During Your Flight
Flying With Children Without Losing the Plot
Seats, timing, ear pain, snacks and entertainment. A practical guide to flights with babies, toddlers and older kids.
Flying with children is a logistics exercise with an unpredictable variable in the middle of it. You cannot control the variable. You can control almost everything around it.
Booking decisions
Seats. Bulkhead rows have floor space and bassinet fittings for infants, but no under-seat storage and often fixed armrests. Behind the wing is louder, which some babies find soothing. Book seats together explicitly, since airlines do not always seat families together on basic fares.
Timing. Two schools of thought, both valid. Fly during nap or night hours and hope for sleep, or fly at your child's best time of day and accept they will be awake. With toddlers, the second often works better - an overtired child on a plane is a difficult evening for everyone.
Infants under two usually travel on a lap for a small fee or a percentage of the fare. Buying a seat and using an approved car seat is safer and considerably more comfortable on a long flight, if the budget allows.
What to bring
- More nappies than the flight length suggests, plus a full change of clothes for the child and a spare top for you
- Wipes, in quantity, for reasons that need no explanation
- Snacks that are dry, slow to eat and not sugary
- A drink or dummy specifically saved for takeoff and descent
- Two or three small new toys, kept hidden until boredom hits
- Headphones sized for children, since adult ones will not stay on
Download everything in advance. Seatback entertainment for children is inconsistent and sometimes broken.
Security and boarding
Family lanes at security are worth using. Pushchairs go through the scanner or are gate-checked; baby food and milk are exempt from liquid limits in most countries but must be declared.
Most airlines offer family pre-boarding. Whether to take it is a real choice: it gets you settled with locker space, but it also adds twenty minutes of sitting still before the aircraft even moves. With a restless toddler, boarding last is often the better call, with one parent boarding early with the bags and the other walking the child until final call.
Ear pain
Children are much more affected by pressure changes than adults, because their Eustachian tubes are narrower.
The routine that works: something to swallow during climb and, more importantly, during descent. A bottle, a breastfeed, a dummy, a drink through a straw, or a chewy sweet for older children. Wake a sleeping baby for descent if they are prone to ear pain - it feels cruel and it is kinder than the alternative.
If the child has a cold or an ear infection, speak to a doctor before flying.
During the flight
- Keep expectations low; a flight is not a parenting exam
- Rotate activities in short blocks rather than hoping one thing lasts hours
- Walk the aisle when the seatbelt sign is off, both of you
- Feed slightly more often than usual, since dry air makes children thirsty
- Apologise to nobody, and ignore anyone who visibly minds
Cabin crew on most airlines are genuinely helpful with children - warming bottles, finding spare blankets, entertaining a curious two year old at the galley for a few minutes. Ask.
Arrival
Immigration queues with tired children are the hardest part of the day. Some airports have family lanes; ask an officer rather than joining the longest line by default.
Plan the first evening to be dull and early. Our guide on planning family travel covers the wider trip, including how to pace the days that follow.
