Anyone who has ever flown on an airplane with children knows how awful it can be to walk down that aisle, kids in tow. The death glares and sighs are reason enough to make any parent not want to fly. Ever. Of course that is not always practical.
The blog Ohdeedoh features an amazing idea -- favor bags prepared ahead of time for every passenger your baby might annoy. It is genius, really. On them, there could be little tags thanking people who sat around you. On the website, the example is: "She may be good, she may be bad, we're sorry if she makes you mad."
Who could possibly be mad after that? The site suggests candies in little bags, but some other awesome ideas for your fellow passengers might include the following:
- Pretty ear muffs: Block the sound! Buy $2 fuzzy ones and make a party out of it. Some may laugh, some may not, but wow are you thoughtful!
- Nips of liquor: Yes, they are pricey when you buy 50 of them, but that might be $100 well-spent when you have a plane full of calm and collected friends who will smile upon your misery rather than heap on more.
- Calming potpourri: Put some calming scents into a little sachet and pass them out to your fellow passengers. They will love it and maybe, just maybe, it will keep them calm when your baby starts to flip.
- $1 iTunes gift certificates: Let them load a new song on their iPod and listen to that instead of your crying baby! Perfection!
- Bag of kid candies: Play on passenger's nostalgia with a bag full of Blow Pops and Laffy Taffy and Bazooka bubblegum and anything else that might remind them that they were once obnoxious children, too. Maybe they will be less harsh.
The fact is, no matter how hard flying is for the fellow passengers, it is 10 times as bad for the parents. No one (trust me) wants to be "those parents." The few times I have flown with my now 4 and 3-year-old have been incredibly stressful and mostly involve me breaking all my normal rules so that they will stay quiet (bribery, anyone?).
I like this idea better!
Would you try this?
Image via Sean MacEntee/Flickr
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Comments 19
I'm not so sure about this one.
I think I would feel weird handing out stuff to strangers.
Does anyone else have any suggestions? I'm flying with my 7mo next weekend for the first time.
I love this idea except for the potpourri. You're stuck in a vehicle using recycled air, pressed against each other. I don't think anything with a strong scent (especially 100 of them!) is a good idea.
I suggest nursing a lot, plenty of bottles or pacifiers using those platic lock rings to secure all kinds of facinating new and fairly low volume toys. Securing them will help when they want to fling them at people. Bring new toys and finger foods. As for the other passangers I suggest I suggest little bags of cookies with thanks for your paitence notes in or on them. I wish people would just naturally be more tolerant of small chilldren and their parents on planes but sadly they are not. Flying for most people has become a pain if adults could just take their frustrations over all the little issues with it and triple it they might understand how small kids are feeling. Small kids don't understand why things are different, why they are confinded, why their ears hurt, why they might feel air sick, why they can't play on the floor so their frustration is even more and they have far fewer communication skills to express it.
Um... no
I do not think so.
I honestly think these suggestions are way over the top. I would never do them. I would appologize, and try to keep the kid quiet, but kids are kids. I once spent an 8 hour flight next to a famly with a baby...yes it was not fun at times but i dont expect them to hand me a present, lol.
This