Celine Brewer still remembers the glares she received when she boarded a plane with her son. The people sitting in front of her quickly asked for a different seat, but before the plane took off, her baby started crying, sparking new demands for a separate seat.
“I was so angry and stressed,” said Brewer, who runs the website Baby Can Travel. She turned on her phone to distract her baby, who slept through the flight. But years later, she still gets annoyed when she thinks about her annoying fellow passenger.
“I wish you guys had just had a little bit of compassion and time to understand this,” she said.
Strangers’ reactions to crying little passengers have gone viral recently, with one man hurling expletives at a flight attendant and asking if his screaming baby paid “extra money to scream.” Earlier this month, rapper Chika shared his complaints on Twitter about being woken up by a crying little passenger in first class.
Sorry, our baby might ruin your flight, so please accept this gift bag.
While commenters are pleading for children to fly, the reality is that families with small children have a right to travel by plane. And just as adults can lose their cool on an airplane, babies communicate by crying, so it’s not always easy to stay calm. Experts offer some tips on the best way to help, although tears are sometimes unavoidable.
Jackie Vernon Thompson, etiquette expert and founder of the From the Inside Out School of Etiquette, said it’s up to parents to plan ahead and pack the things their baby or toddler will need to be comfortable on the plane, which could include an essential blanket, a favorite pacifier or a favorite stuffed animal.
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Parents who have rules against screen time may want to think twice before flying, she says: “Maybe that policy needs to be set aside for the time being when you fly.”
Sydney O’Connor, a flight attendant and mother of a toddler, said in a TikTok that she started using noise-canceling headphones when her daughter was a toddler and flew frequently. In an interview, she said that now that her daughter is older and has always had different tastes, she brings along a little six-compartment snack tray filled with “little bits of everything she’s loved this week.”
Because wet diapers can lead to tears, and airplane bathrooms are notoriously crowded, Brewer says she always changes her kids’ diapers before flying — a preventative measure, at least on short flights.
“Babies crying on planes” seems to be a biweekly topic now, and it’s actually more irritating than babies crying on planes.
— Wom Tambsgans (@BostonJerry) June 1, 2023
Among the strangers Prescribe Claire McCarthy, a primary care pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hospital, said people shouldn’t give Benadryl to babies of other passengers on a plane without first talking to their doctor about the drug.
“Repeated administration, especially on long flights, can have side effects,” she said in an email. “And instead of putting your child to sleep, it may have the opposite effect!”
McCarthy, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and a spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics, said that if parents have discussed the risks of Benadryl and the safest way to give it, she would encourage them to give it a test dose at home beforehand to see how it affects their baby.
In an email, McCarthy said there are several reasons why babies cry on planes that go beyond normal crying: They could be in pain from the change in air pressure during takeoff and landing, they could be tired and unable to sleep without a familiar environment, they might want to move around rather than be confined to a small space, or they could be disoriented and scared.
Feeding your baby or letting them suck on a pacifier when the plane takes off or lands can help buffer them from the change in air pressure, she says. If your baby has a cold or ear infection, acetaminophen or ibuprofen can help, as these can make the pain worse.
McCarthy says it’s worth tweaking your baby’s sleep schedule so that they nap during the plane, even if it means keeping them awake for an extended period beforehand. If your baby is still crying on the plane, McCarthy says parents should fall back on the usual methods.
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“We encourage everyone to try everything they can do at home, or at least everything they can do in the constrained environment of an airplane,” she wrote. “Of course, it’s important to follow all safety instructions.”
Brewer says that, if possible, she walks around the plane with her child in a baby carrier to help calm him down, and even small distractions like a plastic cup with ice, a spoon or a fellow passenger who will interact with the baby can help, she says.
“If they are offering help in any way, accept it,” she said.
If you don’t have a baby, it’s not your problem? Not necessarily. Your fellow passengers and flight attendants can make the situation worse, but they can also make it better.
Brewer remembers one time on an overnight flight from Calgary to Japan, her 14-month-old son didn’t sleep even an hour.
“We were really tired,” she said, “and this lovely flight attendant came over and said, ‘Hey guys, I think you need a break.'” She walked around the cabin with her baby, and Brewer remembers thinking, “That was nice to have a break.”
O’Connor said that as a flight attendant, she would often sit next to a mother whose baby was crying, comforting the baby, asking if they needed anything or starting a conversation about the baby to distract attention from the tears.
I always want to be the person who picks up a stranger’s crying baby on a plane and calms him down, but what if the crying gets worse and I have to embarrassingly hand the hysterical baby back to you?
— Maggie (@maggieoutwest) June 7, 2023
She recognizes that people might be worried about germs, given how much air travel there has been over the past few years due to the pandemic, but she still thinks it’s okay for someone to help care for the baby, play games or make silly faces. Such interaction can lighten the mood and make stressed parents feel less alone, she said.
As a traveling parent, she said she’s had the experience of someone holding her baby while she was trying to get something from the overhead bin.
“All of a sudden the baby is asleep on top of the woman and they’re making love,” she said.
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Even if other passengers aren’t proactive in getting involved, Brewer says it can help to show compassion and understanding toward the parent rather than getting angry.
“Parents want to stop their baby crying more than anyone else on the plane,” she said.
Brewer said preparations for those without children are also important: “Don’t get on a plane without bringing noise-canceling headphones. … Let’s be honest, babies aren’t always the most annoying thing on a plane.”
As difficult as it may be, parents need to remain calm amidst the yelling.
“Don’t get angry at your baby, because they don’t want to cry,” McCarthy wrote in an email. “If your baby senses you are upset, it could make things worse, as babies are very sensitive to their caregivers’ emotions.”
O’Connor has seen plenty of examples of what not to do, like a man who called her out and demanded she keep her baby quiet. The looks of horror people have when they see someone with a baby don’t help, she says.
“That automatically puts fear into the mother or parent,” she says. “Focus on yourself.”
Etiquette expert Vernon Thompson said yelling is never an appropriate response.
“The thing to understand as a passenger is not to yell at the baby or yell at the parents,” she said. “That doesn’t solve anything.”
