TimeOut

I was of the same opinion until I had my son.

He is now 9.5 months and he has been to three continents and 5 countries of which two were long hauls - Sydney - Hong Kong and Hong Kong -Rome.  His first flight was at 2 months and his last was at 7 months.

Having had my share of crying babies, we were fully prepared.  And on every flight, everyone commented what a wonderful traveller he was.

The key to this is actually understand why babies cry on planes:

1) During take off and landing, the equalising pressure creates discomfort as babies don't know how do deal with this.  The easiest thing is to give the baby a bottle so they are swallowing to "pop" the ears.  In our case, we would "boob" him on take off an landing.

2) Keeping the baby on its cycle is critical and thus picking the right flight time is part of the art.  We take PM flights, so his body clock would naturally knock him out

3) Each parent took turns to occupy him during waking moments while the other ate or sleep.  During my shift, I would walk him up and down the aisle and chat with the flight attendents. 

As for your other comments, our total carry on was 1 baby pack, 2 back packs and a Baby Bjorn. We were able to travel light because we were breast feeding so food was totally self produced.

And here is the secret tactic.  Before we took off, I would introduce my son, by name to those around us.  "This is Vincent.  He is normally a pretty good traveller and we will do our best to make sure he doesn't make too much noise during the flight.  But if he does, please be patient with us."  It made him a little person with a name and not just a baby anymore.  This is a huge ice breaker and we even had people volunteer to look carry him.

The flight from Rome to Hong Kong was the best.  We had passengers come from their seats just to play with him and to chat with us.  As for the crying, he didn't cry for long periods and if we couldn't calm him down within a few minutes, we would boob him and that did the trick.

Babies aren't the issue.  Toddlers are! Especially the terrible twos.  My strategy then will be to drug him with valium and then sneak vodka into his juice.

Gaz

every parent on every flight that I've had 'baby trouble' were like you, we would not be having this sub-thread ! 

I'm an anaesthetist / intensivist and I've done my share of neonatal work, so I agree with your tactics.  But that still does not stop 95% of my g-r-r-r-r-ness. 

I usually curse that I couldn't just break out the anaesthetics.......for the baby or me!  I don't care which.

Regards,

MTF

if u can eat his bread roll that's sitting on his tray? (this is only after u know for sure that he's done eatting and just waiting for the trash cart to stroll by)

Or ask him if he is going to eat that piece of chocolate cake?

I've never done it but have been tempted before :P 
I'd only ask this when packed like sardines in coach class because in business class, I'll just ask the stewardess for seconds.  One time, a family relative next to me in business class was sick and didn't eat any of the food, so I ended up eatting 2 entire meals, and the main entree was filet.  I'm a pig and not afraid of it !

Cheers,
Anthony

even my own kids in the car drive me mad. on a long journey the car is full of colouring books, sweets, handbags, kids needing a pee and saying 'are we there yet dad'. the radio gets forced onto some club music channel which to me is just incomprehensible noise, my 13 year old just says 'sweet' all the time and sings out of tune to the rap crap. i'm glad we've ditched the car with rear dvd player as that was even worse. the headphones wont work so keep getting smacked against the side of my head as they are passed from kid to mum to sort out and you get all the rest i've previously mentioned.

in 3 weeks i'm going to see my adult kids in hampshire for my daughters 18th. 4 hours on a motorway on my own, no wife, no kids, no distractions. sheer bliss.

i'm not really the cranky old sod i sound

Graham

One of the most annoying behaviors is when another passenger asks if you could switch seats when you're assigned to a aisle row and they are in a middle seat.  More annoying is when you tell them 'NO' as politely as you can, they continue to ask if you would mind switching seats and insist that you take their middle row seat.  What part of 'NO' don't these people understand?   And most annoying is when they ask why you don't want to move and then get all p*ssed off at you when you tell them 'NO' for the tenth time.  Unbelievable... it happens at theaters too.

Regards,
ED-209

On my way back from SIHH this year, I took a direct flight from Frankfurt to LAX so this was a LONG ride.  I booked an aisle row because I do not want to be stuck in the middle during such a long flight.  One guy asked if I could switch with his mother so they could sit together.  I asked him which seat do you have?  He said it was this one which is the aisle seat in the middle section.  I said sure why not and switched.

Then as more passengers began sitting in their seats, someone says to me that's my seat.  Then I ask the guy to look at his ticket and his ticket is the middle seat!  He pulled a fast one on me.

Luckily, there was an aisle seat that was empty nearby so I quickly switched to that seat once everyone was on the plane.  Whew....didn't want to be stuck in the middle.

- AT

I would have gone back to the old seat and beat the cr*p out of the guy .  No, I'm not violent... YET, lol

the plastic fork and tried to suffocate his mother with a bread roll. 

Gaz

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My friend had booked a ticket in first class from LA to NY (or maybe the other way). He was shown to his seat, which was next to a somewhat dishevelled guy with very long, greasy, scraggly hair who was apparently already sound asleep.

Said neighbour didn't really regain full consciousness at any point in the flight, but he lolled about, snored loudly, farted often and pungently, and generally reeked of sweat, stale alcohol and goodness knows what else.

About 3 hours into the flight my friend couldn't stand it any more. He asked to be moved, but was told this was not possible. So then he demanded that they move the other guy, because he was so obnoxious.

"Oh no, Sir, we can't do that", was the reply.

"Why not?"

"Because that gentleman is the lead singer of Led Zeppelin."


Cheers
Tony P

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Oh my thats a good story.

My aunt works in EVA airways and i always take that flight from Malaysia to San Francisco.
If they flight is not full she always blocks the seats next to me so i have all 3 seats to my self.
At least that eliminates some of it. But cant help it with the people front n back of me.

There was once on a midnight flight and the cabin was dark, the fella next to me although sleeping did not want to turn his reading lights off!
It was so hard for me to sleep.