How early should infants fly?

Stewboy1978

Morning

My wife is due at the start of June with our 1st child , anyway....After the baby is born she would like to go to Norn Iron to see her family - Now it is only a 30 min flight from Edinburgh.

Easyjet website says it allows the infant to fly after 2 weeks - Is 2 weeks ok to fly or should she wait a bit longer?

bloomin_freezing

i'm not totally sure, we didn't take our daughter on a plane until she was 15 months.

If you are using easy jet make sure you do wait until the baby is over 2 weeks. I remember watching an episode of airline and easy jet refused to take a baby as it was under 14 days old. The baby on the episode was 13 days old but the crew said they wouldn't take it until after midnight when it had actually turned 14 days! just keep that in mind, to save yourselves any upset.

Spendless

I took my son on a long haul flight at 3 months. I too remember an 'airport' type of programme where the baby was not allowed to fly cos it was too young. I would check with the individual airline.

Justie

some people prefer to wait until after the first lot of jabs before taking a baby on a plane or other enclosed public space but that's up to you. Also bear in mind that baby may be late or early so don't go booking anything yet. I'd also say to wait until she and you feel able and ready to take baby out of her/his routine as that can be hard work. Really you'll have to judge for yourselves when it's the right time.

thesaint

Spendless is right, each airline has different rules.

It sounds like you are concerned that your child will be affected by the actual act of flying at a young age, if this is your concern, I would speak to a midwife for clarification.

Amanda65

We flew to Portugal when my son was 10 weeks old. The beauty of them being so young is you can feed them for take off and landing, minimising ear pain and he slept for most of the flight. The downside was he was quite a lump and had to sit on my lap all the way!!!

india

I had a baby last month (April) and where going on a long haul flight in August. I was also worried so I checked with the doctor and he said it was best for baby to have jabs. By the time we go she would of had the necessary ones.

cazziebo

My sister brought my nephew over from Canada before he was four weeks old. healthwise everything was fine. Only problem was that she had no passport for him - UK immigration let him in on birth certificate, the Canadian authorities gave her a hard time. She just hadn't thought of it.

Hope it all goes well!

cx

Mrs_pbradley936

I took my son on a trans-atlantic flight when he was four weeks old.

Nicki

I'm another NI ex pat living on the mainland. My LOs were about 3 months before I flew with them I think, but they were fine then. My views for what they're worth are:

1. I wouldn't book the flight until after baby is born, as they can be late as well as early so don't want to screw up the dates by a day or so. Certainly from London the Easyjet flights can be very cheap, even if booked at the last moment, provided you don't mind what time you travel.

2. As its a first, your OH will have no idea how she will feel after the birth. It really does vary from women to women, but some cultures have a 40 day lying in period where mum doesn't have to get out of bed if she doesn't want. There is a reason for this! If your wife loses a lot of blood during or after the birth, she is likely to feel quite tired for several weeks after, and probably not up to travelling on her own. If she has a CS she won't be able to lift a suitcase for a few weeks (docs recommend 6 weeks, but she might feel up to it sooner)

3. Even to NI, she will need a passport for the little one, and these do take a few days to organise. A lot of people haven't even managed to register the birth by 2 weeks after the birth, never mind doing all the necessaries to get the passport (which you can't do of course before the baby is born)

4. On practicalities side, in the first few weeks after the birth, you sometimes discover that there is a load of kit you need for little one that you may not have realised you would need before the birth. It may be more of a hassle to be contending with this away from home. (obviously we do have shops in NI but she's not going to want to be struggling home with eg sterilisers, bottles, etc if breast feeding hasn't worked out along with all the other nonsense you need to take for young babies - moses basket, car seat, etc)

So far as jabs are concerned, I would be more relaxed about this. Its not like she's taking the baby to Outer Mongolia. If she's breast feeding, I would have thought her own anti-bodies would protect little one from any bugs on board the flight which are likely to be of the cough and cold variety anyway. I'm not aware that there is a big Polio, Diptheria or Tetanus problem in NI which is what the 3 month jabs are for, so its a bit of a red herring.

And as for Al Mac's point, I can't recall ever being bothered by a young baby on a flight (and I fly a lot) but yes to drunk young men, and stroppy older kids!

purplepatch

Al_Mac wrote: »

About 10 years old Hands up if a young child hasn't annoyed you on a flight

And it's comments like that that really help to make us parents of babies feel sooooooo relaxed when flying! :rolleyes:;):p

We're flying to south of France next month with our 6 month old and she can be a right moaner, so looking forward to it immensely - especially the having her strapped to our laps thing - definitely delegating that task to DH :rotfl:

And to the OP, make sure you allow enough time for the passport to arrive - can't remember how many weeks they say to allow for it, but I know it was a few weeks when I applied for DDs a couple of months back. Even though they're so young, you still need to get a photo done and get the necessary countersignatures etc, seems so daft for such tiny travellers.

And of course as previous poster says, you can't even apply for the passport until you've got the birth certificate!