Airline Rules and Regulations – Children & Infant air travel tips to keep you saneNeed some infant air travel tips or some advice on how to handle the kids on the airplane? I thought giving some tips for air travel would be helpful since most people don’t know the rules these days. If you’re traveling with kids under the age of five there are a couple of rules to flying on planes that may be important to go over. First, you can’t sit in emergency rows for obvious reasons. In the event of an air emergency, you would naturally be most concerned with the care of your child and assisting passengers or opening doors would not be the first thing on your mind. You can bring car safety seats if your child is less than 40 pounds and the car seat has a label that it conforms with federal safety standards. The rear facing position has been tested and found to be the safest position in a plane. You won’t be able to use a booster seat since they have been deemed unsafe aboard a plane. If you need one when you reach your destination there are several types of bags for the booster seats so that they can be checked with your luggage. When you are choosing between forward and rear facing for your child the criteria is height and not weight. If the baby can still sit comfortably rear facing with her head below the back of the seat, and the seat has the option of rear or forward facing, then it’s best to use it rear facing. This will provide the most protection during takeoff and landing. Any child 40 pounds and under is allowed to travel on the lap of a paying passenger – but only one lap child per passenger. Even though you may save on the price of a ticket by traveling with your baby in your lap you will be giving up a few luxuries (and possibly a little sanity). Your child is also more secured in a car seat during an accident (rare) or turbulence (common). Imagine a flight longer than an hour where you won’t be able to read, eat, care for or play with the other children or just sit back and relax. Our children take their cues from us…. you don’t want to start out the trip with the family in a bad mood. And, because flight attendants handle food and beverages, they aren’t allowed to handle garbage. In other words, they’re not allowed to dispose of dirty diapers for you. Even though it’s your child, and you’ve handled 50-80 of these a week, the diaper contains human waste. Bring a bunch of plastic grocery bags for those times, both on and off of the plane, when you need to contain a dirty diaper until you can find a place to dispose of it. There are a couple of areas on the plane where you can change your child’s diaper pretty easily. Some flights have diaper-changing tables in the bathrooms but since planes are usually kept in service for many years probably won’t have access to one. Your choices will depend upon what is in the diaper and how old your child is. Take your child to the bathroom before boarding and before landing. If your child is anything like my son, the one time you don’t, he will go as soon as you get on the plane. It could mean a very long and stinky flight. Make sure you explain to them that when the pilot has the seatbelt sign on that no one can get up, not even to go to the bathroom. This might even cut back on the number of times they ask to use the bathroom just so they can run around! Seating on the plane can make or break your trip. When you reserve your flight you will most likely want to travel economy or coach since once your child becomes restless or starts to complain the flight attendant will most likely ask you to move to the back of the plane to calm your child so they are not a disturbance to the first class/business travelers. If at all possible, you should reserve the bulkhead seating. This is the row immediately behind first class seating. There are no seats in front of you and there is a lot more leg room. We traveled to Puerto Plata in these seats and were very comfortable. Depending on the airline your are flying on, reserving those seats might be impossible. There are some airlines which reserve those seats for wheelchair dependent passengers. Other airlines don’t allow families in the first eight rows behind first class to ensure the first class passengers aren’t disturbed. Still others reserve the bulkhead seating for their preferred customers. We flew with JetBlue and they were wonderful to our family. Plus, the Satellite TV came in REALLY handy on the long flight. My son watched cartoons. These rules change within the airlines so it’s probably in your best interest to check in early at the gate and make your wishes known to the attendants. Sometimes seating can be rearranged at the gate to accommodate families with children. Be sure to let your agent know that you are traveling with children and that you’d prefer the bulkhead seating. And being really nice helps too! Window seating is also ideal for children. They should have the experience of seeing the world from a great height – since they are up there anyway! Watching out the window during takeoff and landing often times quiets noisy children and gives them something to concentrate on. One last tip is to make sure that your child is either chewing gum, drinking from a sippy cup or bottle or sucking on a pacifier during take off and landing. This will alleviate the pressure and help to pop their ears without pain.
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