Advice for flying with a 6 month old infant?

An overwhelming decision is whether to take night time or day time flights. There are pros and cons for each, but it changes everything. This is the overwhelming factor that will affect how the flight goes.

Secondly if as is common you have a long travel time to your main airport anyway, and if in any event the flight leaves early in the morning, you’ll have to travel to the airport the night before all stay at the closest airport hotel, and then fly fresh.

Similarly if you happen to arrive late at your destination, take a night at that airport hotel instead of trying to travel on to your relatives or whatever the case is.

Thirdly if a long flight with a stopover, in fact have a stopover at a hotel midway rather than going straight through.

Sadly points 2 and 3 cost money of course, which is unfortunate. (The smart-ass answer to this whole uestion is unfortunately something like “bring your au pair!” :/ )

All the other parents have made all the great suggestions, own seat, book “crib” seat up the front of the section, Benadryl or similar, nursing pillow, and generally try to relax as much as humanly possible. All human beings love small human beings, so you’ll be surrounded by people oohing and aahhing, which is your natural right as a mom of a new child, so just enjoy it. Culturally if you fly say Thai Airlines when pregnant or with a small child, you’ll be surrounded by waves of love from the crew!

The single greatest piece of advice I’ve ever received was when I was preparing to travel (14hr flight) with our 5 month old. Bring a nursing pillow! Yes it is bulky and annoying when moving through the airport, but once you’re on the flight and the little one is sleeping comfortably in your lap, you’ll be thankful.

I’ve done this before. Good luck!

First of all, do not worry about your child crying. I got self conscious about people looking at me when my daughter was crying, and it made the situation 10x more stressful. Anyone that has ever had children is probably not judging you because they know you can’t simply force an infant not to cry.

Second, if doing infant in arms, bring some kind of strap you can wrap around your baby so he/she feels buckled in. On our first flight, we didn’t know the rule that you can’t share the seat belt with your baby, so I had her on my lap with the strap over her lap so we were buckled in together. She did fine on that one.

On the second flight, a stewardess informed me that wasn’t allowed, so I couldn’t buckle her. Then she kept squirming and whining for the whole flight. I think when she was buckled in that she felt like she was in a car and knew she just needed to sit. But when she was loose, she couldn’t sit still.

If you can afford a seat for her, bring a car seat. This is ideal for her comfort and your sanity.

Best of luck to you. Before they start crawling is the best age to travel and if only on breast milk that will always get past airport security but mom must take care of herself. Our doctor, with considerable experience himself, suggested a little Benadryl (or generic) would help with any sniffles if that is going on, and in any case make the little one a little drowsy as well contributing to a quiet flight.

Take care of yourself before the flight, rest. Be prepared that you won’t get any sleep in those 14/16 hours of travel. If the seatbelt sign is on children aren’t allowed in the bassinets, and you will have to take them out, and strap them to your seat-belt, most likely waking them. My wife had the luxury of a bumpy-flight and getting the (finally sleeping) baby out of the bed 4 or 5 times, waking it up etc.
Also be prepared for enthusiastic cabin personnel and ‘locals’. We have a daughter with blond European-styled hair, and in Tokyo and Shanghai we could have made a fortune if we asked people to pay for a picture, I heard from a colleague that has an Asian-type child, that got a lot of attention in Europe. These people mean no harm but are genuinely excited to see such a little one. It can however be frightening.

All in all travelling with small ones was always not as hard as we thought up front (24-36 hour trips), however you should be prepared to 3 days of recovery afterwards taking care of your jet-lag as well as the baby’s jet-lag.

Be prepared to be vomited on. Bring changes of clothes for you and the infant.

If at all possible, book a separate seat for your baby and use a car seat or something similar.

The NTSB strongly advises this for the safety of your child, as discussed over on the Aviation Stack.

First, congratulations on choosing your time to fly well, traveling with a 6-month-old is about as easy as it gets! They’re big enough to sleep fairly well and not to cry randomly anymore, but not mobile yet, and small enough to fit into a bassinet, calm down with breastfeeding/a bottle, and not need much in the way of entertainment. Once they’re one or so, none of these will be true, and it takes until around 3 until they have an attention span longer than a goldfish.

Onto the tips:

1. Book a baby bassinet. Most airlines will have these on long-haul flights (your 12-hour flight certainly qualifies) and they’re free, but you have to book in advance. As a bonus, since bassinets are always bulkhead seats, you get a little free extra space.
2. Find your airline and airport’s stroller policies. Some let you bring a stroller all the way to the gate. Many provide free loaner strollers on departure and/or arrival. Virtually all will let you check one in free of charge.
3. Bring a baby carrier (Baby Bjorn etc). Really handy when trying to put them to sleep, standing in immigration lines, etc.
4. Request a baby meal, but cover your bases and bring a backup meal or two as well. If you’re using formula, you’ll need to bring your own, but crew can give you water and/or warm up the bottle for you.
5. Book a night flight if you can. They, and you, will sleep better. (That said, there’s a minority of babies that hate sleeping on planes, and their parents find day flights easier. YMMV.)
6. Bring lots of diapers. Air pressure changes can do strange things to little digestive systems. Airlines may have diapers, but even if they do, they’re highly unlikely to be a good fit.
7. Don’t worry about the ears. Unless they are or have recently been sick with an ear infection, babies will not get dangerous amounts of ear pressure on flights, and if sleeping, you do not need to wake them up for takeoff/landing.
8. Make friends with your seatmates. If they’re also in the bulkhead row, they’re probably parents as well, and they can look after your baby for a moment if you need to pop into the bathroom etc.
9. Bring only completely silent toys. Anything that rattles, squeaks etc will be really loud on a night flight when everybody else is trying to sleep.

Before you travel – book early

• Make sure to book early enough so that you can get seats with access to a bassinet (travel cots). You need to call the airline directly to reserve such seats. Note that a travel cot/bassinet does not count as a seat for the baby. You’ll still have to hold the kid during take-off and landing.
• If you do not manage to get a bassinet, bring a baby carrier onto the plane so that you can strap the baby onto you, so that you don’t have to hold him/her the entire time.
• If you do want to shell out for an seat for the baby, check ahead of time whether your car seat will fit (hint: in some low-cost carriers, it may not, since the seats are too narrow).

Before you travel – be aware of the rules and regulations

• You are usually allowed to take e.g. breast milk with you through security check (TSA link – while security procedures are similar in many places, check you local regulations as well). You can use that to take non-breastmilk liquid for babies as well.
• You can usually check-in a car seat at no additional cost (even though you have not paid for a seat for the child). Pack it in a sturdy plastic bag, not all airlines will provide you with one.
• You can usually bring a foldable (but not detachable) stroller directly to the gate, which helps you to limit your child’s mobility, if needed. The stroller will have to be gate-checked, which tends to be a bit less of a damage-risk. Check with the airline, though.

At the airport

• You need to check bags anyway (diapers, lots of baby clothes…); limit the amount of carry-on luggage so that you have your hands free for the kid (and the stroller, and the toys the kid just threw away as you hurry towards the gate).
• The airport may have fast-track queues for families with small children, as well as special waiting areas. Use them!
• Although you are allowed to pre-board, you may want to choose to board at the very end only, especially if the child is already mobile and doesn’t like to be confined to its seat while waiting for other passengers to find their seat. Of course, if you’re worried about having enough space for your cabin luggage, enjoy pre-boarding 🙂

During the flight

• Relax. Your child will most likely cry, and some people may be offended by that, but hey, tough luck for them. Feeling stressed out to have to calm the child, or yelling at him/her to shut up will only make matters worse.
• Note that you need to hold the child facing you during take-off and landing (unless the child is in its own seat), so that can be a good time for (breast-)feeding the child, since the swallowing helps with ear pressure (you can, but don’t have to be, lucky in that your kid does not suffer much from pressure change).
• Make sure there is a vomit bag in your seat pocket, and that you can grab it reasonably quickly. In my personal experience, the most critical period for vomiting is either during or right after landing.
• Remember there are lots of people who think babies are cute, and would love to hold the little bundle of joy, while you go to the bathroom, or relax for a moment. Let them help you.

You need to provide more details on what you already have considered and make your question a bit more specific. I can’t know what you might overlook if you don’t say what you have looked at already.

But, there is one thing which I can recommend is that if you can afford it is to buy your infant a seat on its own. Especially on a 12 hour flight, things aren’t that comfortable with an infant on your lap.

Airlines do allow bringing a car seat and your trip will be so comfortable if your kid has its own seat. Some airlines do have special baby beds, but typical this is limited. So if you don’t book ahead you might miss out on flight with more infants.

The downside of buying your infant a seat is the price. Airlines usually have very limited reductions on children fares. Usually you pay the adult fare.