I am unable to accompany them due to work issues.
Can anyone please advise as to how their travel can be made comfortable and how the staff can help ?
Thanks for your responses !!
My wife will be travelling by Swiss Air from Mumbai to Zurich (8 hours flight) alongwith my two kids. My elder son is 3 years and the younger is 5 months old.
Our doctor recommended nasal drops before take off and landing. Worked great - the other babies were screaming and ours was sleeping
She also gave us Fenstil drops that act like a sedative. Earplugs for the nearby passengers can make your life a little less stressful too.
Try to book a nighttime flight if possible to give them a fighting chance at being able to sleep. Book a bulkhead seat so that a bassinet (airline provided) can be mounted on the wall in front of your wife for the 5 month old. Bring a DVD player for your 3 year old and bring lots of surprise toys for him. The staff won't help much so don't count on that. Good luck.
After flying Singapore air where the basinetts needed to be stowed at any sign of turbulence, I would recommend taking a car seat and strapping them in it. For our flight to Australia, it was great to just leave our son asleep in the carseat when the seatbelt sign came on. And we had a safe carseat correct for his age when we arrived.
Negatives - they can reach the seat in front!
That's a good idea as well. We built a tent with blankets over the car seat and got 5 hours of sleep out of our 18 month old once.
The flight attendants at Swiss make us take baby out of the carseat and into the stupid lap-belt thingy during turbulence however. Much safer
Qantas has belts over the cots so you don't need to take them out. Max weight 11 kgs though. The are deeper than Singapore air so you can put blankets over the top.
The worst things about the bulk head seats is the cabin lights are brighter and right overhead and the arm rests don't move. Plus I got a customer that had payed extra for his extra-legroom seat that complained every time my baby cried. He chose that seat next the basinett.
I haven't checked it all through, but I seem to remember that this Thread about travelling with children had some good ideas in.
Does that mean that you paid for a seat for your son? If you had paid the infant price, your son would not get a seat where you could put the car seat in. Or was it because the seat next to yours was anyway empty?
Kids below 2/meets minimum requirement in height and weight for bassinet are entitled to Infant ticket (no seat).
If it is a longhaul flight, it is definitely more comfortable for the parent/s when each child has a seat.
Bring some toys onboard
I let mine watch TV...and give them homeopathic 'sleeping drops' before we board the aircraft.
You can give a child cough syrup as it tends to make them sleepy. A childs crying is more often from everyone being tired, stressed and not wanting to be strapped down than having phsiological difficulties with take-off and landing.
If a Flight Attendant instructs you to strap a child in, in a certain way- that is because it is the safest for your child on that aircraft... it's their job.
And take something to calm yourself as well (you choose what you prefer); you'll find the trip will go alot better for everyone.
exactly my point. If you purchased an infant ticket, airlines usually would not let you bring the car seat on board, and even if they do, where are you going to place the car seat if the flight is full?
If a flight is full, a car seat won't be allowed on.
You can always give your car seat to staff to go in the cargo hold if you don't have a empty seat. It will arrive at the aircraft for collection with your stroller. The carseat needs to be be EEA approved and the airline tags it like your stroller and sometimes needs to weigh it at check-in.
When you are travelling alone with a basinett booked, they almost always keep the seat next to you free because the basinett is in front.
I first travelled with my son when he was just 2 months with Swiss Air. He was great, but we got little sympathy or help from the staff, I would hate to try such a long flight with a baby and toddler. It's all very well talking of car seats, toys and so on, but Mum only has one pair of hands and has a baby to carry never mind a tired stressed toddler, nappies, bottles food, drinks. Is there no way she could have an extra pair of hands for the trip?
Wow - just 2 months old. We were still waiting for a citzenship.
I think it's because it's a tried and tested way of ensuring that, in bad turbulence or an emergency landing, nobody gets hit on the head by a flying baby - which would put the airline in a terrible light in the media.
The baby loop style seat belts are a way of accomplishing this but will most likely severely injure the baby in an accident but probably less so than if the baby was thrown across the cabin.
So you could say it's the safest proven system but I doubt it's nearly as safe as a four-point harness in a well-secured car-style seat.
What you could do is (if your dates are flexible) to check out which flights are less full. Keeping a seat free beside your booked seat is an act of goodwill from the airline.
If you could manage, an child ticket being 50% (while an infant ticket 20%) of an adult, maybe it's not a bad idea to buy a child ticket for your baby so that you could bring the car seat onboard. (your baby will sleep and sit nicely and safely in it and mother could go to the toilet with the older one with no worries!)
This depends on the airline. Some airlines do not provide baby seat belts (I think we flew Northwest over Christmas?) because they feel that they are more dangerous than a parent's arms; if turbulence is very strong, the theory goes, the baby's seat belt could cut through the baby.
Also, only certain airlines let you check two items at the gate (eg stroller + car seat) and some don't let you check anything at all so I would recommend calling ahead to see what their policies are.
We flew Air France on a long haul flight, 13 babies on board and the crew was really on, really helped with every aspect of baby travel (heating bottles, etc). They even brought us a baby meal tray, roughly the same amount of food you would get on an American flight
LOVE the bassinets!
Had no idea so many people medicated! (well, J-LP, I guess I should've known; LOVE the avatar). Thanks for the tip.
My baby's always had fun on the plane and slept at the right time etc but frankly a lot of that was due to him being nursed. Best airborne baby medication ever!
Forgot to add: a carrier helps, IMO, for the time when you don't have your stroller, car seat etc, especially so you can have your hands free for the other child.
Good Luck!
I have travelled many times alone when my 2 where babies, and i have always paid a small amount of money for being let on board first before the other passengers (no i did not blackmail them ) makes it easier to get settled without being pushed and shoved along the plane trying to find your seat. I also paid 60% of a ticket when my baby was sitting on my knee during the flight, i also got a special baby seat belt for them, and if i took my car seat on board i just asked the flight crew if they could store it for me no problem. Another good way to carry your baby and have your hands free collecting luggage e.t.c. is use a baby björn
Most airlines let parents with children board before the rest or when the others are already seated. Especially those with buggies to have stored. No need to pay extra.