Toddler seats on long haul flight

[Donimo]

My husband and I are travelling to South Africa with BA with 20 month old twins and a 5 year (yes maybe we are mad). The flight is a night flight and I'm just praying they all sleep.

I have 2 bulkhead bassinet position seats reserved for my husband and I for the outward and return flights. Then a seat for our 5 year old. So the twins will be on our laps. BA do toddler seats that attach onto the tray that is folded down from the bulk head. My question is has anyone had these seats/used them? And if so we're they easily available or has there been an occassion when there wasn't enough of these seats available? Or have you always been able to get one if needed? (Aware we will be wanting 2 of these for our twins to sleep in 🙏)

Any other tips for long haul travel with a toddler and young child greatly appreciated

Completely agree, just because I have children it doesn't mean I'm not entitled to have a holiday. Yes having children make things more complicated and you need to make adjustments. And I have made many sacrifices over the past 2 years to include giving up my career and most hobbies due to unwell children. So we have booked this holiday as a celebration of our family surviving the past 2 years. Our twins were born prematurity due to my womb rupturing. They then had 7 months with lots of additional needs. Consequently my mental health was severely affected. After 18 months of therapy I am finally loving my twins and life. So this holiday is for my family and I to celebrate where we are now. If that makes me selfish for going on a long haul flight then so be it.

We have done this route on BA about 1.5 years ago with a 6 month old, who was too big for the bassinet, so we asked for one of those seats.

We were warned that it was very much first come first serve, depending on how many other families are on board and need one.

I found it quite difficult to settle my DS into them, but managed eventually.

The lousy thing is that when there is turbulence and seat belt signs are on you have to take the baby out the seat and hold them.

I was absolutely shattered because I landed up having to hold DS for most of the flight and couldn't sleep as I was afraid of dropping him.

To the poster that is complaining about babies on night flights. You are right. How selfish of us. What are we thinking? Taking our children to see their grandparents who they only get to see once a year and who miss them desperately. We'll just wait until they are teenagers and introduce them then.

Or maybe you should just have some compassion and invest in some ear plugs.

Risk to life because of children on a night flight had to take the mn bonkers award for 2024.

It's public transport at the end of the day.

OP as someone else said, just get through it, and pay no mind to anyone moaning. You'll get through it and have a great time. BA crew are always marvellous when I travel long haul with my DC alone

If that makes me selfish for going on a long haul flight then so be it.

It doesn't, don't worry.

I've flown a load of times, long haul with my dc without another adult and once you are on things just come together. It's not like you can get off or go and get something or whatever. You just get on with it.

Bloody hell, I've read some daft stuff on mn in the past, but this is a whole new level.

I've travelled long haul extensively (mostly pre-DC) and have had flights where I haven't slept a wink because of snorers, someone vomiting and the ensuing commotion, turbulence, someone screaming from a brain haemorrhage, yes children and sometimes just because I couldn't. Not once would it have occurred to me to think they had any less right to travel than I. Shit happens. You shouldn't expect to sleep, much as you hope to.

@Donimo i did this exact flight with 15m old twins and a 4.5 Yr old.

if you’re twins are small they’ll fit! We didn’t manage to book them on return and had to do with knees. They slept about 7ths of it and were better behaved than the arseholes sat next to us who gutted every minute of the flight.

I was recommended a dose of Piriton for each twin and did it just at takeoff. Did it help? Don’t know. But they slept!

I asked for seats on boarding and got them ASAP as people were still boarding. Defo ask at the door.

we flew BA and they insisted on bringing me snacks when I was up. They were lovely.

Sorry, I forgot to quote but that was in response to the batshit idea that people shouldn't take babies on night flights. In case it wasn't obvious.

Great to know you did the same and worked out well for you.

I was considering priton and tbh my girls have quite a few allergies. Most just contact allergies so thinking it wouldn't hurt anyway incase there is something in some of the food they eat we were not expecting!

Just a few tips from having flown a lot with a toddler:

• hide some toys at home ahead of the flight and then pack these to play with on the flight. As they won't have seen them for a while they will be more interesting
• as above but with books (or buy some paperback - less weight - new ones)
• little boxes of raisins are great snacks as it takes time for tiny hands to get them out one by one
• get some different coloured masking tapes and stick stripes to the fold down table, peeling them off is a good game
• in case of desperation, download some episodes of fav cartoon onto a phone to watch on flight mode

Have a great holiday!

When I was an expat mom everyone used to do this. I think Benadryl was the drug of choice. It was paediatrician ok-ed and if your kid wasn’t quite 2 they’d give out weight based dosing charts on request. I never did it though as I have one extremely good sleep anywhere sleeper (has fallen asleep standing up at a fireworks display to give you some context) and another who reverse cycles on the stuff and goes hyper. If you know they’re ok with it then I wouldn’t hesitate to give them a dose!

Such fabulous parenting. Drug 'em up and drag them to a boiling hot country in a tiny tin can where other paying customers have to shell out for noise cancelling headphones to drown out the screaming as the pressure pops their little ears.

Or holiday here or in Europe, maybe fly short haul perhaps? No, no, no! Why would I do that? Hey, I deserve this. F them, and F the other passengers. Me, me, me!

@OneCornetto simply decides to ignore the bits of my post that don't suit her narrative and now you @Theladybirdthatheard can't see where I wrote "visiting family aside" and go off on your own tangent.

Dear me.

You need to get out more my love.

You sound exactly like the person I sat next too.

If you’ve nothing practical to add, move on. The world does not revolve around you.

Benadryl aside, because I don't agree with that... Isn't this "fuck me, fuck them attitude" exactly what you're doing?

"Hey I deserve this" - a quiet children flight.
"Fuck them, and fuck the other passengers, me me me" - I'm entitled to peace and quiet when I fly!

Shell out for noise cancelling headphones? If you're flying long haul you can afford it, and if you can't, quit complaining and be thankful you're holidaying at all. In fact if suddenly all babies and toddlers weren't allowed to fly long haul, or on night flights, the cost of your flight would go up because families wouldn't be buying tickets. So maybe those noise cancelling headphones, which you seem so against, would be a better investment after all.

Well this thread derailed a bit. OP I've been on lots of long haul and never been disturbed by a child. They invariably sleep and only cry at landing if at all. Have a great trip!

The Piriton thing - pretty sure they changed a formulation a few years back and the under 6 version now doesn’t contain anything drowsy making.
If you were going to try Piriton, experiment before the journey as some kids go nuts on it.

Nonsense.
Full service airlines have a child sleeping device for every bassinet position.

They may not have your preferred device, or you may not have had one of these positions.

Or maybe it's different for charter airlines. But a scheduled major airline will do.

OP just wanted to wish you a lovely holiday!! I’d two under two and often flew a few times long haul (to see family). Often solo with DH traveling after. Usually had two seats plus a baby bouncer type bassinet between us and coped fine! Yes people sighed - especially when I got onboard with a 2&1 year old 😂 but being pre-prepared with snacks toys and small space games (removable stickers for the walls occupied mine quietly for ages). My youngest weighed more than my eldest (nicu baba). So we’d swap chairs (and occasionally I got away with. Floor bed depending on the airline, if I had a window seat). The hardest bit was changing nappies - bringing two to the loo solo (as we don’t fit in the small space so inevitably if awake one would try run away/around) but generally people were kind and understood.

I would ring BA in advance. Often they have the tiny baby bassinets - but my wee ones outgrew them by 4 months ish (though they claim a lot later). The bigger bouncer style seats were in more limited supply.

I will also add: I had one flight I took with BA that they “reassigned” my seats on arrival (due to a swap of the plane). They’d placed me in a middle row (no bulkhead) and only two seats. I cried!! (Not purposefully was overwhelmed). DS was about 19 months at the time and active. I knew it would be a disaster. The airline staff on the plane were brilliant and we ended up swapping seats. Bulkheads were full but they found us three together on one side. Which made it manageable! So even in worst case scenario, I found asking, staying calm, and explaining what would work for us as alternatives helpful!

the dread of the flight is usually far worse than the reality. Hope it goes well for you x

@beachcitygirl not "nonsense". It was BA. We did have bassinet positions and they did not have even sufficient of any type. And not age appropriate certainly. They were extremely apologetic and certainly did not say we should have called customer services to reserve them, they admitted it was an oversight of theirs. BOTH ways. Just because you're a flight attendant doesn't mean you know more than me about the flights that I was on.

they also tried to sit my 4 year old alone in a different row entirely from the rest of us and were quite difficult to persuade that that wasn't going to be an option.

anyway in summary if you want a particular type then yes definitely do call in advance but it really should not be necessary - the system works well enough to allocate those seats to families in the first place, that seems to be automatic. They have their date of birth 🤷‍♀️

It's interesting, BA are making the situation harder by having two options.

Their bassinets are really quite small. If they had better ones like Qantas, then they could just have one per bassinet position and it wouldn't be a concern.

I know it obviously won't help on a SA route, but the Qantas ones are bigger, sturdier (basically a tiny play pen) and have straps which fasten across the top so you don't have to remove the child in the event of turbulence. Worlds apart from the BA ones.

My other tip for specifically SA is that if you are connecting in JNB be prepared that you likely will not get your (non cabin friendly) buggy back and will have a loooong walk with your tired children in the terminal.

Thank you for everyones advice. Ive spoke to customer services today. And they have requested the toddler seats for us and put high priority on our booking (she said equivalent to having a disability). Not sure what this actually means but I'll hope for the best and plan for the worse- cereal bars, snack wafers, toddler headphones and new books brought today. And I'll pack 2 slings into our hand luggage.

Sounds encouraging - all the best!

I just thought I'd update this for anyone else wondering the same thing in the future. We have now travelled. On the way out we got 2 x infant seats fastened into the bulk head for our twins. However the twins were on the limit of the seat but both fitted in. On the way back they only had 1 infant seat so gave us 1 infant seat and 1 cot. I did manage to squeeze one of the twins into the cot for most of the flight (she was fast alseep) until the cabin crew manager saw and took it off us as she was too old to use the cot. The flights were both really easy and all children were great.