It’s summer. Families are flying to vacation destinations. Flying with young children can be a wonderful experience for the children, their parents and the people around them. And it can be a disaster too.
To me, the key to a successful flight is parental preparation.
While some parents I’ve encountered over the years don’t agree, parents are responsible for their children’s behavior aloft. Saying “Kids will be kids,” isn’t an appropriate response to a complaint about a child making life miserable for other passengers.
I’ve endured screaming babies, been kicked in the back of my seat by toddlers, encountered lavatories made unusable by dirty diapers improperly disposed and seen toddler temper tantrums.
In each of these instances, the parent was really the real problem.
Parents need to anticipate the problems their children might encounter, and need to be prepared to prevent or handle them.
I have two cautions for parents.
Don’t foul up your trip due to missing travel documents. If you’re flying out of the country your children need a passport too, and the same visas you need, if any. Under some circumstances you might want to have a copy of your custody agreement, and in others, written travel permission from the child’s other parent or guardian.
Anyone who’s ever flown with a toddler or infant in their arms knows it’s not fun. In my opinion and that of many experts, it’s also not safe.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends all children under the age of two (Most airlines don’t require children under the age of 2 to have their own seat.) be in an “appropriately secured child restraint in their own seat.” I unequivocally agree. Every child not yet ready to sit in a standard airplane seat with the seatbelt fastened, needs an FAA approved seat in their own seat.
Here are my top 10 tips for flying with children:
1. Let your toddler bring a backpack of their own with some of their belongings. It will make them feel more adult. That will help parents get them to behave better.
2. Don’t leave your child’s “comfort belongings” at home. If you double or triple check anything before leaving home, make sure you don’t forget these, a blanket, pillow, toy, any number of particular items.
3. Bring DVDs/Movies and a portable device to play them on the plane. Assume you won’t be able to plug in the device. A laptop or personal DVD player will work. Bring earphones with a long wire for your child to hear the audio, so it doesn’t disturb others. A splitter will permit more than one child to watch and listen.
Extra: If you child hasn’t used earphones, get them used to it at home before traveling. You don’t want them to balk at their use on the plane making it impossible for them watch a DVD.
4. Electronic games are ubiquitous, and can help your child pass away many hours, however they can be annoying to others as they are often very noisy. Have earphones for them.
Extra: Traveling by plane might be a good time to invest in a new game for a special surprise.
5. Age appropriate books to read, sticker books, small toys and coloring books are wonderful to amuse children during plane flights.
6. Take plenty of wipes, and a hand sanitizer for clean-ups. If your child is in diapers, have 3 more per child than you think you’ll need. Don’t forget disposable bags for the soiled diapers.
7. Take snacks, lots of snacks, snacks and even more snacks! Food keeps children busy and entertained. Pack your kids’ favorites for the journey.
8. Take plenty for the kids to drink too. Flying will cause dehydration. TSA states “Baby formula and food, breast milk, and juice are allowed in reasonable quantities exceeding 3.4 ounces (100ml) and are not required to be in the zip-top bag.” When you get to TSA security in the airport, make sure you tell them you have these items to avoid problems.
9. If your child gets motion sickness in your car, count on it happening in a plane. After checking with your child’s physician you might want to give your child antinausea medication. Wait until about 30 to 60 minutes before departure to give them the medication, not before you leave home, since it might wear off before you fly.
10. Avoid ear pressure problems which can be especially painful for children who have smaller eustachian tubes than adults. Have babies either nurse, or suck their bottles during takeoffs and landings. Other children can suck on a candy or chew gum.
Parents are responsible for their children’s behavior inflight. Parents know their children better than anyone. I hope all parents will use that knowledge to help make their child happy and comfortable while flying, which will ensure their flight is pleasant for their family and their fellow passengers.
After many years working in corporate America as a chemical engineer, executive and eventually CFO of a multinational manufacturer, Ned founded a tech consulting company and later restarted NSL Photography, his photography business. Before entering the corporate world, Ned worked as a Public Health Engineer for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. As a well known corporate, travel and wildlife photographer, Ned travels the world writing about travel and photography, as well as running photography workshops, seminars and photowalks. Visit Ned’s Photography Blog and Galleries.
Re 7 & 8, I would add that the snacks and drinks need to be appropriate. A kid on a sugar high at 35,000 feet is extremely unpleasant, as is a hypoglycemic kid. Sugar free drinks, dried fruits and healthy sandwiches are a good way to go. If the airline is going to feed you during your flight you may want to know what they are going to feed your child, if you need to order a special meal, do it well ahead.
Hi Matthew,
While I agree with you about snacks and drinks, I’ll have to leave the choice up to the parents. We took natural fruit drinks for our kids which were frozen and thawed as we traveled keeping them cold (No colas, for example, as they not only contain a lot of sugar, but also caffeine which will dehydrate the kids.) . We also took carrot sticks (no celery (salty and dehydrate the kids)), small tomatoes, cheese sticks, and fruit such as grapes, berries, etc.
Here’s the thing, if the child’s parents haven’t been feeding their child these types of foods all along, there is no point in bringing them on the plane, as it is unlikely the child will eat them all of a sudden.
As a youth soccer coach I am more than aware of “sugar high” problems, but moving to quality snack foods, for the first time, for a plane flight, probably won’t help at all, and may actually end up being worse than the sugary food, in my opinion.
Most domestic airlines today don’t serve food except for purchase, in economy, and generally the food isn’t kid friendly in the back or front of the plane. Special orders may help, but as an adult with lots of allergies, I’ve found the special ordered food to be generally more than wanting. The best bet is to take food from home. Even when flying domestic FC in the US, my wife always brings food from home, and it’s always better than airline fare these days.
The name of the game is preparation. Most everything parents do with kids on the plane needs to be rehearsed in the sense that many things can’t be new, such as using earphones, foods, drinks, etc. and you can’t forget to bring the comfort items.
Ned, a good article.
Here are some additional tips:
1. Try to schedule the flight during your young child’s nap time and/or sleeping time.
2. If you decided not to purchase a seat for your child and have a lap child, make sure that the lap child is on your travel record. If you are on an international flight with a lap child, several airlines (all of the US based airlines) will charge 10% of the highest fare (not the fare that you paid unless it was the highest fare) for the class of service that you are in. If you are sitting in First Class and the highest fare was $ 7,000, the fare for the lap child is $ 700 plus taxes.
Don’t expect that the plane will have empty seats; therefore, you can put your lap child in an emply seat next to you. Given the reduction in capacity, most flights are full.
3. If it has been several years since flying, there have been several changes…most of them have ‘taken away’ stuff from travelers.
4. Make sure that you have assigned seats and everyone in your party is sitting together IF that is important to you. If you can’t get seats together, consider taking another flight where you can get seats together. Don’t expect the ticket counter agent or the gate agent (at least on US Airways) to find you connecting seats for your entire party. Don’t expect that other passengers will give up their prime seats (i.e. aisle) for a middle seat on a 3 hours or longer flight.
5. I go to the Dollar Stores to buy toys, etc. If you child loses these items, it didn’t cost that much versus losing a $ 20 toy or something. I put the toys, coloring books, etc. in separate bags…one bag for the outbound portion and one bag for the return portion.
6. Don’t change diapers in the seat…use the lavatories.
7, If you are taking a 2 YO to 5 YO on their flrst flight that is more than 6 hours long, it is my recommendation to take a short flight to get them adjusted to fly, to learn what take places, to find out any possible issues, fine tune your traveling habits while flying with a young child. We have a friend that took their then 4-YO daughter on a 10-hr flight that was her first and it was terrible.
8. If it is possible, take a direct flight instead of connecting flights. If you have to take connecting flights, minimize the number of connections and make sure that you have a minimum of 2 hours between connections for a domestic flight.
9. If you are going to ‘bag-check’ or gate-check a stroller, an umbrella stroller and/or a car seat, make sure that you have a protective cover for it. We purchased one from Target for $ 15 for our car seat. Most if not all US based airlines will not put these items in a bag. However, it seems to be a common practice for European and Asia based airlines to put these items in a bag. On LH, CX and OZ flights, our umbrella stroller that we gate checked was put in a clear plastic bag and a checked luggage tagsticker was applied. Our umbrella stroller was waiting for us when we left these flights. Our experiences on US Airways has been waiting at least 5 minutes if not more for our gate checked stroller.
10. Read…there are several forumns out on the Internet in regards to traveling with kids as well as articles in various parents and parents & child(ren) magazines.
11. Tell your young child(ren) in advance (as well as a few times a day) what to expect, the behavior, etc.on their flight. I do this with my son all of the time for a variety of things. This past spring, I was on a flight from PHX to SLC…the row behind me was a mother with twin girls (4 or 5 YO). One of the girls had a melt down (crying, screaming in bloody murder tone and volume, etc.) since she couldn’t sit in the window seat. Since my son loves to sit by the window and look out, I know that children like to sit in the window seat. If I was that mother, I would have told the girls a few times before the flight that we will change seats in the middle of the flight or one girl will sit by the window on one flight and the other girl will have the windows seat on the next flight.
Can’t agree more – I always used a plane trip as an excuse to unveil a new – and usually much anticipated – toy. It works like a charm. For some destinations like Disney, it’s a good idea to bring along materials and/or toys tied into the trip’s purpose which can tap into the excitement level.
Don’t bring anything that makes audible noise, and, especially for long trips, bring more attention grabbing devices and toys than you think you need – because attention spans can be short no matter what.
Also, one of the best behaviour modification devices for young children is – your attention! Talk to your kids about your trip, read to them, keep them company. Especially if you work a lot like me, your kids will treasure having all that time and exclusivity with Mom or Dad and the passengers will benefit.
One thing to keep in mind with baby food: TSA will often make you open the jars so they can inspect them. Unless you have some way to keep them cold on the flight, the jar food may spoil on a long flight. Try asking the flight attendant for a glass full of ice. Pack some extra jars in your checked bag so that you can feed your baby immediately upon arrival if you have any question about the quality of food you brought on board.
Thanks ARW, and thank you for the wonderful additions to the list.
Hi Adele,
Have you ever personally encountered TSA agents forcing someone to open the jars of baby food? In all my travels, I’ve only seen this once, and the dad talked the agent out of it. He explained that if the jar was opened and the food tested, he’d ask the agent to throw it out since the couldn’t ensure sterility when taking a sample (The agent never thought of pouring a drop or two out.) The dad also explained that once opened, the food would quickly spoil and he wouldn’t take a chance hurting his son. The mom immediately suggested they should swab the exterior of every jar they had, and their bags, for explosives. The TSA gave in and sent them on their way without testing anything.
I’m finding more and more, TSA is acting more professionally these days, and are making better decisions when dealing with the public.
I have seen them act harshly though, but only when a passenger comes through with a chip on their shoulder.
Even so, I still contend, and I’ve written about it many times, that the liquid/gel rules are meaningless, in that while they might have made some passengers feel better, they haven’t made us safer.
I would be very interested to read about your personal experience or the experience of those you’ve observed who were forced to have baby food jars opened and internally inspected for explosives. If you don’t feel comfortable writing that down here, please send me an email. [email protected]
Thanks.
Another tip…. Keep the trip to an age-appropriate duration.
I was on a flight from Chicago to Phoenix, the third leg of what had become a trip from H-E-double-hockey-sticks. I was still hours from home, exhausted, and cranky. And I’m one row in front of the screaming terror two-year-old.
Finally, we touch down… and her mother says to her, “Well, you’ve been up more than 24 hours! You’re being very good!”
I’m not a parent…. but I don’t think there’s a parenting manual in the world that would say keeping a two year old child up more than 24 hours is a ‘good idea’. No wonder the kid was screaming her head off.
Speaking as a near-million-mile flyer between 1978-1982, with all those flights taken with a preschooler who was a very good flyer — and this is not a mother’s boast, it’s a reflection of what airline employees and other passengers would tell me — this column is spot on. This is exactly what I did to keep my small child cool, calm, and collected. This column should be reproduced and handed out to every parent traveling with a small kid.
@ARW, lappers are not charged a percentage of full F or Y fares. Different carriers have different policies, but the norm is that they pay the taxes and no fare (which can be substantial).
And some airlines do indeed have children’s rates as well.