How young is too young to take a baby on a plane? We have been offered free accomodation in Portugal in October at my mother in law’s appartment. We are exepcting our first child at the start of July. Is 3 months old a bit young to be flying abroad? Has anyone on here done it?

As long as you’re not expecting the child to actually fly the plane, I don’t see any reason why not. Your best option is to check with the airlines to see what their policy is.

I remember last October flying back from Portugal and there being a screaming child on the plane and us saying we never wanted to be that couple.

If you are flying with RyanAir you also need to remember to book them on as hand luggage 😐

babies/children under 10 should be banned from planes!

or have a special soundproofed section at the back 😉

Meh! The baby will be screaming wherever it is, so you might as well share your suffering with a cabin full of people.

We travelled to St Lucia with a 6-month-old, and to Australia with a 2-yr-old. Total nightmare both times, but that’s to be expected really. No reason not too, I mean no biological reason or anything, it’s just not much fun trying to entertain young-uns for such a long period of time. Portugal, all 2 hours of it, should be a total breeze in comparison frankly, and a 3-month old won’t care where it is so long as there’s milk & cuddles available.

babies/children under 10 should be banned from planes!

I couldn’t agree more. You should have seen the look on the faces of the other business class passengers when we sat down with our toddler for the flight to Singapore/Brisbane. Amazed the airline allowed it to be honest, but they do, so we did.

I’m sure my GF’s brother flew with his daugther at about 6 months. Better check with a doctor, something about damaging ears if they’re too young.

babies/children under 10 should be banned from planes!

or have a special soundproofed section at the back

Hmmm got 3 children, have gone away every year for the last 15 years(they’ve all flew around the age of 12mths)& never once had a screaming flight.It’s the parents giving into them all the time that can make kids scream all the time & a pain in the ass in general,esp the only child parents !

Medised is the way forward.

We took our daughter to Prague at 6 months and she slept on the outward and return flights. Shes now 7 and has been a nightmare on every flight since.

My missus decided the best thing to calm our 11 month old son down before a Florida flight was 12oz of milk and a chocolate bar. He spewed it all up in the ailse as we were boarding. Try stopping 300 idiots from walking through spew.

We flew Madrid -> London when my daughter was 3 months, no problem at all. In fact, it was far, far worse when she was 18 months.

Make sure you take a baby bottle full of water for the takeoff / landing, swallowing helps with the ears.

And have fun changing nappies in the miniscule toilets 😛

We didn’t take our kids on planes until they much older,for various reasons.
1)There’s no point in taking a baby abroad(they don’t appreciate it)
2)I wouldn’t inflict screaming kids on other people in a confined space.(for the record my kids were/are well-behaved)but babies cry.
3)Couldn’t be arsed carting baby paraphanalia(sp?) on a plane,through airports etc.
4)Even when they’re older,they’re not THAT bothered about going abroad. My daughter pesters to go back to Wales.
We’re all different,some parent/baby combos are fine,others are a nightmare.Older kids and their clueless parents are worse. On our most recent flight back from New York,a kid was kicking the back of my wife’s chair. The kid’s mother was sat next to him and said nowt!! My wife told the kid off and tore a strip off the useless mother.

Oh right serious post – I thought this might be a sequel!

It’s no worse than a long car journey IMO/E.

We may just have been lucky with our two though.

Before we had kids we took the 28 hour London-LA-Auckland flight to New Zealand. About half an hour in a kid thew up over his dad a few rows behind us. He couldn’t get his bags or clear immigration at LA to get to a shop so spent the remaining 27 1/2 hours wearing the puke-stained clothes.

rookie mistake: always take on some small-packing trews and a spare t-shirt per parent!

It will be absolutely fine if you’re organised and plan ahead. If you don’t have your shit together it could be a case for the NSPCC. Less than one year old is actually going to be easier than when they’re older. We took our wee man to Australia from Edinburgh, via Dubai, at 3 months old and it was effortless on the flight. He had one of those basinets and it was like flying with a parcel – they sleep a lot at that age and our lad is quite placid.

I’m in Dave rileys camp here

I would never take my two (twins @ 6 months) until they were much older. What puts me off is: Lack of access to heathcare abroad, getting kids out of routine (important with twins), nothing in it for them, the noise of a crying bay annoys other people, also it annoys me so I do everything possible to not make them cry!

I would probably have a different view if we had a singleton

is the baby on a conveyor belt?

took our son at 3 months slept all the way there all the way back and no one wanted to sit next to us so we had an extra seat for all the cr@p we did not need either. What is the worst that can happen they scream for the whole journey you will get over it. as for routinE who on eartH thinks a 3 mth old child will have a routine?

this is how you should fly with a baby

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAGpmNb2xfQ

about half way through

you’ll be fine btw, calpol before works wonders!

I would never take my two (twins @ 6 months) until they were much older. What puts me off is: Lack of access to heathcare abroad, getting kids out of routine (important with twins), nothing in it for them, the noise of a crying bay annoys other people, also it annoys me so I do everything possible to not make them cry!

Seems a bit like cowardice, tbh: as long as you don’t head off to a 3rd world country there’s no problem with healthcare, a routine is overrrated (and fairly easy to reestablish), exposure to new sounds, smells etc. is important, and sod what the other people think – it’s only a couple of hours on a plane FFS.

Make sure you take a baby bottle full of water for the takeoff / landing, swallowing helps with the ears.

very good advice

took our youngest to Crete at 4 months no problems not up to date on what is/isn’t allowed milk wise – allow for delays and don’t trust car hire companies on car seats

– aged 2 to 4 is probably more difficult as just can’t sit still – can be made worse if check in staff put them on a seat in a different row or maybe so many parents request to do this it is done as routine 🙂

Seems a bit like cowardice

, maybe, but when your kids spend a lot of time in the healthcare system these things worry you.

Also there will be a time in their lives to show them the world and now is not it.

a routine is overrrated

– It might be to you, have you got twins though!

No problem do it, we did loads from three months. worth giving them a feed during take off and landing as helps em sleep. Buy your calpol in boots once youve gone through security or they will think you are trying to blow up the plane with a pink syrup and take it off you!. ( same applies to bottles of milk but they normally let you take them through if you taste them at security!)

take your own car seat – they usually let you check them in and the rental ones are generally rubbish

We started ours at nine weeks, no real probs apart from airline losing the pram. Coped OK though. Why should it be a problem? Ask for bulkhead seats if going on a proper plane. Never had a problem and all our three have done transatlantic flights at least every other year since 6 months old. Combination car seat/travel system wheels type thin helped cut down luggage and moving sleeping kid problems while travelling young. SMA in individual cartons was really handy too, don’t know what airport security think of them though, might have to decant travel supply and put return supply in hold.

Friend took his boy, known locally as the hell child, to NZ at about 3 or 4 months and was the quietest he’s ever been.

Our American friends went home the other week with their 4 month old boy and he was good as gold apparently. Cried during take off (due to the noise) and slept the rest. They had the front seats and had a clip on cot to put him in as well (provided by the air line).

Took our baby from Canada to Mexico a few years back.
The key is to be prepared.
Bring a change of clothes for everyone, a ton of baby toys, books and stuff and then maybe hand out earplugs and/or cookies to those passengers next to you.

djglover, apologies – if you spend loads of time in healthcare I can see why you might not want to travel. Though I still think routines are overrated 🙂 Anyway, sod the kids – I want to travel, and it won’t hurt them.

Another tip: take enough nappies for at least two days, even if the flight’s a short one and someone’s waiting for you at the other end. We had a flight cancelled late at night, the airline offered us one v.early the next morning, no time to go home, …

If you are relaxed parent it is really very easy. We took our 3 month old to nz and then on 4 internal flights followed by 4 trips to geneva and once to italy in the first 2 years. Its very easy when they are small, the difficulty starts when they are a bit big to sit on your lap but too small for their own seat. I would second the take some spare clothes for yourself having been thrown up over during the final call for the flight.

I find it’s the bit in the airport that is the most stressful when travelling with my three. In the plane they can’t get out! We started flying with them as babies at around 3 months. To be honest at this age 3 month old babies don’t do that much anyway apart from drink, crap and cry when they are hungry.

As mentioned earlier, there’s no reason not to & IME up to 18 months was far easier than from then on. Be sensible & prepared and you should be fine.

Talk nicely to the airline when you book as they may have some parent/baby friendly seating on the plane.

We have travelled aboard with both our two kids when they have been babies. We travelled to the Philippines with our oldest when he was 6 months old, and we are just back from Morroco and our youngest was 5 months on the way out. The Philippines flights were all with Cathy Pacific, which made it fairly easy as we had bulk head seats with a small cot (skycot)to put the baby in – as long haul flights go they were actually pretty easy. In comparison Morocco was on a charter flight with a baby on our lap for 3.5 hours, while it wasn’t too bad it was still a bit of a squash, especially when the food was handed out.

As mentioned in post above Medised is great, but it is no longer recommended for babies.

We have found the health care is often better abroad than it is in the UK, if you want to travel it is really not a reason not to go.

The current situation with bottles of water or milk on the plane is you are allowed to take them, but you will be asked to remove the top and drink from the bottle. They also swab the bag it is in to check for explosives. I would imagine that you would have any cartoons of milk taken off you, however you can buy these at Boots once through security.

Surely taking a flight AWAY from the UK gives you access to proper healthcare.

Best advice we had was to breast feed the baby during take-off and ascent and again on the descent and landing to help their ears adjust to the pressure change.

My wife flew with our youngest daughter when she was only a couple of months old and had no problems.

Our worst experience was 5 hours stuck in a Thomson fly sardine tin with a 15 month old that just wanted to run around, from Glasgow to Cyprus

We went to Barcelona a couple of years ago and our hearts sank when we realised the couple at the other side of the aisle had a baby of about 4 or 5 months. We were prepared for screaming all the way. He was an angel, she just fed him while we took off and then he slept. She fed him again on landing. He didn’t make a noise. Would have thought it was easier when they’re that age than when they’re a toddler and need entertaining.

mrsflash – Member

We went to Barcelona a couple of years ago and our hearts sank when we realised the couple at the other side of the aisle had a baby of about 4 or 5 months. We were prepared for screaming all the way.

I confess to being a bit of a child hater – but there is a simple solution to this one – earplugs. I never travel without them. So long as the parents keep the kid away from me and I have my earplugs I don’t care. At least children don’t get drunk and obnoxious