JRoe

I believe the babies were taken away from families that did not have them strapped in a car seat. I imagine the reason is that it's very difficult to hang onto anything during a difficult landing or very violent turbulance. We are required to sit on our hands during landing. And yes, take-off and landing are the most dangerous parts of a flight.

Geordie

My personal experience is as follows:

Not buying a seat

At 14 months I'm assuming the child is more than 10 Kgs, if not then you can request a bassinet that attaches itself to the bulkhead, and the child can lie down. It has velcro straps but if the turbulence sign comes on, then you'll have to remove the child and strap them to yourself using an airline provided seatbelt.

Larger than 10 kg, then the airline can provide a seat belt as mentioned above. (I've used these on US and European airlines)

Buy A Seat

I started buying a seat pretty early on especially for transatlantic, Asian and Australian flights but I have never used a car seat.

You really must check with the airline as there are so many different policies, i.e on some it must a window seat, it must be Australian approved seat, it must be a US approved seat etc, etc.

Also, is the car seat approved to be used in the country where you're travelling to, as it may have insurance issues should an accident occur.

I don't know how many children nytraveller and thursadayd have flown with but as it is a relativity long flight (around 8 hours??), I doubt many 14 month olds would sit in their car seat for anyway near that length of time, nor would I want it.

Of course there may be unexpected turbulence, but this could happen when you're changing nappies or going to the toilet with them. Its absolutely impossible to keep them locked up for the entire flight.

So in conclusion, I'd buy them a plane seat over the atlantic, not bother with a car seat, sit on my lap for a short Intra Europe (e.g 1 x hour flight) and have lots of little new toys to keep them occupied.

Geordie

kelliebellie

I just want to say that flying on an airplane and driving in a car are two very very very different things. Automobile accidents are the leading cause of death in young children. I don't know how many children are hurt or killed each year on planes (I couldn't find the stats), but obviously the tally is low. Probably lower than injuries sustained on a playground, in the bathtub, or playing in the living room (our trip to emergency for stitches was from playing in the living room).

In fact, legislation was introduced to require all children to have a purchased seat on airplanes and the big argument against it was that it would be too costly for parents to fly and put them on the road instead, causing far more deaths and injuries.


Since you are using miles and I assume you can cancel the ticket and put the miles back in your account, then I would definitely reserve the seat now. See what kind of child she is when she is closer to the time of flight. I assume now she is only about six month old. I think you will have to wait until then to see if she does better in her carseat for long distances or not.

Will you need the carseat for any taxi rides or are you only taking trains? You probably don't want to check the carseat for fear of it getting lost, and probably do want to gate check it if possible. Each airline will have its own rules on that. So if you are gate checking it, you have it all the way to the plane anyway.

longboatkey

With all the experts talking of "Babies flying around the cabin", if I had a kid sounds like Grandma would have a short term job while I was gone! Selfishly, I would prefer not to be whacked in the back of the head with a " screaming unguided missile named Tiffany"!

Gretchen

I would also rather not be "treated" to a child that size and age trying to sit on a parent's lap for 8 hours!! Buy the seat. Use what the airline says to use. At least have a real "place" for this child to "BE" for that time and not leaning all over everyone else. And I LOVE kids, grands, and all. But other passengers have rights also.

mnss

We'll definitely be getting her her own seat but are not sure about the carseat. Most likely we'll either buy her one of those harnesses, or contact the airline to know if they provide anything similar.

We haven't finalized our itinerary yet, but It will be 3-4 weeks. I have miles on Lufthansa/Austrian/Swiss so I'm thinking Germany and Austria or Austria and the Czech Republic. But since my BIL has never been to Europe, I'm thinking we should probably take a discount flight to London and Paris and return from there after visiting parts of Austria.

<<With all the experts talking of "Babies flying around the cabin", if I had a kid sounds like Grandma would have a short term job while I was gone!>>

LOL that's exactly what my BIL and I have been telling her but she's so worried that her daughter might get too attached to grandma and love grandma more than her

It's not like her daughter would be able to remember A THING about this trip once she grows up! but it's her first born child so that might have something to do with it.