Agreed; I like this:
[quote]Be tolerant of others. Especially in anonymous, high-stress situations like air travel, you never really know what other people are doing or why.
[/quote]
People deride ‘manners’ nowadays as an irrelevent code of behaviour, but it’s about giving people the benefit of the doubt, even if they are inconveniencing you, and being a connected, social animal.
Being a parent brings empathy.
It really does.
Those of you that have not spawned will not ken. It’s on the other side of that very fine line.
As for traveling, esp. on airliners. Or even cars. I used to be quite sensitive about strange and seemingly undue utterances from infants. Yet, I remembered my training, from me ma, about putting up, shutting up and making up., especially when one is in a bad situation with quite a numerous population. {Mom's a real blitz baby, bombed unto nothing by Jerry, so she ain't fudging the issue.....}
Which is what flying really is. Or even a long-haul car drive.
A well-behaved child on a long flight is not such a rare occurence as some would lead one to believe. The petulant imps are more oft than not quite tone deaf themselves to their own involuntary utterances, and maybe just to what degree they get under the skin of another human being.
Folks, the next time you hear an infant wailing for what you deem is too long on a long flight, get up an engage the problem. Unless of course one is a totally selfish oaf that has not even an ounce of empathy to spare on a suffering fellow traveler.
Otherwise, one would be no better off that a chap that threw a fellow off of an inflatable lifeboat, knowing full well he could not swim.
For shame, for shame........! :grandpa:Oh I can see that now, you walk over and offer to take the baby and promptly end up in Guatenamo bay or somewhere worse for attempted child abuse!
FYI I have never subjected a parent on a flight to any abuse and often play peekaboo or similar non intrusive games with toddlers - its not their fault they are there and I won’t be getting any sleep whilst they are bawling so I may as well entertain them.
I absolutely agree with the comments about manners, and if parent only flew when they absolutely had to this would be far less of an issue for everyone. As I said my parents never took us on flights but they had the luxury of living in the same country as our grandparents, who were very happy to take care of us while they jetted off on holiday. The point is its about consideration and most parents these days have none for anyone except their spawn. Then they act all surprised when the little horrors end up doing hard time later in life. WTF?
Is it true babies can’t be in Business class (and First class)?
Give over, one engages both hostile parties at once.
Form a Perimeter!
What parents fly if they don’t have to?
What does that even mean?
Perhaps it could be said that some parents are overly self-absorbed. Yet that’s no reason to take it out on us thoroughly solvent spawners!
As for time later in life that is either wishful thinking or you’re an overconfident sage…
I haven’t heard that one before, but it sounds to me like it would be a thing that would depend on the individual carriers. I’m pretty sure I remember seeing a baby in business class on one flight I took.
Dollar Bills, Y’all!
You can fly with babies in business and first class on most airlines.
Has anyone tried feeding Benadryl to their baby? I’ve heard it’s not good, I’ve also heard it’s a last resort option. I’ve also heard instead of sleeping it could perk the baby up for the whole flight.
Last time I was flying with my kids in C some ponce had a hissy fit over the fact he didn’t get his bulkhead seat on the upper deck.
What should we do with the likes of him?
I’ve never done it. I’ve seen poeple do it and it seemed to work. You sometimes can tell by the flush, red, face.
My first time to London was on a cathay flight out of hongkong. We stopped in bahrain in those days and then continued on.
there was this baby who basically cried about 90pct of the entire journey… this was an entirely full flight , not a single seat empty. I was ready to strangle the kid by the time we landed …and yes he was still crying. the mom, bless her, would go sit in the loo for bout 20 mins or so now and then to give us all a rest. I asked the stewardess why she didnt slip something into his formula? SHE said that she wouldve except the baby was on mommys milk.
It was very unpleasant listening to a crying baby for almost 16 hours. And I was only a few seats away from him. This was in 1984 and I can still remember it.
I was actually only joking about drugging the babies. But if it helps with their ear pain? I dunno, not a pharmacist.
C’mon, babies crying ain’t that bad. I used to work in a nursery. It actually annoys me more if people talk too much (which for many people means ‘at all’)
Hey you know what I just realised something. You point out that it is antisocial and bad for the baby and you get responses like: -
My need to fly is greater than yours
Sticky fat businessmen are worse
Crying isn’t that bad
etc.
At the end of the day it is unpleasant for baby and parents and all the other 300 passengers and you know before you even book the flight what a nightmare it will be.
If I punched another passenger in the face I would be punished, if I peed or shat myself in my seat I’d be punished, if I screamed for the entire flight I would be punished.
No amount of complaining about other people’s behaviour, or my need to fly would erradicate the fact that I was doing something antisocial and deserved to be punished
Why then are parents allowed to be antisocial and inflict their babies on crammed metal tubes full of weary passengers? More to the point, why do you really feel it is justified - I mean really not just complaining about other passengers, or your right to do it.
EA, you’re in a position in life when you don’t often (or ever) have to presume on the tolerance or kindness of others. One day, maybe when you’re old or sick, you’ll be grateful that some young thing smiles and shows you a bit of respect and forebearance.
A drunk fat sweaty dick who presses the stewardess button every 20 minutes for more gin is antisocial. The other ones are BABIES, fer fark’s sake!
You really think parents WANT to sit on a plane for 16 hours with a fractious kid? Its a necessary evil sometimes and I’m not looking forward to it one little bit. But guess what? I have EVERY right to get on that plane. Unlike bloody salesmen who book up all the seats and glower at me. Get the fuck off and take a boat. Your snake oil is TOTALLY unimportant compared to my kid’s need to make contact with his granny and grandad. So THERE!
And anyway, MY kid is so damn cute that you’d be prancing up and down the aisle playing horsie for the whole time before you even knew where you were.
But your wife’ll soon stop you pressing that gin button soon enough so she can get some kip, won’t she?
It behooves me to cover all bases. You think I actually ENJOY swilling gin on a plane, young quine?
There are people who don’t?
I drink on planes to kill germs.
Valium works the best, with just a spot of alcohol. Unfortunately it makes it a bit hard to take care of the baby.
We flew with our little girl when she was a year old to attend my dad’s funeral. We were sorry about the noise she made when she woke up twice en route, but were unfortunately unsuccessful in our efforts to fly 200 people and my dad’s corpse over to Taiwan so that we wouldn’t have to bother anyone who felt inconvenienced by our baby’s occasional noise.
Rui, we did these things to make the flight easier:
-Tried to time the flight with her night time sleep schedule. She made some noise for about an hour, then settled into a solid sleep.
-Carried a back-up pacifier. Good thing too, since I lost the first one in the boarding area.
-Brought her favorite blanket (no brainer, I know).
-Used the bassinet provided by the airline. I rocked her to sleep, then placed her in there. She slept for 4-5 hours, woke up for an hour, slept again for a little while, then was up for the last 2-3 hours. I carried her around the plane in my arms to keep her quiet for the last leg of the flight. We didn’t wake anybody up doing that.
-We got off the plane in Seattle, rented a car, and stayed in a hotel for a night. The next day, we got up and drove to my folks’ place for about eight hours, with lots of stops. It was snowing in the mountains and quite beautiful. The baby slept most of the way.
I am worried about you if you are going to travel by yourself. Will someone be with you to take turns should you need to walk the baby around the plane?
As a parent, you pretty much do what has to be done, but wow, the flight you’re talking about is pretty exhausting even if you’ve got help. Can you overnight in LA or SF, split up the journey?