Air Travel with Children
Tips for (pre)boarding a flight with young children, from baby food to infant carriers
Our daughter was ten months when we took her on planes, trains, and automobiles. Here are some hands-on tips for air travel with an infant you won't find elsewhere.
While traveling with our infant daughter we learned some valuable lessons about taking an infant on a plane. Here are some golden, first-hand tips, fresh from experience!
TIP: Check in advance whether there will be the possibility to warm up food for your little one on the plane. More than often this is not the case, and then why lug along all those little jars of congealed porridge and mash?
TIP: On many smaller flights, especially those that cater to business men, there is no preboarding for families with small children, even though the airline states that this is their practice. It never hurts to request preboarding when you arrive at the gate.
TIP: Most airlines let you bring your infant carrier (stroller or back pack) all the way up to the gate, and will stow it so that it is handy for pick-up immediately after you leave the airplane at your destination. It is a real possibility, though, that you will be kept waiting for it, only to be told that it went straight onto the belt with the other luggage.
At the gate, insist (in a friendly way... the only helpful way) that your stroller or carrier be there at the airplane's exit after you land. It will help, especially if you have to stand in a long immigration and/or security line before you can get to your luggage, and especially if you're on your own!
TIP: Just to make sure, bring a smaller means of carrying your baby, like a sling or a Baby Bjorn.
TIP: When the cost of an extra airplane seat is prohibitive, and you take her along on your lap, check in advance if the airline provides infant seat belts (small belts that loop around your belt). Strangely enough, some airlines make it a policy not to provide those belts.
TIP: When traveling by airplane, young children may experience the change in cabin pressure as painful in the ears. If nursing, latch on, or else give him a bottle, at the end of taxiing, the moment the engines rev up for your final stretch on land. Otherwise you, or he, might run out of steam even before the wheels leave the ground.
