We also have about a 2.5 hour flight to Orlando and we always get our daughter a seat. She's 17 months now and has flown on 12 trips since she was a week shy of 3 months and she has had her own seat on all of them-we'll be flying 2 more times this year, including once to Hawaii, and she'll have her own seat on them too. We are by no means rich people, neither of us are employed-we're both in graduate school living on loans-but we just don't look at her seat as an option, even though it means taking out a little more money. If she were 2 she'd have to have a seat, and we're not going to stop travelling when she's 2 cause we have to buy another seat so we just look at it like it's a requirement. About 80% of the time we've gotten 1/2 price tickets for her so ask your airline about it. Out of those 12 flights, about 4 of those were just me and the baby, but I managed to carry her, the carseat, stroller, and diaper bag without a problem, and we switched her to a Britax Roundabout at 9 months so it wasn't always with the infant carseat with a handle. We have a backpack for the carseat and we wear it on our backs, and if I'm alone with her I wear her in the Bjorn (luckily at 17 months she still fits in it). We keep our stroller in a bag so I can't push it through the airport, but pull it like a luggage, and if I can manage by myself then I'm sure you guys will be okay.
Here are my 2 big reasons that I'm glad we always buy Madison her own seat and bring her carseat--Last May we asked Tiffany Towncar (who we've always had great luck with) for a carseat. We were bringing our own anyway since she had a seat on the plane, but we wanted to see their carseat for the future in case we decided to use theirs and not get her a seat sometime. Well I told them her age (she was almost 3 months at the time) and that we needed an infant/convertible carseat that could be used rearfacing. We arrived and the guy said "uh, do you have your own carseat cause I just have this one" and he showed me a backless booster. I said yes, we brought our own but that we had requested one. He apologized but then told us that they don't have many seats that accomodate infants and so you should really bring your own cause they don't always have them. Okay, no one told us that on the phone-they asked her age and what we needed and said okay. That alone was enough to always make us bring her carseat-even if you don't want to get the baby a ticket bring the seat and gate check it.
The 2nd reason is that we had 2 very, very turbulent flights when Madison was almost 3 months and 4 months old (1st and 3rd trips for her). One required us to divert and circle for a long time, but only after struggling to proceed in the bad weather for awhile first. It was so bumpy I would have been very nervous about holding my baby-that she could have hit her head on the armrest or something. The other flight was so bad that they aborted the landing (I seriously thought we were going to crash during the landing) and flew to another airport in another state where we refueled and waited out the storm. If we had hit the ground, no doubt in my mind that we all would have been pretty jostled around, and who knows what would have happened to my daughter, who was happily sleeping in her carseat instead. The flight attendant on that flight told us that if we had landed and she didn't have a carseat that she would have been placed on the floor between my legs for landing. (She came to check that we had her in the carseat before we started to land, and told us not to take her out till we landed so when we were refueling I asked her about it.) Now, I don't know if that's true, but that's what she told us is the procedure for hard landings/crashes. Well she was barely 4 months old so how the heck would I keep her sitting on the floor between my legs!?! And how scary would that have been!!?!!
After this 'crash' in Canada, I told my husband I'm so glad we buy her a seat because I'm guessing that those passengers would have had to put lap babies on the floor for that landing.
The other thing is that my daughter will stay in her carseat just like she does in the car. No way would she stay on my lap or just a seat. We take the train a lot and there are no seatbelts there and she is all over the place! At 6 months we flew to DL (5 hour flight) with her and she was pulling herself to stand and starting to crawl. During the times we took her out of her seat (we do take her out on long flights if the seatbelt sign is off and the flight is smooth) she was climbing all over me, my mom, and her carseat. She did not want to be held very long and was happier sitting in her seat (unbuckled) so she could stand, turn over, look out of the window, etc. A month later we flew to Vegas and by then she was crawling and no way could I have held her for 4.5 hours!
Oh, and I also nursed her (in fact she still nurses, but just once a day now) and never used bottles, but for vacations I'd pump to give her a bottle on landing. Sometimes I'd do it in advance and bring the bottle with us, other times I'd do it on the plane during the flight and be finished in time for landing. She had no trouble taking a bottle then, though many times she simply wasn't hungry and was fine on landing with just a pacifier, or many times nothing at all. She has rarely cried on a flight so I dont' think she's ever had ear pain.
. I agree that if you will not be using transportation requiring a car seat (busses)--then I wouldn't worry about it.
