Toddlers on a plane

[gingertigercat]

I want to see how others would react in my situation or if my lack of sleep led to me being unreasonable.

On a rather long and early flight, hence the lack of sleep, I had a toddler behind me. The father was asleep in a separate row. The mother was asleep sprawled over 2 seats and the grandmother was looking after the toddler who was mainly on her lap. The whole flight he kicked our chairs, smacked the seats, grabbed at us, stuck his head through the gaps, and clambered between his grans lap and over his mum. He was loud throughout the flight. The gran did tell him a few times to stop smacking the seats but it did nothing.

I think had the mum just been asleep in her own seat there would have been much less disruption. I would have said something but I felt bad seeing as the gran wasn't the parent and I'm not very confrontational.

I understand toddlers can be hard work and the parents were probably exhausted but surely it shouldn't have been at other passengers expense? What would other people do in this situation?

I don't think anyone leaves a child's shoes on while flying

On the contrary, most do leave them on. You might take your child's off.
Removing shoes reduces seat kicking considerably-
a) it reduces the "reach" of the childs legs by a cm or two
b) it makes it less comfortable for the kicker if they are hitting back of seat with bare toes rather than comfy trainer

Hmm since I see everyone taking their own shoes off I was assuming they do the same for their toddlers!
Maybe my DD's neighbour just didn't feel her un-shod feet kicking.

Proper kicks can only be executed with shoes. The hard plastic would really hurt the feet of a toddler.

"Hmm since I see everyone taking their own shoes off"

I don't. Although I don't really take any notice of what other passengers do.

It looks like shoe removal is the way forward then.