{"id":8661,"date":"2015-07-09T08:34:17","date_gmt":"2015-07-09T12:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/?p=8661"},"modified":"2015-07-09T08:34:17","modified_gmt":"2015-07-09T12:34:17","slug":"safely-flying-with-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/2015\/07\/09\/safely-flying-with-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Safely Flying with Children"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week I shared on Facebook<\/a>\u00a0that Canada’s Transportation\u00a0Safety Board is recommending that it become required that all passengers, including children under the age of 2, be required to have their own seat on the airplane<\/a>. \u00a0I’ve talked about infant safety in the air<\/a> before and the dangers of lap babies when flying and I was pleasantly surprised by the number of responses my post<\/a> received from other mommies who are already buying airplane seats for their babies as hubby and I have been doing since Doodle was a few months old.<\/p>\n

But there is another side of the story that I fear will continue getting over looked: the safety of toddlers and small preschoolers on airplanes.<\/p>\n

\"children<\/a><\/p>\n

Current guidelines around the world state that children UNDER the age of 2 years can ride on their parents laps, usually for free or for a small fee (usually 10% of the adult fare or the taxes only portion) and over<\/i> the age of 2, children must have their own seat and use the lap belt provided.<\/p>\n

Here’s the problem with the second part of the current rules:<\/p>\n

\"airplane<\/a><\/p>\n

This is Doodle, 2 years and 2 months old, on our recent flight with the airplane belt pulled as snugly as it will go. \u00a0I have zero confidence that this seat belt would restrain him in any way in the event of bad turbulence or a ground accident. \u00a0This belt would do little more than my arms trying to hold him on my lap and I suspect instead of being secured in his seat he would be thrown out of the seat belt, into the seat back, aisle, or who knows where. \u00a0And if it did manage to keep him in his seat, he surely would not come out without major injuries.<\/p>\n

The above pictures were taken during a time of calm air, when the seat belt light was turned off. \u00a0I allowed him to sit in an extra seat in our row for a few short minutes after we were up to change his diaper. \u00a0This is how he usually rides:<\/p>\n

\"D<\/a><\/p>\n

The same as he does in the car: rear-facing, snugly and securely buckled into his car seat (which is also aircraft approved). \u00a0The FAA currently recommend children under 20 pounds ride rear-facing in an aircraft approved car seat when flying and while Doodle is over the 20 pounds, he is much happier and safer rear facing (the physics of aircrafts and cars are the same, you’re just moving at significantly higher speeds and have the added element of up\/down movement).<\/p>\n

And this is how Sugarplum, almost 5 years old, usually rides on the airplane:<\/p>\n

\"sugarplum<\/a><\/p>\n

Because the FAA also recommends children ride in a forward-facing, harnessed car seat until they reach 40 pounds and Sugarplum is not there yet (plus I need her car seat to arrive at our destination and without any unseen damage which may be caused by being smushed under heavy bags or thrown around by baggage handlers who do not treat car seats as the life saving devices they are.)<\/p>\n

Frankly, flying with children is never fun. \u00a0It is never cheaper to buy my infant a seat. \u00a0And it is never easier to carry their car seat through security the airport, down the skinny airplane aisles. \u00a0But it’s always safer and generally provides for smoother flights because kids are used to being buckled into car seats, they’re used to sitting still and not getting up to run around the car so I’ve never had a problem with my kids wanting to do so on an airplane, even during the many loooooong transatlantic flights we’ve done in their lives.<\/p>\n

Safety\u00a0always\u00a0<\/em>trumps convenience and cost in my book so we will continue to schlep car seats on board airplanes for all of our children who require them at our final destination or are too small to fit securely in the airplane lap belt!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week I shared on Facebook\u00a0that Canada’s Transportation\u00a0Safety Board is recommending that it become required that all passengers, including children under the age of 2, be required to have their own seat on the airplane. \u00a0I’ve talked about infant safety in the air before and the dangers of lap babies when flying and I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family-life","category-tiny-travellers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8661"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8670,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8661\/revisions\/8670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}