Flying With Our Son

We had to recently fly out to visit my family in another country. So I had a talk with my husband regarding how our son would behave during the flight and if there was anything we could do to make it easier for us.

The main concern was during takeoff and landing, as the pressure changes, we were afraid he would start crying due to the pain in the ears. Now for adults, usually a chewing gum solves the problem. For our son, we tried to plan it in a way, so he would either be asleep during that time or feeding. We would keep him awake and hungry so that he would start feeding during the takeoff/landing and fall asleep after some feeding.

This seemed quite easy when we flew the first time. During takeoff he was asleep, and during landing he was feeding so he didn’t notice anything.

When returning back we ran into problems. During takeoff he was asleep and full, but when landing he started crying. And because his ears hurt I couldn’t get him to feed to help him relieve the pressure on his ears. So after messing about for 30 minutes I finally managed to get him to suck, and as soon as he swallowed a few times, it got better for him.

Our flight only lasted for 2 hours, so I would say things went pretty smooth. If we had been in a long flight, I can imagine that they would get tired and annoyed and thus they’ll cry a lot.

So in conclusion, I would say that preparation is the best thing for flying short journeys with babies. Keep them hungry and awake and try to feed them or make them sleep during the difficult phases.