Flying and Small Children

Posted by mamas

Posted: March 19, 2008 - 1:39 pm

In my son’s short 16 month life, we have flown out of state three times already. We took trips when he was 6 months, 9 months, and 12 months and flew to places like Florida and Maine. Let me tell you that from Alaska to Florida or Maine is a very long way to begin with, but with an infant…it’s monumental.

We have planned one last “kids-under-two-fly-free” trip and he will be 18 months. However, it doesn’t get easier as they get older. In fact, it seems to get more difficult. One trick that I adopted right away was to buy a new toy, food item, or book for your child and hide it away until desperation strikes while on the airplane. Sometimes this has worked better than other times. You really have to anticipate what your child will want in advance and you can’t test the toy out to see if it’s something they will be drawn to for hours or not.

Of course sleeping may be the biggest flying issue during this stage of life. Young children on airplanes will often feed off of each other’s crying bouts and decide that they should unite so that no one on the plane will get a wink of sleep. I remember when my son was crying while the flight attendant was serving drinks and the woman in front of me ordered Rum and then said “and get one to the kid behind me too”. In those moments a mom can choose to laugh, cry, or fight. I decided that it was kind of funny and gently explained to the people around me that my infant would in fact fall asleep within the hour.

Then there are the sketchy situations that you hear about on the news where mothers are told that they can not nurse their children on the plane or that they need to make their child be quite. The lines “ever heard of baby Benadryl?!” are flippantly spoken in insensitive tones. That’s one sure way to anger a mom and make matters worse. A child needs a calm parent in order to feel calm and this scene will undoubtedly escalate for both child and parent.

But it’s not always the worst case scenario. On some flights there will be people who are dying for you to walk by them so that they can have a look at the baby. Or maybe there will be a flight attendant who sneaks your toddler a chocolate chip cookie and expresses how well you’re handling everything. There may be other sympathetic families or grandparents who will share their own stories with you just to make you feel better.

Either way, flying with small children is a challenge to any parent. I promise that you will survive the journey and the people on the plane with you will survive as well. So be brave, plan your trip, and thank God that time passes. Perhaps not as quickly as you would want time to pass while sitting on an airplane with young children, but it will indeed pass. Let’s not forget that we were all children once and children will grow.

Do you have tips or stories about flying with children?

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