11 February 2011, by Tan Yi Lin
Repeat After Me: Babies & Long-Haul Flights Don’t Go Together
Ever been stuck in the same plane with a screaming infant on a long-haul flight?
Two thoughts keep popping into my head in response to this:
1. Poor passengers
2. Poor baby
Since I haven’t transcended from couplehood to motherhood yet, I still think of myself as a traveller without kids. So my heart goes out to the hundreds of poor passengers who have to survive a 20-hour flight in close proximity with a crying baby. It’s like being in a torture chamber with no hope of escape. I’ve been there — maybe not for 20 hours straight — but that was enough.
I absolutely hate it when a baby cries on a flight, especially if I have paid good money to fly comfortably on a long-haul flight. I look forward to watching movies, reading, eating and sleeping in peace. A crying baby ruins the whole flight experience and the holiday mood. I know that babies can’t help but cry if they are feeling unwell. I know that some (unfortunately, only some) parents really spare no efforts in trying to quieten their crying child. But knowing that does not make my flight any better. So I wouldn’t want to subject other passengers by bringing a crying baby on board.
My heart also goes out to the baby. As a child, I used to get very airsick even on short flights to Penang and Perth. I remember complaining plaintively to my parents that my ears hurt and clutching tightly to the airsickness bag while never-ending waves of nausea washed over me, oft triggered by the smell of airline food wafting down the aisle. I couldn’t eat, sleep or enjoy the cute colouring packs the cabin crew dished out to us. In short, I was miserable and my idea of a job from hell was being a cabin crew.
Babies can get airsick too. They can get nausea and painful ears that may not be relieved by sucking motions even if breast or bottle feeding is administered. Babies don’t cry because they are sad, unhappy or bored. They cry because they are feeling uncomfortable (i.e. hungry, tired, wet) or unwell (i.e. sick) Imagine if you were feeling so horribly ill that you couldn’t eat or sleep, but since talking is not an option, all you can do is cry on and on and on — that’s damn exhausting.
As for the parents — yeah, flying long-haul with an infant is definitely doable. Heck, anything is doable after you’ve gone through pregnancy and birth. But at what cost? My friends who are mothers of children who don’t travel well say it’s a torturous experience for them as well. They feel stressed because their baby is unwell and they are not able to do anything to help. They feel horrible because the racket their child is making is causing an awful lot of disturbance to other passengers. They start worrying about the same thing happening on the way home (another whopping 20 hours if you’re returning from a faraway land. Woot!) . In short, it doesn’t make a good start and end experience for a holiday. And these people only flew short-haul to nearby destinations like Hong Kong or the Maldives.
So yes, while it’s doable for parents, they might want to spare some thought for the baby and the other passengers onboard — because not everything is about you. Plus, if you were spending thousands of dollars to fly halfway around the world, wouldn’t you want to enjoy the flight too? Beyond the flight, wouldn’t you want your child to be old enough to be able to enjoy the entire holiday experience too?
So the practical, logical, sensible thing to do is: unless you really truly believe that these far off countries are going to fall off the face of the earth next week, why not try out a closer destination for now and see how your baby takes to flying? The temptations of favourable currency exchange rates, seasonal sales or exotic food are not quite the best reasons to put everyone — baby, parents and strangers – through the torture of flying together. On the other hand, events like weddings, funerals, overseas postings, home visits (if you’re living overseas) or traveling so as to introduce your newborn to a dear 110 year-old relative before it’s, you know, too late, are probably good reasons to grit your teeth, pray for the best and brave the long flight.
It’s true that you never know how your own baby will take to flying until you take a gamble. But some things are not worth gambling on for now. The least you could do is to opt for a much, much shorter flight and see how it goes — and hopefully lessen everybody’s misery on board.
Sure, I still speak as a non-parent. But I will give anyone who disagrees the full right to point your fingers and laugh at me if I ever go against my own words once I have my kid.
5 Comments
carol
February 23rd, 2011 at 8:39 am
we hv travelled to msia and bali on several occasions since he was 4 mths old, but most of these were self-drive to various destinations in msia. the first flight was to penang, barely warmed the seat before it was time to disembark, but at least we know ian doesn’t have a problem with changing air pressure. by the second flight (2h to bali), ian was fine, but i was already preggie with #2, and we haven’t flown since. guess it will be a while more that we will fly anywhere longer than 2h, esp if we are going to keep up with our birth-spacing of 2 years. =) we won’t want to be a public nuisance on flights!
Yi Lin
February 17th, 2011 at 10:14 am
Hi Chen Chen, your baby sounds like a model traveller 🙂 Lucky you! I think it was a great idea to try out a 1hr flight first in preparation for the flight to USA. I think of it like swimming – if you don’t know how to swim or you’ve only just started learning, you don’t go jump into the deep end first. Not only do you obviously endanger your life, what you do also affects people around you – someone is going to have to risk a certain amount of danger to him/herself in order to rescue you should anything happen. Sensible people would test the water, learn what to look out for and learn how to manage potential problems.
That said, I know that some parents might have to make long-haul flights at short and urgent notice without having the luxury of doing a test flight first. In such situations, I guess you’ll just have to pray for the best.
And yes, it’s quite true that some adults behave worse than kids do on board a flight. Come to think of it, the only time we were so irritated by other passengers that we asked to change our seats – the irritation was caused by adults poking (stabbing) the back of our headrests and refusing to let us recline our seats.
Peg: Thanks for the empathy. I know some parents get outraged when asked by irate passengers to try to quieten their crying children on board a flight. They say that babies have a right to travel and a right to cry. Not quite the best argument or justfication to put forward when everyone – baby, parents, passengers – are frustrated. All the best with your baby travels at the end of the year!
Celine: When I heard that my parents went on a couple-trip to the USA when I was 1 and left me behind in SG, I was a bit miffed. They even said, “Huh? Bring you along for what? You were just a baby”! LOL. But now I TOTALLY understand. I really don’t think I’ll be attempting a long haul flight with an infant – unless forced by circumstances (touch wood)
Peg
February 16th, 2011 at 4:52 am
I am a mum-to-be as well and you totally spoke for me. As much as I love babies and children, I really cannot stand crying babies on board. I’m living in Aussie and planning to make a home trip back to Singapore at the end of the year with my baby and really keep fingers crossed that everything will be good. I would really hate it if we end up disturbing everyone else.
Chen Chen
February 16th, 2011 at 1:29 am
Well, I’ve travelled with my baby (11 months old) to California to attend a family wedding. And that’s because we promised my cousin that we will be at her wedding 2 years ago, before we even had the kiddo on the way.
My baby loved the trip to California. She was so excited about everything she saw that there were days she went WITHOUT naps, despite all our efforts to get her to sleep. She was also non-fussy on both stretches of flights, outbound and inbound.
However, every child is different. We tried her on a 1hr flight to KL (when she was 3 months old, to visit my grandmother who can’t travel to SG) and she did so well on the trip that we decided it was worth risking the flight to USA. Also, we made sure we had a really FREE-and-EASY itinerary that was scheduled around my baby needs (e.g. meal times, nap times) and we never hesitated to cancel an outing when we felt that she was not up to it. If the parents are not expecting a dream holiday where they will get to do everything they had planned to do, then the vacation will work out. It’s about adjusting your expectations, really.
p/s: The adults sitting behind us on the flight back to SG were more annoying than my daughter. They kicked out seats, cleared their throats loudly and complained a lot to the air stewards/stewardesses so much that we got complemented by the chief air steward for having such a no-fuss attitude (baby + parents). =)
Celine
February 12th, 2011 at 8:36 am
LOL, hope you don’t have to eat your words one day 🙂