My wife and I are contemplating a flight from Southern California to Muncie, and we have two small children. One is two years old, the other will be three months old by the time of the flight.
Both of them regularly sleep through the night.*
Anyone here have any experience with taking kids on an overnight flight? Did it go well or badly for you? Our hope is that our older one would sleep through it. We even hope the little one might snooze as well.
But are these silly hopes?
-FrL-
Most day light flights with little babies lead to screaming little babies. It’s understandable- doesn’t it hurt their little ears horribly?
That said, I wouldn’t take the red eye, just in case. If something bad happens and the kids do scream, think of the poor other passengers.
I’ve done several transpacific flights. It’s either going to be pretty good or a nightmare. :smack: Hard to say. If your kids sleep at night, they will probably sleep on the flight.
You might want to consider giving an antihistimine to the older one. Both as a sleep aid and to help with the ear pressure (which really only happens during the descent). You should ask your pediatrician about this. I used to be pretty against it myself, but sorta came around.
More importantly, you need to TEST that the antihistamine actually works. Like a week before. Antihistamine can also make your child wired to the gills, and seems like one day the sleep aid turns into hyperactivity. Seriously TEST a week before the flight if you’re going to try this.
Not sure other people’s experience, but IMHO it’s a lot better to keep the kids on a schedule rather than say “skip the nap so they will sleep on the flight.” Or keep them up until we fly. As much as practical, stay on schedule seems to work better.
finally, carefully pack. If they use soothers, you and your wife should both pack a couple within quick draw reach. Bring too much formula, snacks, clean bottles, etc. If possible a dvd player and a favorite if the 2 year old can’t sleep.
I think you should be fine as long as it’s good for you on the red eye. I mean, if you’re morning worms and conk out with the cows, then don’t take a red eye. You’ve got to be on your game for the kids. IMHO, as long as you do all you can to make it as easy and painless as possible, including for your fellow travellers, then I wouldn’t worry too much about the other passengers for things outside of your control. and that includes if Junior decides to cry for the entire flight. You do your best to prevent that, and deal with it if it happens, and that’s all you can do.
Diosabellissima, I know it can take on religious war overtones about kids on flights. But as long as parents do what they can to minimize any inconvenience, then IMHO the TS rule applies. And I say that as someone that travels pretty frequently and have sat next to kids not my own as they screamed over the pacific in the back of the bus.
We traveled from the Dominican Republic to Madrid when our child was a year old. It was much easier than I expected. She slept on schedule and behaved much better than some of the adults in the flight (that had to be chastised repeatedly by the flight attendant for not following instructions).
We may go back to Europe this year after she turns two, we’ll see how that goes.
CairoSon hit 100 flights, most of them international flights from 5-12 hours in length, by the time he was 4. It depends on the child and how much lady luck is smiling on you the day of the flight, but really, it isn’t nearly as bad as people think. Expats quickly learn to steel themselves and just deal with it on a regular basis, or else their kids would never see grandparents/aunts & uncles/their country of citizenship.
I’d recommend against drugging kids unless you already know how they react – if you’ve given Benadryl before, and it conked your kid out, it is certainly something you can think about resorting to (I always had it on hand, but never once administered it). However, if you don’t already know what it does to you kid (it could just make them hyper), don’t do it.
Good luck.
We’ve flown with our little one from London to Cape Town overnight twice, once when she was three months old and once when she was 15 months old. The first time went very smoothly, the airline has these “skycots” that attach to the dividing walls between sections where she slept very peacefully - better than normal, due to the vibrations I think. The disadvantage is that you get even less legroom than normal - the other bummer was that we had to get her out of the cot and strap her onto our laps whenever we hit turbulence!!
The second time she was too big for the cot, and slept on an empty seat next to me, which was OK, she slept part of the way, and toddled round and charmed everyone for the rest of the time.
Air pressure wasn’t an issue - we just made sure she was either feeding or sucking her dummy on takeoff and landing.
Grim
No offence, but I think I would just as soon have a kid screaming on my flight as have one running around the plane and “charming” me. Not everyone is charmed by children.
That said, I’ve flown on three military flights from Japan to the US, about 10 hours at a time, and all the flights were well populated with small children. It wasn’t really a problem…most of the kids were good, and there is a lot of background noise in the plane that covers up grumpy-kid noises once you’re a few seats away. It sounds like a pretty big hassle, but then going anywhere with small children sounds like a hassle to me. I don’t think the red-eye will be any worse than a regular flight.
Thrice, if you include tomorrow’s flight to New York City (woo-hoo!). Nearly all flights from Hawaii to points east of the Rockies are red-eye.
1st time (to Nebraska): 6 months old. She slept about 90% of the time. Mommy was breastfeeding, and she spent most of her waking hours latched on. On the way back was daylight, but she still slept most of the way. A fun thing happened, the couple behind us asked if they could play with her. Then another couple. It was a nice break and we deemed the couples trustworthy.
2nd time (to Nebraska): 16 months old. A little tricker since we had her on our laps in a full flight. She slept maybe 75% of the time. We brought new books and toys for her, plus let her walk with us if she got cranky. We brought a DVD player and Benedryl… and ended up using neither. We didn’t even need to get the DVD player out of the bag!
This time (2 years ); she’ll be in her own seat. We’re leaving at 9:30pm when she’s sleeping. We anticipate more of the same, but have the DVD player and new books and activities.
Have plenty of munchies. Bring some new toys or books (she likes sticker books). Keep her busy until she falls asleep.
I’ve flown across the Atlantic every year since my son (now nearly 7) was born and there’s no doubt that the west-to-east night flights are a breeze - he just conks out after the first couple of hours. The only inconvenience is that as he gets bigger he takes up more and more of my seat as well as his own when asleep, which slightly limits my own ability to sleep.
Day flights are much more of a challenge, especially for the 2-4 age group, because of their natural resistance to sitting still and short attention span. One year a friend gave me a little package with about ten small presents all individually wrapped - really small things like toy cars, colouring books, story books, games, etc. and we kept my son entertained by giving him them to open at different points during the flight. Now that he’s bigger I allow him to wander around, within reason, and he’s much better about keeping himself entertained when in his seat.
He’s never had a problem with his ears, but what some people do is to give the baby the breast/bottle during landing and take-off, and give the older children something to drink, suck or chew. My son knows that this is one of the occasions when I don’t mind him chewing gum or eating a lolipop.
Did this just a few weeks ago flying from Washington DC to Brussels. The six-year-old slept fitfully but watched Disney Channel when she wasn’t sleeping. The two-year-old went out like a light and slept all the way across the Atlantic. That was all we could wish for.
Heck, I had more trouble sleeping than either of them!
One thing that I think the OP will have to worry about is they’ll undoubtedly have to change planes. I mean, you can’t fly direct from LAX to Muncie, IN, can you? So they’ll have at least two takeoffs and landings, each way.
Once children become more aware of the world around them and understand what planes are, do they still get excited about going up in an airplane? Or does the jaded attitude of adults, annoyed with what air travel has become, rub off on the little ones?
I know I was sure excited to go anywhere in a plane, from the time I was about six. But I also remember being afraid of the idea at 4; at that age my mother took my brother and me down to meet her parents at LAX, and through that whole episode I was afraid I was going to, somehow, end up in an airplane.