Posted on 01/22/2007 10:51:57 AM PST by MotleyGirl70
I realize the plane can't move until everyone is in their seats. It just seems they could have let the parents walk around holding the child for a few minutes to see if the kid calmed down.
Well we weren't there and probably don't know that the airline in fact didn't give them some time to calm the child. From the sound of the story I would postulate that the child was totally out of control.
Do the parents have some medical condition that made it impossible for one or both to pick the kid up off the floor?
The entire flight was held hostage because these parents couldn't force the kid into a seat. So what if she was screaming?? She could scream just as loud in the seat as on the floor. And if the flight had taken off with her sprawled on the floor, and she had been injured, her parents would have sued. Instead, they got a free flight because they couldn't control a 3 year old. Pretty clever of them.
They evidently couldn't do that. They couldn't manage to get her off the floor.
I agree, I'd rather sit next to the small child than squeezed into 1/2 of a seat while someone takes up a seat and a half next to me.
You seem to do a pretty good job at it ...
We had the same thing happen with us when our youngest was 2 1/2. We did give him Benedryl before we got on the plan, but it didn't make him sleepy. He screamed for 2 hrs straight. He finally cried himself to sleep on the cabin floor under my seat about 45 minutes before we landed.
Luckily, we had some really great people around us. All of them had "been there and done that".
I think this thread shows the hostility that our society has towards children. It's coated in the niceties of complaining about manners, but it's really about lack of acceptance.
Sometimes, even the best behaved children will act like children.
*taking notes*
Some cry more than others, I've found.
I am 57 and have crossed the country more times than I can count, the Atlantic 18 or 20 times, plus trips into Africa. Baby's are a part of life and flying has become common, it is not for you to say where they can go.
Until they were 6 or 7 I would never take mine into a fancy restaurant. For years it was pizza, Mexican food and spaghetti restaurants. I didn't want to bother others, but flying is a different matter.
OH and I took my first flight at 3 months, from Houston to Baltimore where dad played for the Colts.
So, according to you, a kid shouldn't be able to see his grandparents until he's what, 10? 12? What's the proper age?
I understand that kids can be hard to predict and harder to control, but if he can't get in and be strapped in his seat, he can't fly, (the pilot can't even legally take off) and that is not the fault of the airline. Beyond that, they also have a duty to the rest of the passengers to not allow one to annoy everyone else. If the kid's not going to settle down, better to find that out while the plane is still on the ground than when it's at 30,000 feet.
I fly in shorts because it's more comfortable. Why be cramped in a too-small seat, in a hot, stagnant airplane, AND still be wearing very uncomfortable clothes in the process?
Grandparents can fly, and most don't have to be at work on Monday. :~)
Hyberbole not withstanding ... children 5 and older are usually ok on airplanes
EXACTLY !!!!!
Many parents don't realize that Benadryl can actually have the opposite effect on babies when they are on airplanes.
I have no idea why. But it is apparently so.
When we flew with our 8 month old to Ireland to visit the grandparents (which according to some on this thread was an unnecessary trip), we didn't give her anything to sleep.
But we put numbing drops in her ears and made sure she sucked on a pacifier during take off and landing.
Unfortunately the parents in front of us with the 6 month old did not. But, with the sounds of the plane, the crying wasn't that bad.
So's flatuation but I try not to subject everyone else to it
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