Questions For Mothers
The good part about having a readership of your work is that you can ask questions that you do not know the answer to and chances are someone reading will know the answer. So here are a few that thanks to my circumstances I do not know the answer to:
1. Do parents have to pay extra to take screaming babies on the plane?
2. Is there an extra charge given that the airline stewards spend longer caring for the babies than those of us who require bar service?
3. Apart from a relocation, under what circumstances is it NECESSARY really to travel in a plane with a baby? (I was 15 before I even knew what a plane was)
4. Are there extra charges for sending your child unaccompanied and what are the age limit?
As an aside I wish to start a worldwide campaign in which every traveller requests a special meal. I was on a flight from Bangkok to Hong Kong that had travelled on from India. The special meals due obviously to the ethnicity of those travelling coming out one by one OUTNUMBERED the actual meal of chicken and rice or pork and potato. Which begs the question:
5. When are special meals, not that "special" anymore?
1. Do parents have to pay extra to take screaming babies on the plane?
2. Is there an extra charge given that the airline stewards spend longer caring for the babies than those of us who require bar service?
3. Apart from a relocation, under what circumstances is it NECESSARY really to travel in a plane with a baby? (I was 15 before I even knew what a plane was)
4. Are there extra charges for sending your child unaccompanied and what are the age limit?
As an aside I wish to start a worldwide campaign in which every traveller requests a special meal. I was on a flight from Bangkok to Hong Kong that had travelled on from India. The special meals due obviously to the ethnicity of those travelling coming out one by one OUTNUMBERED the actual meal of chicken and rice or pork and potato. Which begs the question:
5. When are special meals, not that "special" anymore?
posted by Cactus Kate at 7:02 PM
7 Comments:
1. No. Children under 2 are free. But, you don't get a seat for them - they have to sit on your lap. We found it was better to pay extra to get the seat and put our child in a booster seat in the plane, rather than having the child on our laps.
Babies tend to scream because they can't cope with takeoff and landing - they don't know they have to swollow to get rid of the pressure. Mothers can get them sucking on something to relieve the pressure, but babies won't always want to suck on something. Breastfed babies are more successfully distracted with sucking, as they have to really work at it and it takes longer to drink - hence more successful in relieving the pressure.
I've always had the most trouble on landing - takes forever, and by that time the baby or young child does not want anything to suck on at all.
Once, a man in front of us gave both my children a bag of lollies to suck on when we were landing - I think he'd figured out the ear pressure thing and carried the lollies with him for this very occasion.
2. I have no idea - airline stewards haven't spent much time with me in this regard.
3. When you live overseas and you want to visit your family in NZ and you have small children. You can't leave them with anyone (plus you want to show them off), so you take them with you.
4. Don't know, never done it.
Come on Kate, A seasoned traveller like you should know that if you want to be served a meal on the flying bus before the bleps you ask for a special meal. Always gets served first. Now the bar is different. Very hard to order that special single malt and get preferential treatment.
Thanks Lucyna. I can live vicariously through your motherhood. It's very useful in that regard.
With regard #3 the whole point of having children overseas is to avoid all the crappy trips from relatives I would have thought - otherwise you'd simply go back to NZ to give birth. Does it not make more sense for them to come visit you? That way also you only get the keen well meaning ones who have made an effort.
I'm still having my karmic retribution for being a screaming toddler when my parents relocated from Canada...
Unaccompained minors get a charge on them.
But I agree kids shouldn't be travelling overseas until they are old enough to pay for the ticket. If they do it too young they will treat overseas as I did with my summer travels round NZ as a kid. Something long and boring that required hours with the family when you would rather jsut be haning out with your friends.
Hehe - my daughter is three-and-a-half and so far has flown to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Brisbane, Hong Kong, Dubai, London, and Paris. Never had a problem travelling on a plane with her. One trick is to bring presents that she opens as the journey progresses. Most of the time, however, she went to sleep within an hour or so of takeoff. Travel has been good for her I think. What she knows about the world was beyond imagining for me when I was her age.
Just explain to them that if they make a fuss they will travel on the wing! - worked with my 3.
I suspect that we did not have any trouble because we travelled alot from day one with the kids so they got so used to it that they moaned because they were bored rather than upset!.
SB
Brian S
You are a fucking genius. Only a man could think of presents as a way of shutting up children.
Well done.
Do you withhold them if the kid is naughty?
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