taking car seats onto planes, I personally think this is a good idea as my son would sleep for hours in his, and it is more comfortable for him, so when the time comes I will be trying to do this, not sure how able you are to do it, but anything is worth a try!!

michellemac

Hi there,

I think difficulty depends on how mobile they are. we flew with my son at 9 then 10 months to Australia and it was fine, then at one my son started to walk and we flew to Italy when he was 17 months and it was a nightmare (he had his own seat for the return jounrey and it was still difficult) It's hard to tell if your son will be walking or not but that is going to be the main difference, imho.

You will have to make a decision about the bulkhead/bassient seats though - the thing with those seats is that unlike other airlines seats you can't lift the seat arms out of the way, so whereas if you were on "normal seats" and your son had his own seat, you'd be able to lift the arms to let him stretch out, in the bulkhead seats you can't do this. Our son was unable to sleep in the upright position - hence the nightmare back from Italy even though he had his own seat. We also had to keep taking him in and out of the seat when teh seatbelt signs went on and putting him on our lap with the extended thing as he was too small for the airline seatbelt.

I would book with an airline that allows you to pre-book bulkhead seats/bassients. we flew with malaysian to australia and they were great - we kept in touch with the ailrines and I rang them each week for a few weeks beforehand and then the day before we flew and then we got to the airport 4 hours before departure adn we got our seats at the busiest time of the year.

I also though the advice above about a day flight was spot on - we flew a day flight too - left Heathrow at 10.30 (Ithink?) and arrived in KL at 7am their time. My son hardly slept on the journey but it did mean we were all equally knackered upon arrival at KL, he had a nap on the way to the hotel and then we stayed awake as long as we could, and we all then slept for 10 hours from 6pm KL time. some people recommend an evening flight, but TBH I think it's more important to all sleep at the same time, not worrying about jetlag as such (although doing it the way we did meant we didn;t get jetlag anyway!).

HTH

Michelle