Flying with a toddler

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Mtns2Skies

Final Approach
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Mtns2Skies
No, I don't mean grown people that act like toddlers. I mean real toddlers.

What's an age that they can start to fly with you without another adult present? I'd really like to start taking my 2.5 year old daughter on short flights with me, without needing someone else to entertain her.

Any tips or tricks for doing so? Is there an age cutoff that you've found?
 
Mtns2Skies said:
I'd really like to start taking my 2.5 year old daughter on short flights with me, without needing someone else to entertain her.
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What is the purpose of the flight? Getting her used to it?
I'd hesitate doing that without another adult being there. You'll need to strap a car seat in the back, and some form of hearing protection. Also, the other adult needs to be there if she gets motion sickness. By the time you land she could be choking on her own vomit.
You don't want the added distraction of a sick/in distress child while trying to land.

I'd say age 4 or 5 would be a good time for her to fly just with you. Make a booster bottom/back cushion and have her fly from the front seat. Hope you have a shoulder harness.
 
AV8R_87 said:
What is the purpose of the flight? Getting her used to it?
I'd hesitate doing that without another adult being there. You'll need to strap a car seat in the back, and some form of hearing protection. Also, the other adult needs to be there if she gets motion sickness. By the time you land she could be choking on her own vomit.
You don't want the added distraction of a sick/in distress child while trying to land.

I'd say age 4 or 5 would be a good time for her to fly just with you. Make a booster bottom/back cushion and have her fly from the front seat. Hope you have a shoulder harness.
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She's flown many dozens of times in the back with my wife in the back to manage. But with another about due, that won't be an option any more... so hoping to get her in the front seat sooner than later but not sure what's involved with doing so safely.
 
I occasionally flew with a ~2 year old solo. It's doable under the right circumstance, but it's really not ideal. Here are some thoughts:

- You can really ruin a child for flying in a way that takes years to recover from if their early flights aren't enjoyable. We kinda ran into this with our youngest, and he's only now (5+ years later) recovering from it. He's still not enthusiastic about flying, but at least now he's willing. Ear problems in particular ruined it for him early on. Every child is different on this topic, and it's not just how quickly you ascend/descend. In his case, his ears were just too small - no amount of slow descents, ascents, gum, swallowing, water, addressed it. He just had to grow out of it and it really killed flying for him.

- When it comes to an enjoyable flight, unless the child is just fascinated by aviation (I was and always assumed my kids would be, too - they weren't), the cards are stacked against you: it's loud, it's uncomfortable, the child is restrained, there's no one to help entertain them, etc. I'd really think through this carefully if you want to ensure they have a good time and want to do it again - it's hard to make it enjoyable for a kid if they're not otherwise interested in it.

- If you're flying with a really young child, they need to be secured in a carseat, especially if you don't have a helper to manage the kids (obviously).

- Especially if you're solo, strongly recommend only flying on low-workload days. When I did it, I had to return to the original airport at least once due to kid-related issues, and was often distracted by something going on in the backseat that needed attention (dropped bottle, lost toy, whatever). It was fine on totally VFR, low-workload days, but could have been disastrous on a IFR or otherwise challenging flight. Hard to predict which days are going to be low-workload in advance, so tread carefully here.

Edit - a few responses got posted while I typed this and it's possible the first two points above don't really apply if your kid has already done a lot of flying and you've established, for instance, that their ears aren't a problem and that they enjoy. But I'll leave the points for future readers anyway.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
so hoping to get her in the front seat sooner than later but not sure what's involved with doing so safely.
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Egress is my main concern at this age. She'd have to be in a car seat, no way you can use the aircraft seatbelt/shoulder harness. Does your plane have two doors? Makes things a bit easier.

I'd get her a headset, if you don't have one already. How are her verbal skills?

I still think age 4 would be my minimum before flying "solo".
 
If it's a short hamburger run kind of thing just to get the kid acclimated, probably fine. Bring a tablet for IFE. Maybe check out a CARES harness. Remember that little kids can't see out the window yet. Your biggest concern is there's probably no isolate switch like there is for the back seat. Apple sauce pouches good, cheerios bad. Things get more interactive/fun at 4-5.
 
I think my son was around 2.5-3 when I made the first flight with just him. He'd been flying in the back of the Lance with mom since 2mo... yes, 2mo old and he always enjoyed it. Never got airsick- in fact I used to hear a baby giggling in the back when we'd hit some turbulence. I think for me that's the bigger factor than a specific age- he'd logged many hours as a passenger already which gave me a good idea of how he'd react. I forgot where we went but we kept the first time out short.

Only had one issue... and it was really a minor thing that's far less exciting than it sounds. I'd put him up front in a car seat, I was careful to make sure it didn't interfere with flight controls. What I didn't think of was it raised his legs up quite a bit and shortly after takeoff on initial climbout I noticed I was holding more backpressure than I was used to only to find little legs resting against the copilot yoke. I got him to put his feet down and that was the end of that being any kind of concern. Flights out to lunch or dinner with him have now become by go-to when mom is away over a weekend and I have a now 7yo kid to keep entertained.

So tl;dr my advice is you know your kid better than we do. Make sure she's been up before with another adult a few times so you know what to expect. Your judgement based on knowing yourself and your kid will probably be right.
 
cowman said:
I think my son was around 2.5-3 when I made the first flight with just him. He'd been flying in the back of the Lance with mom since 2mo... yes, 2mo old and he always enjoyed it. Never got airsick- in fact I used to hear a baby giggling in the back when we'd hit some turbulence. I think for me that's the bigger factor than a specific age- he'd logged many hours as a passenger already which gave me a good idea of how he'd react. I forgot where we went but we kept the first time out short.

Only had one issue... and it was really a minor thing that's far less exciting than it sounds. I'd put him up front in a car seat, I was careful to make sure it didn't interfere with flight controls. What I didn't think of was it raised his legs up quite a bit and shortly after takeoff on initial climbout I noticed I was holding more backpressure than I was used to only to find little legs resting against the copilot yoke. I got him to put his feet down and that was the end of that being any kind of concern. Flights out to lunch or dinner with him have now become by go-to when mom is away over a weekend and I have a now 7yo kid to keep entertained.

So tl;dr my advice is you know your kid better than we do. Make sure she's been up before with another adult a few times so you know what to expect. Your judgement based on knowing yourself and your kid will probably be right.
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We had the same experience regarding flight controls. Car sets up front definitely need special consideration, fortunately, we realized the potential issue on the ground!
 
I think 2.5 *can* be reasonable, but it very much depends on the kid. Our older one had his "first solo" at around 2.5, after having flown many times previously with mama aboard.

Obviously, you don't take the kid without assistance the first time. You need to know whether they'll like flying or if it freaks them out, whether they get airsick, and how well controlled their emotions are. Flying is a crazy thing, and every kid reacts to it differently. @Mtns2Skies has flown with his kid plenty, though.

Here's a few things to do or take note of:

1) Figure out seating with an eye towards emergency egress. You want the kid to be able to get out on their own if you are incapacitated, and if they need a car seat it needs to be installed in a seat where it won't impede anyone else's emergency egress. @Mtns2Skies with the tailwheel Cessnas will have an advantage here with two doors. For a low wing with a single door it gets more interesting, and there's usually only one seat (left rear) where it's safe to install a hard car seat. However, we've had good luck as the kids get older putting them on an Oregon Aero booster with the aircraft seat belt. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that they sell it any more - The bottom is about 6" thick so it gives them a nice boost, and it does not attach to the airplane at all so it won't impede egress.

2) Behavior. With my older son, we took the time to just sit in the hangar and practice not touching stuff! I let him ask all of the questions he had about the stuff he could see, and let him look and see how the yoke worked and talked about why it was important to not touch it. If it's a kid that frequently doesn't listen, you might not want them in the front seat. In either case, for the first time in the front seat, it's good to have an adult sitting behind them so that they can restrain the kid if necessary.

3) Hearing protection. I'm sure @Mtns2Skies has this one figured out already, but if you've never flown with the kid before, you'll need something. Our kids have worn adult headsets starting around age 2, but they have big heads. :rofl: Em's for Bubs worked up to about 1 year; Em's for Kids from 1-2. After that they want to be able to hear you talk, and be able to talk back to you. Definitely know how to isolate your audio panel for whatever seat(s) you have kids in.

Also, IMO it helps to give them something to do. My older son gets to tune the radios when he flies with me for example. In addition, give them some level of control if you can - Tell them they can decide when to go home or to land or whatever. Keep it fun so they'll want to go again!
 
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