Buy seat for 1 year old on plane???

[tjmw2727]

Just wanted to say thanks for the links all4fun.

My sil is flying from FL to Denver to see family and her dh (my dear bil) is balking on buying a seat for my almost 2yo neice. My sil really wants to have the seat and use the CRS for my neice. Since since she has a 4yo as well and my bil is "a bit hands off" ('nother story) she has a few reasons in addition to safety!!

These links should help her cause, she is probably just going to buy the ticket anywya but a little backup never hurts!

apologies to the OP for going off topic.....

TJ

 

[penjen]

We took DS to Disney at 7months (lap child) and 22 months (bought a seat).

It was worth the $117 to have him in the car seat. When he was a lap baby at 7 months I really had to work hard at keeping him busy. He was good on the plane just fidgity. When we bought a seat it was awesome. He kept busy like in the car and even fell asleep on the way home.

 

[debster812]

We never bought our DS a seat when he was under 2. We did always gate-check his car seat and tried to fly flights that weren't too full. We'd just let the folks at the gate know what we were doing. Most of the time, we were able to use the car seat and have a seat for free.

This was a great strategy in the past. Today with the airlines bleeding money, consolidating flights, and diminished capacity, this option will become less and less available, unless you are flying at very 'OFF' hours.

To the OP--if you can afford it, I would buy the seat. Everyone will be much more comfortable, and like others have said, she may well sleep, since she's in her familiar car seat.

 

[all4fun]

This was a great strategy in the past. Today with the airlines bleeding money, consolidating flights, and diminished capacity, this option will become less and less available, unless you are flying at very 'OFF' hours.

I totally agree. We have flown 15 different flights (counting each "leg" of every trip we've taken) w/ds since he was 13 mos, and only one flight we were on was not full. On our last flight home from California we had really rough turbulence flying into our home airport (so bad, the pilot warned us before we started landing) and I was really glad my ds was secure in his car seat.