Flight with baby?!

[slipperq12]

Hi everyone, we are planning booking a holiday with our baby who will be 1.5 yrs at the time of holiday. A bit worried about flights as he doesn't sleep anywhere apart from cot or pram so makes me a bit on edge that he will be over tired and soo grumpy on the flight if he does get tried?? Any tips? Any babies similar and been okay on a flight? Flight probs won't be more than 3/4 hours max!!

No tips... but have just booked Spain with our dd who'll be 8 months when we go. I just figured I'll time her feeds and roll with it. But she does sleep easily in my arms still.

Don't stress about it. Perhaps consider 'activities' and toys for the plane? Consider the time of the flights within or around his normal routine?

Be interested in any advice you get but I'm really one of those people that thinks meh, what will be will be, they are babies :)

all i can say is you know babies.. they are unpredictable. my DS1 was a total arse when a baby. furious, all the time. when he was very little only two or three months i had to fly to guernsey with him, by myself, so i figured ok it's a very short flight, worst case scenario people glare at me but at least no one is sleeping. anyway the little angel fell asleep out of nowhere on take off... never before or since. just conked out like a normal baby! and slept til we got off.

Consider booking him his own seat, it will be more comfortable for all of you. Then have a variety of entertainment... Including tablet and headphones (get him used to them beforehand) if it gets you through the flight.

I took Dd on a 7 hour flight when she was 2. I paid extra to pick suitable flight times that suited her nap and bed time. Flight out was at 11.30am, woke her at 7am. She fell asleep not long after take off, woke up about 2 hours before landing. She had a snack and watched cartoons for the rest of the flight. I booked the return flight for 9pm, she slept the whole way back.

I took Dd on a 7 hour flight when she was 2. I paid extra to pick suitable flight times that suited her nap and bed time. Flight out was at 11.30am, woke her at 7am. She fell asleep not long after take off, woke up about 2 hours before landing. She had a snack and watched cartoons for the rest of the flight. I booked the return flight for 9pm, she slept the whole way back.

I wouldn't worry too much about sleeping, more about keeping occupied! We try to pick suitable flight times but it's not always possible - DS has fallen asleep on flights (across our laps) and then has also been awake the whole time, wanting to see everything that's going on, wanting to go for a walk, wanting to read the man sat in the third seat's newspaper. Good job he's cute!

I second booking him his own seat BUT under the age of 2, you can only book a seat if you have an airline approved car seat for them to use. I'm considering investing in the Diono Radian 5 which is airline approved and also rear facing until 25kg so will do him on flights and in the car until around age 4.

We took DS away last month at aged 6 months. Outgoing flight was a dream. He fell asleep before boarding and when he woke up, he was jolly, playful. Return flight, he didn't sleep before boarding, and cried for probably 2/3 of the flight.

I paid extra to book the back seats near the toilets and also so we could easily stand up and walk/rock him in the back bay when upset.

The return flight was a tough flight and I really wish we had his own seat for him because holding him between us whilst he was thrashing around was really tough in a tight space. He's generally very good in a car seat so I think that's something I'd invest in.

I fly regularly to and from the US with my kids (now 2 and 4), usually by myself. The worst age in my opinion is between 1 and 2, when they are active but have really short attention spans

Just take a lot of stuff to entertain him. Lots and lots of little snacks. Tablet, books with flaps, little finger puppet toys. At that age my kids loved things like putting little Pom poms into a water bottle and putting stickers on a note book. Plus nursery rhyme videos on the iPad/phone.

Hopefully he’ll sleep for some of it, but with 2 adults and, that length of flight and one child you can just distract him for most of the time. Kids can be surprisingly flexible so I wouldn’t worry too much about his sleep. Let him run and run as much as you can at the airport to get him good and tired.

Ah I feel the same! I've booked a holiday for May and my DD turns 1 in April so I'm a bit nervous about the flight, it's 4 hours and the return flight is at an awful time so will disrupt her night's sleep 😬 but just gonna go with the flow, bring plenty of snacks and toys and download some cartoons she likes onto my phone or a tablet or something.

My biggest concern is me and DH will not be seated together!

We've always took ours on holiday, you just do what you can to keep them quiet and entertained basically.

@BabyBunnyMama For what it's worth, I'd definitely recommend paying that little bit extra to be seated together. I found it well worth it x

@TokenGinger it was quite a bit extra to pick 'preferred' seats but says it's not necessarily guaranteed still 😣 hoping most airlines would be accomodating or we will be able to swap in a worse case scenario but can't really afford the extra on top of the cost of the holiday.

@BabyBunnyMama What a pain 😫 It was only £10pp with ours, so we paid the extra but if it's a significant cost, I can see why you'd rather not. I hope you get seated together xx

We are flying with 15mo DS in a fortnight. He is a very nosy baby that normally only sleeps in the cot or carseat. The flight out is only 2hrs long and it's not at naptime so I'm not too worried about it, I'm hoping he'll sleep in the car seat on the transfer at the other side.

The flight back unfortunately is bang on naptime, so I'm hoping I can rock him to sleep in the sling - this has worked before on a train journey but he was only 9 months old. Otherwise we'll have a tired and cranky baby that falls asleep on the journey back from the airport at about 4pm .

We paid extra money to ensure DH was sitting with us, we also have grandparental support.