Nothing strikes terror into the heart of new parents like the idea of being confined with a small child and many strangers in a small space thousands of feet in the air, especially if their little one is colicky or hard to soothe.
We traveled a lot with our little ones and we always over-prepared bringing multiple changes of clothing, diapers, wipes, books, toys, snacks. All of the apparatus and the car seat took many bags and my daughter thought it was great fun to look through all the bags in search of treasure, so I hid the dangerous stuff, like the medicine, and the emergency lollipops in side pockets where she wouldn’t find them.
On one particularly long cross country flight, my daughter had behaved like a champ for over 6 hours. I knew that her ears sometimes bothered her and administered the appropriate Tylenol dose 20 minutes before landing. Unfortunately, our landing was delayed by air traffic control and we were stuck circling the airport for a good 40 minutes. I knew that my daughter was in pain and tried everything I could think of to soothe or distract her. We sang songs. We read books. We made up stories. We drank from the Sippy cup. Throughout my plight to distract her, I 
was feverishly looking for the lollipops I had packed for just such an emergency. After searching every possible bag and crevice, I realized they were hidden in my purse in the overhead compartment. The seat belt light was on and I feared that we would actually start to land the second I unbuckled and stood up, so I held tight in my seat, continuing to soothe my daughter.
The second we landed and the bell rang indicating that we could get out of our seats, I opened the overheard bin and retrieved the lollipop for my daughter. When I handed it to her and she finally stopped crying, the man seated in front of us shot me a dirty look and said, “you should have given that to her an hour ago” like I intentionally choose to make my daughter suffer.
Have fellow passengers ever demonstrated rude behavior or comments to you during air travel? How did you handle it?
One Comment
Breastfeed them until they know how to manage themselves in public. I did. I nursed all three until they were 2 1/2 and travel, dining out, and shopping was a piece of cake. Of course, I did not care about nursing in public..