Alternately, some kids can have the side effect of hyperactivity and irritability, which is exactly what you were trying to prevent, so you might not want to risk that either.
We flew with our (then) six-month old to Italy from the UK (about 3hrs).
Daughter was good as gold - no crying, slept most of the way, and when she was awake I spent the time lifting her up so she could send the most heart-meltingly beautiful smiles to the people in the rows behind us.
Even the normally stone-faced italian customs staff were pinching her cheeks and grinning at her.
The flight home was much the same - we gave her plenty of milk before the flight, and took bananas with us to nibble on.
Of course, now daughter is a 2.5y/old toddler I would be very wary of inflicting her on a plane full of passengers, unless I had a real grudge against the airline. 
I guess it helped that we were on a budget airline, so people tend to be a bit more resigned to the fact that noise and kids are part of the deal, but we didn’t have a problem in the end.
Elaborate, please? Whenever I’m sitting close to a screaming, miserable baby on flight, I always wonder “Was this trip necessary?” especially if it’s a drivable or trainable distance, like from NYC to DC. When my little ones were little, I always found a way to replan my trips so that they could be left behind in good hands or else put into a car, inconvenient though that might be, until they were big enough to behave themselves in transit. (I asked my inlaws to travel up to see us, for example, until the kids were 3 or 4, or else I drove from Syracuse to NYC to visit them.) What does “no choice” mean?
[dupe]
Oh no, please, no.
I was once on a plane with a fussy baby nearby. A fussy baby doesn’t bother me that much. I feel sorry for them - they haven’t a clue what’s going on, they are surrounded by strange people in a strange environment and their ears are hurting.
However, the parent who tried to calm down fussy baby with a noisy rattle for the whole flight… that’s a different story. The baby was clearly paying absolutely no attention to it, and it’s the only thing the parent continually tried to do.
My iPod can drown out most fussy babies. That rattle cut through everything.
The choice is “fly with baby” or “don’t go at all and offend most of my extended family, especially my parents.” My parents are paying for us to go – for the plane tickets, the car rental, the hotel while we’re there, our meals, even the wedding gift, because we’re flat broke. My husband and I are both very underemployed right now; I’m recovering from cancer; we had an unexpected baby. Mom and Dad are helping us with medical bills and such, too.
The occasion is my youngest cousin’s wedding, 1500 miles away. (For contrast, NYC to DC is about 225.) My grandmother recently died. My mother and her brothers are all on a worry-bender that we cousins, scattered as we are across the country, won’t remember or bother to be familial and get together now that we don’t have Grandma to visit. Plus, everyone is hella-excited to see my kid, who (unbeknownst to anyone, least of all me) was conceived just before I started cancer treatments – surgery, chemo, and radiation – and is apparently perfectly healthy all the same, not to mention incredibly cute. My cousins are duking it out on Facebook over who gets to hold him for how long and in what order.
Finally, my parents and my sister made sure we wouldn’t miss this trip: the deal is, the folks and my sister are sharing a hotel suite, with me and my husband in the room next door – and my son stays with them overnight, letting me and my husband sleep ALL NIGHT LONG. For four nights in a row! :eek:
OK, you’re excused. Sorry for all your troubles, and best of luck.
Just to reiterate what everyone else is saying - if people can see the mother trying to quiet the kid, people are much less cranky about it. It’s just part of air travel. It’s the mother that ignores it that gets the looks.
You may still get a dick or two who says something but just smile and be pleasant and don’t let it get to you. His anger is not your problem.
I remember one little kid who screamed the house down the whole time. Soon as the plane landed he was quiet. They ended up behind me in the line to get out, and I remember looking into this poor little kid’s HUGE blue eyes, still wet with tears, and just thinking how terrified he must have been, totally uncomprehending, pants-wetting terror.
Thanks, all of you. (“See here, Mr. Asshole On A Plane, I have permission from pseudotriton ruber ruber!”)
Those several of you who’ve mentioned a bassinet – I’ve never heard of this, or seen one on a flight. Can anyone attest that they’re available on domestic US flights, and maybe elaborate?
No need to elaborate, and the trip doesn’t have to be necessary. People with children do not have to plan their lives so as not to inconvenience the other people taking what is basically public transportation. If the distance is drivable, and you don’t want to be by kids, then perhaps you should drive it ;). People need to accept that children exist, and their parents travel. A plane is just a flying bus, not a fancy restaurant.
The best advice so far is to do what you can to keep your kid relaxed, and not worry about the other people.
I think there are tremendous numbers of people in this world who don’t understand this. It isn’t basically public transportation, it is public transportation, and that means that even though you don’t like it every loud, smelly, fat, sick, or rude person in the world has just as much right to fly as everyone else. Every time I see anyone bitch about sitting next to a fat person on a plane or having children on a plane or whatever it seems to me that most of those people have never ridden on a bus or a train before. A lot of people also justify in their heads that because plane tickets are much more expensive than bus tickets they have a right to a sound free, smell free, etc. flight.
I think airlines could probably do a lot more to make people comfortable for their trip, but honestly I can go to the airport and get in a plane and be in California 6 hours later. Never before in the history of the world has this been a possibility and just having the ability to do so is amazing. I don’t have to spend 9 days in a coach cabin of a ship getting motion sick in the ocean to travel to another country. I don’t have to spend 20 hours driving from Lubbock to Corpus Christi if I want to travel from one end of TX to the other. People have lost sight of just how amazing this ability is and have started looking at air travel as though it is a restaurant in the air instead of the world’s fastest public transit to get from one place to another.
blinks
Where did this soapbox beneath my feet come from? That was unexpected! Sorry about that, carry on.
We found it much easier to fly with irishbaby when she was 3 months than when she was 10 months.
Just put her in her sleeping bag and babygro, stuck a boob in her mouth and she nursed and slept the whole time on the first flights.
Come 10 month and she was angelic on the way out- laughing, clapping hands, enjoying her toys- happy as anything. Return flight she was not a happy bunny- turned out to be brewing a virus, and, after being woken from her nap by the drinks trolley, despite being dosed with pain killers, screamed for about 45 minutes. She finally stopped when I lay down with her in an empty row and nursed her back to sleep that way.
Just do your best, and don’t take it personally. Flying is a way to get from A to B, and people with kids need to do it to.
It’s good advice, but in defense of efts, note that one can question flying with babies without questioning babies’ right to exist. As described above, many babies and toddlers find flying to be terrifying or painful; also, it’s not unreasonable of adults to hope for their flights to be free of screaming, while recognizing that you can’t always get what you want.
Me, I’m still hoping for transporters.
Who are these “efts” you’re defending? 
Perilously close to Pit material. I beg to differ–if I get on a bus and I’ve played basketball for three hours that morning and haven’t showered, and am still wearing the stinky shirt I played in, and have eaten limburger cheese and onions wtihout brushing my teeth, and am farting like a motherfucker, and insist on discussing trivial nonsense in profound language at the top of my lungs for the duration of the bus ride, whilst scratching my balls every few seconds, and ripping loud intermittent belches while sneezing my snot over anyone within thirty feet of me, I’m sorry, pbbth I’M being rude to my fellow passengers, they’re not being rude to me by disapproving of my comportment.
I consider bringing a baby on public transportation, especially of extended duration, to be slightly ruder than the above-described behavior. For the record, i consider parents of very young children to be among the most self-centered asswipes on the planet, generally speaking–their attitude is “Hey, I have to put up with this annoying little fucker 24/7, and I’ve lost all perspective as to having a normal quiet life for a few more years, so I’m bound and determined to share my discomfort with all of you.” Fuck that noise. You decided to bring a squalling brat into this world? Fine. Enjoy the screaming and the crying and the wailing and the whining, but if you inflict it on me without your life and limb being in danger, I’m going to inflict a little special pain on you, too.
You know, particularly since your parents are paying anyway, FedEx isn’t that expensive. Baby could be there by 8:30 the next morning.
This is pit material and mostly nonsense. Really, no children on public transportation? All I can respond in this forum is if you want quiet on a plane, buy a private jet. If you want to fly with the public, quit being a baby.
If I’m ever sitting next to you on a plane, please notify me and I’ll subject you to such an unpleasant trip you’ll wish you’d never been born. And I’ll expect from you nothing but your gratitude for my company when we’re done, okay?
Could you explain this? Are you saying that when you board a plane with a few hundred other paying passengers, you want things your way or you lash out like a child? I’m really not following your line of thinking. It seriously sounds like you need to avoid public transportation if minor things set you off in such a dramatic fashion (“you’ll wish you’d never been born”:rolleyes:). I’ve been on plenty of flights with crying children, and, well, that was it, I was on some flights with crying children. No big deal, nothing happened.