We’ve been invited to a wedding in Australia this september, Miz Siz, Me and our 6 week old kid. I’m kind of balking at the idea of flying UK - Oz with a 3 month year old, whereas my wife reckons it will be nae bother. Has anyone ever done this and can share their experience? The flight we have in mind stops in the UAE for a few hours break. Still - it’s a long way!
Why not?
I have flown from Michigan to India with a very small baby. I forget how old but less than three months. When I think of Hell, I think that must be it. It wasn’t even my fucking baby! (Long story which I will tell if necessary). It cried every minute through the whole trip at the top of its lungs and was utterly miserable and made everybody else miserable to boot. It was sick and unhappy and just bitter.
I don’t know, maybe you can make it work, but I hear it’s the pressure change - makes the kids batty.
Uh-huh… Australia… with a baby. You know what Australia has, don’t you? Dingos. Thaaaaaaat’s right. 
Bwahaha. You actually got me to laugh, loudly, at this. Ha! I’m still chuckling.
I flew from New York to UAE when I was six weeks old. Apparently I was very good and fit right under my mom’s seat.
Forget Australia. Come to the States and teach the men to talk that way. It’d be a social service.
Our daughter was a happy baby who hardly ever cried. She flew to Ireland and back when she was 9 months old and didn’t make a sound. She has been over four times and has always been great.
Our son was a crabby baby who cried a lot for no apparent reason. He cried the whole way to Ireland and back when he was 18 months old. He was really good the next year, and the next.
I think it all just depends on the kid. If you have a happy, smiley baby you have a shot at having a good flight. You’ll still need all sorts of distractions and comforts (if your kid doesn’t use a pacifier get him started on one now). If you have a crabby baby there’s no way that he’s going to suddenly become happy when stuck on an airplane for half a day.
If you want to go, go. Women will be sympathetic. Men will want to kill you. You’ll survive.
Some women will want to kill you too! I am not a baby fan. 
You can help with the pressure change by giving them something to suck on. Unless they’re sick, in which case nothing will really help and if at all possible you should delay or reschedule the flight.
Anyway, I made a four-hour flight with Whatsit Jr. when he was about 3 months old. He nursed a bit, and slept most of the way. It was not a big deal. (Although I was pretty nervous going into it.) It can kind of be luck of the draw, though.
And FTR, posts like this made me pretty much terrified to fly with children, before I actually did it. In reality, most people are very nice about it. I think I’ve had a couple of nasty looks (for even daring to bring small children into the airport - these people weren’t even on my flight! :rolleyes: ) but really nothing more than that. Of course, we’ve never really had a screamer, but still.
On behalf of all passengers who’ve suffered and endured a screamer, please consider sailing instead.
Just be aware that the baby will likely attain legal majority before you land. I’m told that’s a long flight.
You’d only get ME to Australia if I had at least 2 weeks to spend there because of that horrific flight. You’d only get me and my baby on a plane to Australia if our lives were in immediate danger.
Upon reconsideration, I’d take my chances with death.
Seriously, some babies are great on planes. Others are not. If you have the latter, it will be the longest day(s) of your life. As well as those of your seatmates.
Have a care and leave the babe at home. That’s what Grandmas are for.
It shouldn’t be that difficult. Just shove the baby into a dog crate, and the nice lady at the ticket counter will take it from you. When you arrive in Australia, the baby and crate will appear on the luggage carousel!
Friends of our went to NZ with a very young baby. To maximize the usage of airmiles, they took a 20 hour nonstop flight from Heathrow to Sydney.
Two hours into the flight, someone a few rows back started vomiting - not airsickness, but norovirus. Within another 2 hours, our friends were all sick, with 16 hours of misery to go. They were not very happy, but nor were a lot of others on the flight. Fortunately, the baby wasn’t sick, and remained happy. But it was a miserable trip for them.
Si
This woman would both sympathize and want to kill the baby. I mean, if the parents of a screamer on a plane are doing what they can but the baby won’t stop then I honestly feel for them, but being stuck on a plane with a screaming baby is one of my own personal hells.
I don’t want to think about how long that flight is. I’d love to go to Australia, but I think I’d stay at least a month just because of the distance there and back.
I don’t know what it was with this kid, it literally cried every minute it wasn’t passed out. I have flown with other kids on the plane, usually a little older, and they were fine, or even if they cried, it was with brakes. I swear people thought we were pinching this baby or something (I was with my Mom).
Most people are very nice, especially in Coach.
ETA: Part of the reason I’m sure was because it’s mother wasn’t around…wish you could explain that to the baby, though.
Expatriates do this kind of flying all the time - quite often, a mom with 2-3 young children will do lengthy international flights with no dad to help. One trip UK-Oz with two adults and one baby is easy! CairoSon had taken more than 100 flights, most of them international, by age 4, so listen up - below speaks the voice of experience.
Talk to the airline in advance about getting the bulkhead seat, where they can rig up a bassinet that your baby can spend most of the flight in. I suppose in this day and age you may need to check in advance about security issues for bringing any needed liquids as carry-on; that I don’t know about.
If the baby is being breast-fed, this is SO convenient for flying. Be sure to stick with it until after the trip if you are breast-feeding but planning to stop soon.
As has been noted upthread, most people are extremely nice and sympathetic.
It’s hugely uncomfortable when your child cries on the plane, but unless you have the bad luck to have a colicky/crabby/sick/ill-tempered child, they are likely to be mercifully quiet at least 90% of the time. During that other 10 percent of the time, a breast/bottle/pacifer should be at the ready.
Also, realize that while the person sitting next to and directly in front of/behind you may be suffering unpleasantly loud squalling, the white noise of the engines will keep most of the rest of the passengers from hearing the crying all that well. I recently took a Flight From Hell where we were stuck on the airplane for 26 hours (long story) and when we finally landed was sympathizing with a woman traveling alone with a baby and a 2 year old - she said “yeah, and the baby cried the whole time!” I was a fellow passenger and didn’t hear a thing.
My point is not that you shouldn’t take your fellow passengers’ eardrums and sensibilities into account, but just - when you are cringing because your kid is screaming and you have to hang on to your sanity, try not to feel like “oh-my-god-my-baby-is-disturbing-300-passengers.” S/he isn’t. And if you take a long, fast walk down the aisle with your baby, you can minimize everyone’s discomfort as well as get some much-needed circulation going yourself.
Changing diapers in an airplane bathroom is really no fun. New planes are virtually all equipped with changing tables in all the coach bathrooms, but older airplanes may have only one bathroom, or none at all, with a changing table. You might want to agree with your spouse in advance who gets the fun job of mid-flight diaper changes - you can take turns or make one person responsible, but if one person has to do it all, they should get a nice long backrub or some other treat as a reward. Thinking about it may help when they are dealing with a messy diaper in cramped quarters at 30,000 feet.
Finally - I haven’t flown to Oz in a while, but unless things have changed they spray pesticide in the airplane cabin just when you are landing! (This is not airline-specific; they all have to do it because of Australian law, I think - Ozzies feel free to chime in and correct me if I’m wrong.) You might want to have a washcloth or something similar to lay over the baby’s face when they do that. They always tell you it is totally safe but geez, if it kills bugs how harmless can it be?
This no longer occurs. I haven’t experienced it for a number of years.