Air travel with an infant/toddler

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wolfman

1,000+ Posts
Im considering taking a flight in a couple of months and Im curious about traveling with an infant/toddler. My daughter is currently 14 months old. When you have a child of that age do you buy an additional ticket/seat, or do you just hold the child in your lap? Any advice on keeping them calm during a flight? I know that I have seen children get upset when the pressure changes on a plane, etc. Also, do most people take their car seat along or are they readily available at the destination car rental agency?
 
J40Dogg summed it up pretty well.

for a 14 month old, i would go with keeping them on your lap. They more than likely will want to be there anyway whether you buy a seat for them or not.

At 14 months it won't be necessarily fun, as they tend to be monkeys, climbing on everything. Letting them suck on bottle of juice or milk on takeoffs and on the descent is the way to go. I find they have more trouble during the landings.

If you keep them in your lap, i would check your car seat. I wouldn't trust a car rental infant seat at all. Plus, your child probably would prefer the seat he knows and is comfortable with.

After two, you HAVE to buy a seat on the plane for them. In that case i would bring the car seat on the plane and have them sit in that. Ask the flight attendent for a belt extender to strap it in properly. Also, you will need to use the window seat, as the cart seat will block the ability for anyone to get out to the aisle if it is strapped in the middle or aisle seat.
 
You can save money and not buy them a seat or you can keep your child safe and buy them a seat. We're required to secure everything in a plane but can hold a child in our lap. The statistics on babies that are injured in turbulence are pretty ugly. I would strongly suggest buying your child a seat. We've traveled with our 9 month old twice and he is about to take a third trip. Every time, he had his own seat.

A few tips - use your car seat on the plane to keep them in their seat. This is a no-brainer. However, you'll want to use something to carry that car seat in the airport. One option is the Pac Back - allows you to strap the seat to your back and keeps your two hands free. There's another dolly like contraption that you can use for the car seat so you can roll it like a carry-on. If you want, you can put your child in it. Skip the car seat/stroller combo - it sucks as a stroller and is plain ugly.

Also, call the airline to see if you can move you into the bulkhead seats. They are worth it.

Ads from the FAA about using a car seat:

The Link
The Link
The Link

I can't speak for others but I'm willing to pay $400 or whatever to keep my kid safe.

In reply to:
Click to expand...
 
Some airlines offer 1/2 priced seats for children under 2. Take your car seat. I don't know if rental companies have them but I wouldn't trust putting one of our kids in their car seat. Who knows how good the condition is. When our kids were that young, we had a seat for them/their car seat. It is nice to be able to put them down if there is a need for it. And if they fall alseep, their car seat is a lot more comfortable for you than holding them in an airline seat for a couple of hours.
 
some bulkhead seats are too skinny or just don't work(because of the trays being in the armrests, and you can't raise them) for car seats. I've seen quite a few people unsuccessfully try to jam car seats into the narrower bulhead seats, only to end up taking the row behind the bulkhead and causing a musical chairs-like effect on the people in that row.
 
TXHookem - we'll have to agree to disagree. My wife and I are both neurotic and if anything are probably too overprotective of our children, and they both flew 4-5 times before 1 while sitting in our laps w/o an iota of a problem. The story you quote seems like an extreme example, to say the least.
 
I didn't fly with my son until he was two, so I never had to make that decision. I would think a lot depends on how log the flight is. If its an hour, your lap would probably suffice. If its 3 or more, you'd probably want the extra seat.
 
we always bought a seat for our kids and brought their car seats. Never had a problem. One thing though is that some foreign carriers don't allow you to use the car seat during take-off or landing - you have to hold your child. Once the plane hits 15,000 ft you could put your child in the car seat. The explanation we got once from the flight purser was that it would be difficult to get a child out of the car seat in the event of an accident in the taxi-way or runway, which I guess kind off makes sense.

We get car/booster seats from the car rental agencies now that the kids are too big for a car seat on the plane. We only use Avis and only once has the seat even look used. We took it in to the office before we left and they replaced it no problem
 
We bought a seat for our daughter when she was under 2. It's a hassle to take the carseat, but you can get one of these to help. There are other brands, but this is the one we have. And yes, it does work as a stroller.

Also, it seems counter-intuitive, but don't go out of your way to schedule a flight during normal nap time thinking the kid will sleep on the plane. This strategy will backfire. Your kid is going to be overly stimulated with the newness of the experience and won't want to sleep. Instead, she'll just get fussier and fussier. Better to have her well-rested and (hopefully) happy.
 
In this day and age, you cannot expect that there will be any empty seats on the plane and that the gate agent will be able to get the empty seat to be next to you. You used to be able to count on that, but no more....

If you are on a long flight and expect/hope the child will sleep, buy the seat... Keep in mind the size of your child and the very narrow size of the one airline seat that you will be sharing... The father of the 14 month old next to me on a recent 6 hour flight was really wishing he'd splurged and bought the seat last month... Having a 14 month crawling all over you for that long was tiring... Trying to get to his carryon at his feet to get out toys/food was really tough. Furthermore, the parents kept the kid up through his regular nap, hoping he'd sleep on the plane... However, he was too excited to sleep for the first 4 hours, then big to fit completely in his dad's lap once he finallly nodded off, so his feet hung over in the aisle (and his head into my lap!)... but everytime someone went down the aisle, they hit his legs and woke him up. The dad then had a tired and cranky 14 month old on his lap for the last hour of a long trip... Not to mention the annoyance of the passengers around him... If he'd bought two seats, then he could have at least layed the kid down across the seats for a while... Or had more room to spread out toys and snacks.. And had an option to put him down for a bit when they both got tired of sharing a seat...

Maybe you should go out and sit in the front passenger seat of a car with your child on your lap to get a feel for how it will work size-wise for both of you before you buy the plane tickets. And definitely keep in mind the length of the trip.
 
But what is the big resistance to buying a seat? It makes the trip so much easier. We did our research, found a seat that fits easily on planes (including the small ERJ planes) and it has made traveling much easier. We've taken short flights with him (2 1/2 hours) and long flights (9 1/2 hours). All in all, he's been on 6 flights and will be on 2 more soon. The upside is that he has a seat he "knows", can sleep easily and we have space to move about, relax on the flight, etc.

So, again, why the big pushback on buying your child a seat?

Using your same argument, I've taken my child in the car hundreds of times without getting in a wreck. Why do I need to use a car seat?
 
Try to get to the airport a little early. If you sweet-talk the gate agent(I usually try a bag of M&M's) they'll try to give you seat with an empty one next to you if the flight is not full. Then you can use the carseat.

Turbulence is sometimes bad enough to make it difficult to hold on to the kid safely. Flying in the summer time in the afternoon you are much more likely to encounter turbulence during TO and LDG due to the thermal effects.

Try to make sure your child is awake and sucking on a bottle or pacifier during descent to make it less likely to have ear pain. During climbout it's not a problem because the ears clear naturally.
 
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