Flying with a 7 month old baby - first time!

barron_2

Hi All,
If Flying with Air Berlin,Kiddies get toys supplied,Babys ,a cot(inform 1st)
also free nappies ,milk etc,etc,
Beats the others hands down!!
Ask me where do my complaints come from for lowcost,
go on dare ya!! DIDLY DIDLY DEE and whats that new airline STRESS JET!!
Happy Hols.

shazziere

if your baby has a dummy i would strongly suggest making sure you have a spare which is easily accessible.On take off,my baby dropped her dummy which rolled under the seats and then because of turbulence we were unable to take our seatbelts off to go look for it or get a spare from the hand luggage! She screamed as loud as possible for what seemed an eternity..On return i had dummies in every pocket!!!!!!!

rubia1409_2

I work for an airline (NOT Ryan Scair oops mean Air!). On our airline a regulation car seat is a forward facing one with a rigid frame and a 5 point harness for the child. The car seat will be attatched to the seat by the seatbelt.
Without a car seat children under the age of 2 MUST sit on the parents lap for take off and landing even if you have bought another seat for them. This is for the child's safety, as if there was any turbulance or an aborted take off a child under 2 could easily slip beneath the seat belt and be seriously hurt, it would be the same effect as putting your child in the front seat of a car with an adult seat belt and doing an emergency stop on the motorway. Sorry to go on but I have seen too many parents not understand why the child needs to be on their laps.

Most children cope very well with the flight. As with previous replies, take toys and drinks with you (not sure what Ryan Air will provide in the way of childrens toys).

The main thing is to keep calm yourself. The more stressed the parent, the more stressed the baby and then the parent gets even more stressed. Ask the crew for help if you need it, and enjoy your flight.

One more thing to all parents, please please do not change your child on the seat. Most aircraft have baby changing facilities in the toilets and if people are eating around you they really don't want to see/smell your baby's nappy!!!

davidlizard

Re the dummies (two posts up) you can get straps about 9 inches long which connect to the dummy and the other end clips to something such as the seatbelt so when he/she decides to spit it out or fling it across the cabin, it will still be easily retrievable. And will be good for ear pressures.

Cabin crew tend to be very accomodating with babies, and will usually fall over themselves to help (e.g warming food, staggering meal times so one looks after baby whilst other scoffs - be aware some babies love flinging airline food containers around the cabin given half a chance).

Re the buggy, the point at which it is given up depends on airline, airport, aircraft type and how many other buggies they already have on board. It is typical to either give it up at the aircraft entrance or at the stage where they check the boarding passes at the gate. If they want you to check it in at the same time the luggage is checked in, meaning you have to carry the baby for some time, say that is unacceptable. If you have to collect it from baggage reclaim the other end, it may come out on the oversized baggage part rather than the normal carousel depending on the buggy, the airport and the mood of the baggage handlers.

And if you decide to travel with the baby on the lap, ask the stewardess what the policy is if oxygen masks come down and there are three between four of you. We get a different answer each time!

Its all part of the learning curve. Have a great trip.

MissBehaving

When I flew to South Africa from the UK with my 10 month old little girl I was told by someone to give her a bottle during takeoff and landing.
Little did i realise that it would unsettle her stomach each time!! She got sick!! LUFFFLEY !! NOT!
She flew again long haul at 20 months and I gave her some Calpol. She was brilliant. The droning of the plane seemed to settle her.
Have a lovely holiday!

MarkyMarkD

Thanks for the answers.

As we haven't paid for the extra seat for our next flight, we'll have to lump having her on our laps for a few hours - or hope we get a spare seat for free: we did, one way, last time.

rubia1409_2

davidlizard wrote:

Re the dummies (two posts up) you can get straps about 9 inches long which connect to the dummy and the other end clips to something such as the seatbelt so when he/she decides to spit it out or fling it across the cabin, it will still be easily retrievable. And will be good for ear pressures.

Cabin crew tend to be very accomodating with babies, and will usually fall over themselves to help (e.g warming food, staggering meal times so one looks after baby whilst other scoffs - be aware some babies love flinging airline food containers around the cabin given half a chance).

Re the buggy, the point at which it is given up depends on airline, airport, aircraft type and how many other buggies they already have on board. It is typical to either give it up at the aircraft entrance or at the stage where they check the boarding passes at the gate. If they want you to check it in at the same time the luggage is checked in, meaning you have to carry the baby for some time, say that is unacceptable. If you have to collect it from baggage reclaim the other end, it may come out on the oversized baggage part rather than the normal carousel depending on the buggy, the airport and the mood of the baggage handlers.

And if you decide to travel with the baby on the lap, ask the stewardess what the policy is if oxygen masks come down and there are three between four of you. We get a different answer each time!

Its all part of the learning curve. Have a great trip.

It depends on the aircraft type that you are flying on as to where the extra oxygen masks are. Bigger aircraft such as a 747 will have extra masks for every row, smaller aircraft will have them either on one side or on certain rows. Ask the crew, they will know, it's part of our safety training to know. The ground staff should also know and only seat passengers with infants ion appropriate rows.

Scheduled airlines will let you take baby buggies on board providing they are not too busy and have space. It helps if the buggy is the umbrella kind and not the huge mountain climbing things that you see around. They will ususally put the buggy in the business/first class wardrobe. Cheap airlines and charter have a couple of rows of seats where the wardrobes should be so will generally put buggys in the hold