Recently, we have traveled by airplane with our 22 months old son. In this article, I would like to summarize our experience with this journey. There are also some tips for you if you plan to fly with infants as well.

Content of the article: Why you should try it, travel documents for the child, flight tickets, our experience (introduction, flight time, our flight, conclusion)

WHY YOU SHOULD TRY IT

Flying with a toddler can be kind of challenging. Maybe someone will be telling you that you are totally out of your mind if you want to do this (it was our case). For other people, however, it is something completely normal. It has a lot of pros and good reasons to try. For us it was mainly that:

• your child will learn a lot of new things (it’s very enriching, even though they will not remember all the details from the trip)
• traveling is amazing so why we should not enjoy it also with our children (when we are happy, our kids are happy)
• it connects families and builds better relationships
• most flying companies offer flight tickets just for very little money for children aged under 2 years

Travel documents for small kids

If you decide to travel with your toddler, do not forget to get all the necessary travel documents for them in time. I have written about it HERE.

FLIGHT TICKETS FOR INFANTS

We flew with Eurowings company and these days, they have these conditions for tickets for children under 2 years:

• flight tickets to every destination are for only 25 euros (it makes 50 euros for a return ticket)
• the baby must sit on your lap (doesn’t have their own seating)
• you can carry one extra 23 kg baggage for free (even when you didn’t buy it with your ticket)
• you can also take one extra small bag on board for the child and two of the following items: a pram, a pushchair, a booster seat, a carrycot (must be checked in)
• HERE you can find all of the updated information from Eurowings

Ryanair company has similar conditions, but you have to buy the big checked-in baggage (updated info HERE)

If you want to read about other companies’ conditions, you can check Smartwings or Wizzair, or just google whatever you need 🙂

I recommend buying the seatings with an extra place for legs. When you have your child on your lap, it makes you feel at least a bit more comfortable.

OUR FLIGHT

INTRODUCTION

I’m gonna write here some of our personal experiences from our first flight with our baby. I’m totally aware that every journey can be different, once it can be all right and another time a true hell. However, I think that it’s worth it every time 🙂

To make it clear I would like to summarize that we flew with Eurowings to the Canary Islands (it’s 4 and half an hour from our country) and we took our son who was 22 months old.

THE TIME OF OUR FLIGHT

The plane was taking off at 6:15 am from Prague and that was pretty much too early for us. We wanted to be at the airport at least 90 minutes in advance. Therefore, we had to set off at 4 am in the morning (or at night?). And that was quite scary for me to wake my son up at this hour (he normally gets up at about 8). I was afraid that he will be tired and will cry, but he made it without any problem. He was happy to see all the planes at the airport and he didn’t want to sleep at all.

We were returning about noon so it was even finer.

IN THE PLANE

Me and my husband had bought neighboring seatings with an extra place for legs and we were supposed to carry our son on our laps. Luckily for us, there was one empty seat next to us (during both flights). So, eventually, our son had his own seating as well. I have noticed that in this part of the plane (with bigger legroom) there were more empty seats and almost every family flying with infants had such a free seat. That was good.

Before our take-off, we were given a small safety vest for the child and a special seatbelt for him (which could be attached to our normal seatbelt).

When we were flying on the holiday, our son was about an hour awake. He liked the flight and enjoyed it. Then he fell asleep and he woke up during landing, which made him cry, but it took only several minutes. The returning flight was a bit more pleasant, he also fell asleep after an hour but he wasn’t sleeping that long and woke up about an hour before departure. Some children came to play with him in the plane, that was pretty nice. When the plane was departing, he cried a little again. He probably didn’t like the pressure changes, when your ears hurt. We offered him water to drink (to make the ears better) but he didn’t want to. If you are still breastfeeding, feed your baby while taking off and landing to prevent them from the earache.

When we flew back home, it was lunchtime and we ordered some food in the plane. Surprisingly, it wasn’t expensive and it tasted good. They had a menu for 7-8 euros which contained a warm dish (pasta, panini, burger,..) and a beverage (coffee, beer, water, limo, juice,…).

TO CONCLUDE

It was amazing and I am sooo glad we took this journey. We all enjoyed it – parents and the child as well. I can only recommend you to try flying with your baby and I’m looking forward to our next flight.

How about you and flying with infants? Any experience? We’ll be glad for sharing, leave a comment! 🙂