plane advice

While on a recent plane ride with lots of unhappy babies, I was reminded of something that I probably should have posted a long time ago. This is perhaps the useful advice I could possibly offer to people who travel (by air) with small children...

Take along a syringe (the kind that comes with nearly all infant medicines) and a bottle of spring water. While taking off and landing feed little droppers of water to your child every 10 - 20 seconds - like a baby bird. (I'd even do it with little kids - their ears are still really sensitive to pressure changes).

This may sound silly. Why not just feed them a bottle - or a cup of water/milk/juice?

The idea is to keep them swallowing. But if the kid's 'drinking' rather than 'sipping' they're getting too much volume in their bellies, so they'll be full before their ears have adjusted. If they're doing tiny sips they swallow many times without filling up, and they can keep doing it for the time necessary to deal with the pressure change. You'll be surprised how easy and painless air travel becomes when you start using that one simple trick.

Also, if your kid's crying at the top of his/her lungs don't be embarrassed and waste your energy worrying about what the fellow passengers are thinking. The more stressed you feel the less you'll be able to help calm your little one. I know it's hard when your baby's howling and it seems like all of the other grownups are giving you the stink-eye, but if you focus on solving the problem the child's having rather than shushing them everyone will be happier quicker.