I don’t usually post on Thursdays unless I’m running a little behind, but since I missed Monday of this week, I think I can swing a little bonus post.
Today someone posted on Freecycle asking for a Baby B’Air flight vest. I didn’t know what it was and since I’m more aware of baby products lately, I was curious. After a quick search on the Google I found a Youtube video.
Two questions:
1. Am I a bad person because I started laughing when the baby hit the ceiling? (ok, that’s kinda rhetorical ;-))
2. Should we get one?
Apparently, they aren’t approved for take-off or landing yet which seems pretty silly to me. Does the FAA think it’s more dangerous to use them than to just have the baby on your lap?
It sounds like the best option is to bring along a car seat and pay for an extra seat to put it in, but that is a large added expense, it’s rare to have turbulence so bad your baby hits the ceiling, and most babies I see on flights are simply held in their parent’s lap. Obviously, the added expense is nothing compared to the life of your child, but considering how rare these accidents are, is it really worth worrying about?
There are a lot of hazards out there, but I’m not about to wrap my kid in bubble wrap and lock him/her into a steel cage. Yeah, I know, that’s not comparable to buying an extra seat and lugging around a car seat while traveling. But we do plan on letting our kids go to the park and walk to school on their own, something that many parents are afraid of these days.
Thoughts?
A little bit of wisdom 
That thing looks kind of ridiculous, especially since there’s a long enough strap that could cause baby to fly out anyway. Also, I don’t see this as any different than having a baby carrier, which is much more multi-functional.
baby carrier = another ticket
I think Tanya might mean baby carrier as in something like a sling or moby wrap. If so, that’s a good point. I wonder if those kinds of carriers are FAA approved for take-off and landing and if so, how likely is it that the baby would come popping out of those?
laughs at baby hitting ceiling
watches again
laughs again
I wonder how many toddlers would actually allow their parents to put that contraption on them without having a hissy fit.
Also, bad simulation of baby flying out of mother’s lap and hitting ceiling = hilarious.
The mom’s reaction after it happens is also hilarious. She just puts her hand to her mouth and moans as if to say, “oh geez, not again”. I’d imagine a real reaction would be something more like shock or screaming.
I laughed at the baby hitting the ceiling too.
I’ve only flown with kids twice, both times 3.5-4 hr California-MN flights. Once when Leo was 10 weeks and once when he was 19 months old. At 10 weeks, I did not get a second seat and I checked the car seat at the gate. I had him in a sling for the whole flight and no one gave me a hard time about it, although I’ve heard others say that they were told to take the baby out. I can’t see how holding the baby is safer than being in a sling, but whatever.
At 19 months, I apparently just missed the chance to buy an infant seat at half price — apparently they used to do that to encourage parents to get infants their own seats but it was stopped (at least with Northwest) in early 2007. I realized I had some miles that let me get the second seat discounted so I got two seats. I was flying without other adults both times. On the flight to CA, I think there were at most 2 empty seats on the plane, but Leo and I managed to get a 3-seat row to ourselves when the guy who was supposed to have the window found somewhere else to be. I put him in the car seat for take off and he was pissed and screamed the whole time. We spent the rest of the flight with him in the emptied seat or in my lap. He was still nursing at that point and it was one thing I could do to make him chill out, but he took up a lot of space sitting sideways at that age. On the flight home, I checked the car seat and had a third person at the window, but it felt like we had enough space to have 2 seats. It was really discouraging that he was so angry about being in the car seat — he was also kicking the guy in front of him. He didn’t normally act that way in his seat while in the car and I felt about an inch big with the screaming kid. I’ll do almost anything to avoid having the screaming kid.
My recommendation is to get a second seat for the baby once they’re really mobile. Maybe your baby will be more willing to sit in a carseat on a plane, but two people in one airplane seat is really tight.