drugging a child for longhaul flight....

[StarlightWonderStarlightBright]

would you/have you done it?

I'm going on a 10 hour flight with a 24 month old who can't speak or be reasoned with and a 14 week old. My DH is coming too.

Never in a million years would I consider dosing him up with antihistamine to make him sleep/be quiet, but many of my friends seem to think that a)I'm mad b)It is acceptable c)I'm verging on being a bad parent because better a sleepy toddler than a miserable one.

I'm fairly certain I'm sticking to my plan to NOT give medicine unnecessarily but wondered if I was actually in the minority after all.

Is Phenergan the stuff you are supposed to use?

Not done it myself
I think you are supposed to try it at home first in case they have a reaction

I think it is a bit questionable. IME they tend to give them medised anyway which I never really found made them noticably sleepier when I use it at home. I dont think it would make much difference would it with all the extra excitement of the flight etc would it. The only real way to do it would be to give them proper sleeping tablets which obviously would be outrageous. I can almost say maybe for someone travelling on their own with 2 little ones but if 2 adults are with them I think they should be able to handle it. We went to the maldives with ds1 when he was 22 months and everyone thought we were insane but it wasnt too bad. He slept most of the way anyway without the use of drugs! (the worse bit was when he threw up all over us on the sea pland shorthly before arriving at the resort but that's another story). I wouldn't consider it now with 2 mind you!

I think it is a bit sad if you feel the need to try and drup them when they are not ill. It is stressful travelling with small children, sure, but if you cant hack it you shouldnt be doing it I would say judgey judgey

I wouldn't do it. Aside from it being dodgy for all sorts of reasons, you could end up with a worst case scenario - an extremely groggy, grumpy child but not an actual sleeping one. Have heard of this happening!

Personally I think it's a barmy idea to drug your child for a plane journey

(but then I guess I'm lucky that DD has always been well behaved and easy to entertain with a bag of tricks - and the longest flight we've done with her was about 4/5 hours)

I wouldn't do it. I find the idea of artificially drowsy children a bit freaky.

A bumper pack of valium for the adults on the other hand....

One friend suggested that if they WERE ill, then I'd give the medicine and have a nice flight.

So I should give it with the added bonus that they are NOT ill.It's win win!

Think I'll stick with my first plan of taking lots of distractions. DS won't be particularly excited. His world is full of strange new environments and he'll have no idea he's going on holiday, but it will be tricky getting him to stay sat in his seat for take off.

Thanks

Never have
never would

I am hoping the drug that is TV will work on my two

He won't be interested in the tv. Food on the other hand.

Drugged by chocolate just might do it

I second sticking them in front of the TV / a portable DVD player / IPOD and letting them zone out. Only so long that puzzles and books will entertain the under 5's. Also, bring multiple snacks and treats and produce them whenever your child is getting really bad. Oh, and request the bulk head seats so you don't annoy people in front with fidgeting / kicking etc.

We took a 3.3yo, an 18mo and a 9 week old on a flight from London to Singapore which is almost 13 hours and managed it fine without drugging any of them. We also had lots of compliments about how good they all were (which is unusual!).

All you need is plenty of (new/not seen for a while) toys and books.

We've done it again with them aged 4.3yo, a 2.7yo and a 15mo and we'll do it again next year when they'll be 5.4, 3.8 and 2.4 and they'll be drug free again. They don't sleep as much as they would in bed, obviously, but there's enough happening to keep them occupied and prevent too much in the way of strops.

It's entirely unnecessary and very wrong to routinely drug a child just because you're going on a long flight, imo.

I never have, but my SIL did and it had the opposite effect on my nephew - made him really hyperactive for the entire flight!

Apparently some children react that way.

I've heard the same as pania - in some children it has the opposite effect to the one intended.

NEVER What would a parent do if their child had a reaction at 10,000 feet.

It is ONE day of your life.

Incidentally, I regularly fly back to the West Coast of Canada with four children on my own and I began making such journeys when our first was 5 months old. I have never even contemplated medication.

i have - regularly flew from australia with dc and always used phenergan, but i would reccommend trying it out at home as 5 % of children do have hyperactivity reactions to it, i used to ensure they slept at appropriate time i.e when it should ahve been night time they were asleep, i have never sedated them for an abnormally long time though have friends who have !!

I have, not for a 10 hour flight though. I flew on my own with DD to NZ. We managed the 13 hours to Singapore with no real trouble, but after that she was noticably cranky and refusing to settle. I gave her Phenegan for the second, 11 hour leg. She slept like a baby, woke at 8am NZ time and straight away settled into NZ time with little or no noticable jet lag.

However, I would qualify that by pointing out I was travelling on my own, with a 19 month old, under very stressful emotional conditions. (my sister was dying). A few months later we flew to Australia with DH in tow and didn't bother with any drugs at all.

MrsMattie My ds has only just turned two. Never in a million years could I get him to wear headphones. He can't speak or understand much so puzzles or even eye spy is out. Snacks and treats might work though.

'Oh, and request the bulk head seats so you don't annoy people in front with fidgeting / kicking etc.'

Seriously, I don't know of any airline that lets you choose where you sit without charging a small fortune. I'm expecting to feel lucky if we get seats together.

Starlight - it's worth asking for the bulkhead as they usually save it for people with LOs

If there were something available that would definitely work with no side-effects, and reset them so that they avoided the worst of jetlag, then I probably would (more for the jetlag thing than in-flight convenience). But there isn't, and I can't imagine that there will be any time soon, so I won't.

Most airlines let you choose where you sit at checkin or sometimes before. We're flying to India and back on 6th and 27th January with BA and I chose our seats a few weeks ago.

(Now, if someone could slip me a quick dose of something so that I could sleep through the whole experience...)

Nah, I just did 8 hours by myself with a 2 year old and a 7 month old. Didn't occur to me to drug them! You are not mad. It is not acceptable. You are a good parent.

If you book a sky cot you'll get bulk head seats. (Ds flatly refused to have anything to do with the sky cot, but it was somewhere to put my bag!)

Don't shoot me, but I tried phenergan on a long-haul flight with my 2yr old in April. She vomitted everywhere 10 mins later. The next 5 long-haul flights have been drug-free. We have travelled a lot with our 2, and the youngest (the 2 year old) is much more challenging on flights than the eldest.

I usually have some sticker books, puzzles, snacks, play-doh (just one or two tiny pots, have to be quite careful with it though!), and an etch-a-sketch with me, and naturally they watch movies onboard too.

Good luck, you'll be fine. If you can relax, not worry about how it will go, just try to keep your LO reasonably quiet, it will really be fine. Like someone else said, it's just one day of your life. If all else fails walk around a bit and look at cloud-shapes.

Oooh, I'm going to get flamed for only the second time ever BUT I have "drugged" (a highly pejorative term, imo) my dd (3 at the time) on a transatlantic flight. The flight took off at 8.30 pm and was an overnighter - if we hadn't slept we'd have been physical wrecks. I gave her a small dose of Medised (which she had had before for sleeping with a cough) at her normal bedtime when she was getting sleepier anyway. She slept for five hours, which gave me enough sleep to feel safe on the 2 hour drive back from Gatwick. I am unrepentant and do not consider myself to be a bad parent.

Oh and I second the comment about booking seats by bulkheads - I know BA for one let you do this. It is virtually impossible to stop an active child kicking the seat in front at some point and obviously some people will be more understanding than others.