Yep, good advice upthread. Whatever you do, don’t loudly say things like “I’m never flying economy again” and other such bullshit. Gawd, the kid melting down, throwing stuff, hitting me was not nearly as irritating as hearing the spouse bitch like she was the one inconvenienced. Be seen as proactively helping the kidlet any way you can and most passengers will cut you slack.
If things really go south, saying something like “I’m sorry for the disturbance but we are doing the best we can” is a pretty good line. Otherwise, pay no heed to the entitled jerks that think kids shouldn’t fly.
I always wore cargo pants and had a soother or three, diapers, snacks, onesie, wipes, etc quick draw ready. Several handy changes of clothes is a good idea for the little one.
If you’re not breast feeding, have formula ready to go. Check with security but as I remember formula gets a pass. Otherwise have a couple of bottles with powder ready to go.
Do you use a kangaroo style carrier? Bring that. Strap in the kidlet and walk the aisles.
work with the airline to see if you can get a bulkhead seat and a bassinet. Kidlet will just lay down and sleep most of the way.
anyway, up to about 6 months is as easy as it gets and you’ve only got one between the two of you to look after.
At 3 months? I wouldn’t. 3 years, hell yeah. (But I’d also try it out at home, first, to make sure we didn’t have a paradoxical hyperactive reaction to Benadryl!)
Two things on Benedryl - one - three months tends to be younger than a pediatrician will let a child have it. So in this case its definitely a TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR thing. The second is that if you do try and drug your child, make sure to do a trial run. With children, especially young children, Benedryl can give you a wide awake anxious and hyper child - exactly what you DON’T want on a plane.
Concur with those that said 3 months isn’t all that difficult an age for most babies and their parents on a plane, where older babies and toddlers can be a real handful when flying. At least in my experience. My worst travel day with a kid ever was in the 13 month range; an older baby can scream loud enough that every row on the plane will be annoyed, and they can keep it up for an entire flight. 3 months, not so much, and crying just wears them out and they eventually go to sleep.
This may sound a bit silly, but if possible, dress the little one in a holiday outfit (not your only one, in case of accidents!). We flew halfway across the country last Halloween with a four-month-old, on a packed flight because everyone had been delayed by Hurricane Sandy, and I think the fact that Ian looked SO FREAKIN CUTE in his little skeleton outfit really helped grumpy people to be less stressed about his presence.
If you can possibly afford it buy him his own seat. I’ve flown with my kids as lap children and was lucky but the statistics are clear - if something happens on a plane the first to perish are the lap kids. There is no way for you to hold on tight enough to counteract the forces of the plane if something traumatic happens.
With the PSA out of the way - nurse or pacifier on takeoff and landing, be well rested yourself. This is not the time to stay up half the night before travelling to get shit done, you need to be calm before the baby will be and that means being well rested. Head for the airport early so you’re not stressed. At 3 months the baby takes a lot of their cues from you so take care of yourself and you’ll likely have a happier baby.
3 months could very well be the easiest you ever fly with your child for years to come. This is really the time to do it, I think. We were lucky that our baby seemed to find the vibrations of the plane extremely soothing, even soporific, this seems to be fairly common and I hope you find it to be the case as well.
On a long flight, one of the best things we did was make sure each parent had some time to rest, because you really cannot rest much when you are the person holding the baby. A weird thing that I would have thought would be horrible, but ended up being great, was when we were on an overbooked flight and wound up with two seats fairly far apart. The flight personnel were very responsive and offered to try to arrange a move once everyone was checked in … but we ending up loving it, we swapped the baby halfway through the flight, which gave each of us a break, and also the people around us only had a baby near them for half the flight.
As a frequent flier for business, my only advice here is don’t make your kids the other passenger’s problems. All of us who are frequent fliers know when we see a baby on the plane, there will most likely be some wailing and crying. In my experience, even when it is a very vocal baby, your fellow travelers understand that a baby will be a baby. So for yourself, don’t stress about it. We may sigh, share knowing glances with each other with even little eye rolls, pray silently as you walk down the aisle that yore not in the seat next to us, and even push our earbuds or noise canceling headphones a little tighter on our ears, but we get it.
The only time I see kids being a real problem and where people get upset or even directly rude/confrontational towards the parent traveling, is when the parent allows the child to become a direct nuisance to others and this is usually not parents with infants at 3-months old. Toddlers climbing around the seats, toddlers throwing toys/food, toddlers being up in the aisles, etc., and the parent’s doing nothing to prevent it or oblivious to the other 100+ passengers being impacted by their little snuggums precious snowflake!
Sounds like a.) your baby is too young for that and b.) others have provided some good advice for traveling with a 3-month old.
Sorry to disagree, but I do. On that “worst day of flying with a kid ever” day that I mentioned above, our kid was completely under our control except he wouldn’t stop wailing. We tried every trick to get him to calm down - toys, treats, embraces, bouncing him in our arms calmingly (while standing as close to the rear of the aircraft as possible to annoy as few people as we possibly could), you name it, it was tried. We were very, very visibly trying our best, yet we got repeated, pointed, nasty looks from more than a few people who passed by. People who fly can be assholes to parents, even ones who try their best. The flight attendants, on the other hand, were wonderful and very sympathetic, but I can’t say anyone else was. Oh, yeah: the reason the kid woke up from a sound sleep to cry was because the woman in front of us who had elementary school kids was letting them make enough noise that it woke the baby, after I’d nicely asked her to get them to quiet down; she was one of the people giving us stinkeye afterwords.
Hope you have asbestos nipples. But yeah, at that young a baby just needs to nurse and have a clean butt and be close to you and they are happy. A toddler is much harder because they’ve gotta climb and play and socialize and scream.
That is good and kindly advice, but I (used to) travel a lot on business, too, and my advice is for the business travelers.
Don’t schedule business meetings on Monday mornings, or Fridays. If you must, you take the benadryl.
Really, we know civilians always want to maximize the vacation, so they leave after work on Friday and take the red eye home Sunday.
And we know how to travel - the best head-phones or earbuds for us; which airlines take only cash and which take only credit in flight; which airports have the best services after security; speaking of security, how to unload and strip down smoothly at the security inspection line. Not to mention which carry-ons will roll down the aisle of which planes, and that 727s overhead bins are larger on the right side.
Mommy and Daddy do not travel as well as we do even if they travel all the time on business, because business travel is easier.
So, we should a) stay out of their way, or b) not whine. Because they have it tougher than us.
there are always asshole travelers. That said, most road warriors get it, have kids, have coping strategies and supplies (no need to offer ear plugs, a road warrior has that squared away), etc. Don’t be a jerk - do the best you can with your child, don’t act like you’re the one being put out and don’t sweat anything else.
I once flew for at least 6 hours where the twins were tag team screaming. One would finally be exhausted and sleep, and the other would then start up. And then at least half the group of college students returning from a summer in china starting sitting down around us on the transfer leg to Denver. They were all really good natured about it, and the twins even settled down and slept for that leg.
Yeah. Dweezil didn’t get wired on the stuff (we gave it to him once, not associated with a flight but for true medical reasons) but nor did he get sleepy.
Lots of good advice, but one that I haven’t seen yet: make sure you have plenty of snacks and drinks for you (especially if you’re nursing). The drink cart comes around at its own convenence, not when you need something, and the “food” will be nonexistent and/or inedible. If you have stuff to keep yourself comfortable it’ll be easier to deal with the baby.
Not advice but the first time we flew with Dweezil, I found myself uttering a phrase I never expected to say: “Please tell me you farted!” (to my husband). I was NOT looking forward to dealing with one of “those” diapers on the flight - and he was old enough that it woulda been a stinky one.
Advice: Your kid may normally go through, say, 4 diapers in 8 hours. Bring at least double that. Then double THAT. They weigh nothing, you may not need 'em, but you may… and will be grateful you did.
