To not think flying with a 18month old will be that bad?

[Hadriansfall]

Am needing some guidance from parents who have experienced an 18 month old!

I am turning 30 next year and the plan has always been to go to the Bahamas for a couple of weeks to celebrate.

DD is our first and is currently a very well behaved baby, but as I don’t have a crystal ball I’m wondering if DH and I are crazy to think flying for 10 hours with her will be fine.

She has flown a few times already (one trip being more than 10 hours), but she slept for most of those flights so not a fair comparison.

AIBU to think an 18 month old won’t be a total nightmare to fly long distance with?

We can’t wait much longer to book as the hotel is already holding a room and has given a deadline to book of next week (they sell out quite far in advance so are lucky to have a hold!)

YABU - 18 month olds are usually awful flyers. Don’t do it

YANBU - should be fine

I asked about flight experiences

You decided to be patronising, not sure why you’d jump to no thought being placed on what the actual holiday would be like.

I am wondering about the flight as she will be in peak toddle mode, and not sure how viable that is in terms of a long flight, whether it’s just not worth the drama. The holiday itself we are content with, hence why I didn’t ask ‘AIBU to think a holiday with a 18month old won’t be that bad’

But thank you for your comment.

MrsWarboysHandGrenade

I'm beginning to wonder if we have the same child. I'm trying desperately to suppress the lovley fun trips we did when he was between 15 months and 2 years. Everyone of them including his birthday day out ended up with someone in tears.

I was thinking the same ... could be lovely but relaxing it will not!

I've done 14 hours (daytime flight) with my toddler when she was 18 months. It was fine - we brought loads of stuff for her to do and eat, made sure she had her own seat plus took it in turns dealing with her.

14 hours (night flight) with 3mo DS and 2yo DD - easy. DH looked after DD and I looked after DS and they both slept most of the flight.

14 hours (night flight) with 10mo DS and almost 3yo DD. I was alone and it was awful but we managed! Wouldn't do it for a holiday though...

Go for it we did, daughter was fine!

Does it have to be the Bahamas? Mauritius is virtually the same time zone and you can do night flights there and back? We went to the Caribbean though and it was great although I was still breast feeding and it helped with her ears.

Also Pack twice the amount of food you think you will need under 2s don’t get any food on the plane.

Should add I lived overseas so I was travelling home to my parents rather than a normal holiday - also never had a shortage of circa 65-70 year old ladies offering to help read stories etc too. The route was mostly business travel but with a good number of older people travelling to see family who like us were living overseas. No such thing as tablets then but they had just introduced the screens on the back of seats which were helpful, dd1 particularly enjoyed watching the map, mesmerised by the little plane

My daughter was a fabulous on planes. I flew with her (without an extra seat) right up to 23 months- longhaul (asia, Australia etc). She remains tall- so her last flights at 23 months without a seat was a bit of a stretch but totally doable. I was flying without another set of hands. All was good.

I do think it depends on your child though.

I struggle massively with a 2 hour flight to be honest, it's awful. However depends on her temperament and a night flight would be better.

@Hadriansfall how was I being patronising? I think you read a confrontational tone into what I intended to be a general chatty and helpful response about the whole holiday experience. I did not mean to suggest that you might have literally given no thought to how the rest of the holiday might pan out. It was just a figure of speech. If I had thought you hadn't thought it through I'd have said "you haven't thought this through, have you?"

I think that there can be a huge difference between theory and practice with life with small children so was just offering a of experience.

However looks like I touched a nerve?

I'm so sorry that planning your exotic holiday so stressing you out so much that you feel the need to be rude to strangers on the Internet who are just trying to be helpful.

It will be fine as long as you and your partner are prepared to spend all of your time, probably both of you, amusing her. The issue is that at that age she’ll be too old to sleep in the bassinet and too young to just enjoy being allowed unlimited screen time. She’ll also want to be out of her seat and moving. So you’ll need to buy some new toys and be prepared to amuse her with games etc, and walk up and down the plane endlessly. If even one of you is expecting to chill out drinking a g&t then don’t do it. You’ll also need to be prepared for the jet lag once you get there- my 18 month old woke up, unfailingly, at 3am and would not properly go back to sleep for 6 days! Then he was ready for bed by about 5pm. So don’t expect lazy lie ins and civilised dinners, especially if you’re all sharing the same room.

Night flights are your friend here. We did a flight with our 1 year old and it was hell, she's 18 months old now and won't sit in her chair for longer than a mealtime so a 10hr flight where she's awake would be my personal nightmare (she's amazing and I love her but she doesn't sit still, going through a leap and the meltdowns trapped on a plane would be... An experience 😅)

We took our 18 month old on a 15 hour flight this summer.

Booked a night flight but due to Heathrow disruption they rescheduled it for the morning!

Not going to lie, it was HARD. My toddler won't watch screens for hours, isn't all that snack orientated, and loves to run.

We did end up letting him run laps of the plane at a few points when nothing else was keeping him happy - down one aisle, through the cabin crew section at the back, up the other aisle, scoop him up before he bursts into business class and then let him reverse the route...

It wasn't ideal but the whole plane heard his meltdown when we tried to stop him, and I think everyone appreciated that he at least wasn't screaming...

On the way back we got our night flight (thank god!) so got the chance to use a £20 inflatable foot rest cube we'd bought from amazon, which blows up like a beachball to fill the gap between the edge of the seat and the seat in front - makes a toddler-sized flat bed from any standard seat. Worked well and he slept well on it.

Wish you best of luck OP x

I’ve done plenty of long haul with my 2 at all different ages. Not gonna lie, 1-2 is the worst age for flying although at least you don’t need to pay full price! It will be hard work but it will be fine, and the holiday sounds amazing so I’m sure it will be worth it.

You will be fine. Take tablet and treats. I went to b and m / home bargains / pound lands and stuff to buy new activity and toys to give threwout the flight.

It’s not the easiest thing ever but totally doable. If you can book her her own seat so you have a bit more space, we always did night flights where possible until ours were over 3 so you hopefully get a good chunk of sleep from her! A bag full of new little toys and more snacks than you can imagine….. also try and get her obsessed with Peppa Pig or something similar and take an iPad with a load of episodes downloaded.

And have a great holiday!

I pray to the gods that I don't have any small kids near me on any plane journeys.

I'd pay more to fly on an adults only plane if I could.

18 months is difficult especially if you do a day time flight. Toddler will not want to stay still for 10 hours. Toddler won't understand why you are not letting her run around. Will most likely to be difficult. If you are seated next to another passenger and you toddler won't keep still they will get annoyed, especially if they are trying to take a nap. If you have option to leave her with grandparents I would take that option.

Well my DGC have been on very long flights (10 hour plus), and 6 hours, etc.
6 Hour flight when the youngest was just 2 months old.
10 hour flight at just 18 months
My DS and DDiL try to fly overnight so the DGC sleep most of the way.
Mt DDIL always has lots of things for them to do, to avoid any disturbance.
When very little, they hired a bassonet (sp?) for the 18mth old, but actually she was slightly too large for it, but she still slept most of the way.
My advice would be to have plenty of snacks, and things for your child to do, to avoid them upsetting other adults.

What were you doing with your child up to when you all went to bed at 10pm?

I don't see the need to bore everyone with the full details of what we got up to every evening on our trip....his normal bedtime is 9pm which became 10pm with the time difference. I'm not looking to derail the OP's thread with tales of my own holiday so won't be posting anymore. I was just pointing out that we don't all have a miserable time traveling while our kids are small and I hope OP will fall in to that category. 😊

We probably do the sense of relief from the other train passengers as we disembarked, wild-eyed and utterly drained, was palpable!

I have seen absolute angel children on trains though - I got chatting to the parents of a 5yo and 7yo on a train to London recently, the 7yo sat knitting and the 5yo reading quietly - I was very jealous as mine are similar ages now and wouldn’t be as civilised as that!

One of mine was an excellent flier at that age, the other a total stressful nightmare that made me spend the whole holiday dreading the flight home.

No way of knowing unfortunately. If you can afford it I'd certainly book an extra seat for her at the minimum- 10 hours with her on your lap would be miserable for you both.

Surprised to see how many negative. We flew to USA with dd aged 22 months and it was fine. 2 adults one child. I think I packed some little toys to unwrap, she watched tv. She announced mid air she was getting off bus now but was fine. When we got there we had a fabulous time. Her body clock meant she got up late so we had lie ins then we could go out in evening. She loved the pool - it was gated and alarmed so I wasn’t worried. Have flown to USA many many times and always toddlers on and they are fine.

Should add mine had a seat didn’t contemplate lap sitting at that age.

i took my older one at that age to New Zealand to see family. i was also pregnant at the time. I had taken him younger than that but because he was not walking it was easier. he was walking at 18 months and it was really hard work on my own. if your DH or another adult is there as well you can tag team things which makes it alot easier.

I would say the following;

• if they use electronics take it off them a few days before then give it back when they start to moan on the plane. That might keep them occupied for a bit.
• take little wrapped things- a colouring book; new toy etc and hand them out at strategic intervals to distract.
• let them watch unlimited cartoons on the inflight media if they want to.
• take some vicks nose inhaler things - it helps with their ears on the descent. I also use something called earplanes which has made a huge difference, for us. One of mine has sensory issues so the plane descending was a nightmare until we discovered these.

www.amazon.co.uk/EarPlanes-Original-Earplugs-Filtering-Protection/dp/B0849562BY/ref=asc_df_B0849562BY/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=535228085039&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1122390349455956897&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006591&hvtargid=pla-1412591333972&psc=1&th=1&psc=1

No way around it- it isn't fun at that age. You have to mitigate as much as possible.

What about a night time flight?

18 months is the hardest as they love to walk around but we’ve done 24 hours and the sleeping part was ok

They weren’t bad fliers but lots of aisle walking etc they do watch movies if day time though, plus games