Night flights with little ones - good or bad?

[peaches27]

All the holidays I fancy at the moment seem to be attached to a night flight. You know the sort of thing. They depart between 2000-2300 hrs and arrive in the early hours of the morning. Then going back they take off at something mad like 2.30 am!

I have gone though lists of these, saying, no good its a night flight. Then I thought, well could it be a good thing really? Will the children be less trouble and sleep through it? (I doubt it... but you never know). They will be 3 and a half and 6 months when we go on holiday.

Has anyone had any experience of night flights with little uns and how did they find it?

Will they have their own seats....? Do you intend on holding the baby for the duration of the flight?

did night flight with ds at 8 mths...fab...he slept. Did wake up from time to time but went back to sleep.

Recently came back from hols with night flights (7 hours each way) with 3 year old - shame the flights weren't longer as she slept all the way through both of them!

i am having exactly same dilemma at the moment my lo is 4. the flight coming back leaves at 0055 arrives 0315. because i am travelling on my own i really would not be able to carry him far. a friend was coming back from greece last year and had a night flight. she said it was alwful for all the kids because they had hours of delay. i think its no so much once they are on the flight its all the travelling/waiting around before hand. but suppose if they would sleep through it would be great. also thought i would have to get a late checkout room which with first choice is £50 - it would be alwful to be put out of our room at 10am and have nowehere to go all day - my idea of a nightmare with a 4 year old.

We are only contemplating Spain, so I wont bother with own seat for the baby, but the toddler will have his own seat obviously.

very good for us - ds slept the whole flight (and it was from USA!)

I'd do it for an overnight flight of any significant duration, but IMO, you are a brave woman if you're considering it for a flight to Spain where flying time is likely to be - maybe 3 hours?

best way to fly with kids
My dd used to fall asleep on take off and wake up on landing ,this was from london to toronto.

I'm assuming you're flying from the UK....

I've done quite a few transatlantic night flights (12hrs), and they are by far the best flights - most of the time my dd (2yrs) goes to sleep for the majority of the flight. I tend to treat it like a normal bedtime, ie get changed into pj's etc and try and carry on as I would do at home.

we flew night flights to Aus and back again and it was fab - just put dd1 in her pjs and sleeping bag and she basically slept all the way.

When coming out to Aus to live - again night flights - she just settled back and went to sleep.

When ds1 was 2 1/2 we did night flight to Majorca - the actually flying bit was fine as he slept all the way thru & on the coach transfer/taxi home but I would see if you can get a late check out room - we couldnt & that was the worst bit getting kicked out of our room at midday & then the coach wasnt picking us up till nearly midnight!

in my experience it was a night mare. we had to be out of the hotel room for 12 midday, and had beenpromised late check out room. on the day they had none, so we had 30 mins at 5.30pm in a room to have shower, get changed etc (with three children). By midnight when we were leaving for the airport the kids were tired and grumpy, i was knackered and just wanted to lie down somewhere. You then get to the airport, join the long queue for what seems like a life time and then have 2 hours to kill before you actually get on the plane. The flight itself was ok cos the kids slept for the 2.5 hours, but then you have to wake them up when they dont want to wake up to get off the plane. Never, ever again. The flight out there is ok cos you are all excited but coming back is a nightmare.
Transatlantic flights over night are fine, have flew to america six times and the kids get at least 7 hours depending on where you are going.

I'm with Dizzy on his, for us it was not that heavy because we have friends in Spain so instead of spending the afternoon and part of the night just wishing the time could go faster we had a regular evening. But, DS didn't go to sleep in the flight at all (he was 2.5 then) until the plane touched land, though he slept all the way from the airport to our house which was 3 hrs away...still, after having DS jumping around until that late we were so knackered to drive so ended up sleeping for an hour in a car park just to gather some energies to make it home.. so, if the airport you are traveling from-to is at your home city, fantastic, if not....don't even think about it!

The shortest night flight we took was 5 hrs(left at 11pm and landed at 4am). It wasn't that bad in that my 3yr dd did get some sleep and then when we got to the hotel we all had breakfast and slept for a few hours again. I had made sure she had a long nap the day we were flying, so that she wasn't too cranky with sleeping and getting up after a short time. Personally I don't like the really long(10hrs) night flights we have done, as I can't sleep properly and my dd wakes up on and off when it is such a long stretch. Then when we get to our destination I am always really tired.
I think the really early morning ones are good, as you can get some sleep at night and then children will have a nap for a few hours on the plane, as they had to wake early.

Long haul night-flights = fab idea. Best way to kill time and really eases jet lag

Short haul night-flights = so not worth it, never enough sleep and loads of messing around at the other end. Don't do it unless you have to..