Month old child

texasag93

texasag93

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texasag93
Month old child UPDATE ON PAGE 2

I am taking my daughter on a short trip to Austin in 2 weeks. She will be 7 weeks old.

Should I worry about altitude?

What kind of headset should I buy? I use lightspeeds for the wife and 7 year old, but do not know what I should get the baby girl.

I plan on taking her up for a local flight with a safety pilot to see how she does before I do a cross country.

Any helpful hints that you guys can give me?

Thanks!
 
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All you have to do is limits descents to 500 fpm.
My then 14 month only only started on cannulas after her big sister (age 3) got to using them....
Headset use was intermittent until the kids became language fluent! Then if they wanted to talk to Mommy, the headset was the only way.....


:)
 
bbchien said:
All you have to do is limits descents to 500 fpm.
My then 14 month only only started on cannulas after her big sister (age 3) got to using them....
Headset use was intermittent until the kids became language fluent! Then if they wanted to talk to Mommy, the headset was the only way.....


:)
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Thanks.

I want to avoid any possibility of hearing loss. My fist 90 hours without a headset gave me tinnitis. I never had any ringing in my ears until I started flying GA.
 
No problems. We took my son (6 weeks) up yesterday. 500 fpm climbs/descents, no problem. He loved it. We have a baby passive earmuff type thing (http://www.earmuffsforkids.com.au/ems4bubs) that we ordered. I'm sure they have them in America, that was just the first link that came up. They seemed to work well.
 
Watch for her batting her ears, often you can help them clear by pinching their nose in the web of your thumb and placing your palm over their mouth just as they start to wail. Stay low, keep your ascent and descnt speeds low and make sure you have enough fuel that you can extend descent time if necessary. Typically though unless the kid has a cold it won't be an issue.
 
We just let him nurse during climbs and descents. Worked great. But he didn't seem to care anyway.
 
texasag93 said:
I am taking my daughter on a short trip to Austin in 2 weeks. She will be 7 weeks old.

Should I worry about altitude?

What kind of headset should I buy? I use lightspeeds for the wife and 7 year old, but do not know what I should get the baby girl.

I plan on taking her up for a local flight with a safety pilot to see how she does before I do a cross country.

Any helpful hints that you guys can give me?

Thanks!
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Is her Mommy coming with? She is the best pacifier. You can go anywhere do anything with a baby, as along as Mommy is along. Without Mommy, forget it you're a bigger man than me :D
 
Gubbins said:
Is her Mommy coming with? She is the best pacifier. You can go anywhere do anything with a baby, as along as Mommy is along. Without Mommy, forget it you're a bigger man than me :D
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It is a family trip. Only 3-4 hours round trip.

I am a stay at home dad, so mommy does not carry the same weight in our house.

I plan on having my wife in the back with the baby and my son up front. Bottle going up and coming down.

On this short of a trip, I do not go over 8500 unless I am trying to stay away from turbulence. Should I stay lower? I am in a 182.

Thanks.
 
texasag93 said:
I am taking my daughter on a short trip to Austin in 2 weeks. She will be 7 weeks old.

Should I worry about altitude?

What kind of headset should I buy? I use lightspeeds for the wife and 7 year old, but do not know what I should get the baby girl.

I plan on taking her up for a local flight with a safety pilot to see how she does before I do a cross country.

Any helpful hints that you guys can give me?

Thanks!
Click to expand...


Hmmm..

Clean washcloth , a roll of duct tape... Position cloth over mouth and wrap duct tape around head till cloth is secured and then put the child in the rear luggage area... remove after flight. Kiss on forehead to stop the crying. Install said child in car seat for the ride home from the airport. Rinse and repeat.. ;):lol::rofl:......



Jus kiddin... calm down.:wink2:
 
Some of my favorite photos from Steve Ruse and his young daughter, Brittany.


.
 

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Seriously, don't worry. Your kid will be fine with Mom in the back. Just make sure you limit altitude changes to 500 fpm (all kids of all ages will appreciate that), and also try to get some protection from the noise. If you have a CS prop, perhaps go a little lower in RPM than usual to control the noise if you can't persuade the baby to wear ear muffs.
 
I would also suggest bringing disposable foam earplugs as well for a back up possibility in case the kid rejects the headset.
 
We used the orange earplugs for kids that you can get at Walgreens or CVS. Our daughter first flew at 6 weeks, she was curious about the noise but that was it. Now she really enjoys it, at 19 months she probably has 25 hours or so. She probably had 20 before she was born. Just limit climbs and descents to 500fpm, and give them a bottle during climbs/descents as it helps clear their ears.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
We just let him nurse during climbs and descents. Worked great. But he didn't seem to care anyway.
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This. Fiona flew pressurized commercial at 8 weeks and has done it roughly monthly since. Up until we stopped nursing, this was a sure-fire way to handle takeoff and descent. Upshot is that Fiona usually slept while nursing, and then would nap for an hour or so on the plane.

Thread creep:

Since she has stopped nursing, however, we've gone the "new toy" route. Last flight she was enamored by the windows and looking out at the world unfolding below her. I'm hoping that counts for this trip as well and we can stop doing the "trip = new toy" thing.

Cheers,

-Andrew
 
My son (now 7) started flying commercially at 3 weeks.

He flew infant in lap, but would have had silver status with Continental his first 2 years. We moved home to Texas and I stopped flying commercially except for work.

He was a champ and I never had problems with him.

I am just trying to get the best practices out there to make her first trip as easy as possible.

Thanks.
 
www.earplanes.com work until they will wear headphones. We started at about 6 weeks and never had any real problems. Though baby gas can smell really bad when it leaks out on the climb ;)

Bose makes some ANR listen-only headsets (Quietcomfort about $200) that we plugged into a portable DVD with some kind of purple dinosaur that totally distracted them until they got to the point they wanted to listen to us. By then headsets were "wanted".
 
I agree with all of this. My three kids all flew from 2 weeks old and on. One thing I would like to emphasize is that infants always seem to have a cold. I would consider any sign of congestion a strict NO GO, and when we took family trips were always prepared with a plan B for getting all or some of us home.
 
Ken Ibold said:
I agree with all of this. My three kids all flew from 2 weeks old and on. One thing I would like to emphasize is that infants always seem to have a cold. I would consider any sign of congestion a strict NO GO, and when we took family trips were always prepared with a plan B for getting all or some of us home.
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Yes, very good point. Your kid can get a really bad ear infection if you fly anyway when she is congested, besides the incredible discomfort she would be in. Been there, done that (commercial flight, would be even worse in a non-pressurized plane).
 
We took our daughter on her first commercial flight last month to Germany, and she was great. She was very comfortable in her car seat and never cried. There was a lap baby behind us, and he seemed to be uncomfortable and fussy the entire flight. I highly recommend traveling with your baby's car seat so he/she feels comfortable and secure.
 

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texasag93 said:
I am taking my daughter on a short trip to Austin in 2 weeks. She will be 7 weeks old.

Should I worry about altitude?

What kind of headset should I buy? I use lightspeeds for the wife and 7 year old, but do not know what I should get the baby girl.

I plan on taking her up for a local flight with a safety pilot to see how she does before I do a cross country.

Any helpful hints that you guys can give me?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Both of my children have been flying since they were a week and a half old, with no issues. I never paid much attention to limiting rate of climb or descent, but I also never exceeded 10,000 feet in cruise. No issues. My daughter loved it, my son was a screamer until engine start (and sometimes until takeoff), but then he was generally pretty good.

Hearing protection was more complicated. Both of my kids were tiny infants, and HATED having anything in, on, or around their ears. Fortunately, the cabin of my airplane is relatively quiet, so when we couldn't put a winter hat with hear flaps on them, we didn't use anything. If the cabin was uncomfortably loud, we would have had to devise another solution. They starting using headsets (and keeping them on) at around 3 years old, although they still don't always wear them, depending on their preference that day.


JKG
 
bluee said:
We took our daughter on her first commercial flight last month to Germany, and she was great. She was very comfortable in her car seat and never cried. There was a lap baby behind us, and he seemed to be uncomfortable and fussy the entire flight. I highly recommend traveling with your baby's car seat so he/she feels comfortable and secure.
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Not to mention that it really isn't safe for either the baby or other people aboard if the child isn't restrained in case of a crash. An unrestrained child is also known as a "missile". And the same goes for dogs or other pets!
 
Have mom sit in the back with the kid is my main advice.

First flight for Dylan was at 2 months, little roll up pieces of the pharmacy hearing protectors, under a headband, under an old Lightspeed headset.

We just flew around locally, he wasn't a happy camper getting all that hearing protection stuck in and on him, but as soon as the engine started, he went right to sleep.

----

Second flight was a trip at 4 months old to MN from OK. I stayed below 5K, limited my decents to 300-500 fpm and had mom either give him a bottle or make sure he was working the pacifier on the way down.

He slept most of the time, but since the air was smooth up and back, mom was able to just feed him in the back seat while airborne.

Hearing protection for second flight was just the rolled up pharmacy silicone ear plugs under a kid's hearing protector sold for gun range kids.
 

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James, great photos to show how roomythe back seat is in a C177FG.
 
UPDATE

We flew KDTO KILE KHYI KDTO, 4 hours total.

She was great. No problems.

I tried to cut down some foam ear plugs and they did not work. She went to sleep when we were taxiing and she slept all the way on each leg.

I am going to buy a junior headset and get her used to it by having her wear it around the house when she is asleep.
 
I have a five year old and I have not taken her flying yet. I am very concerned about hearing loss. I just do not see a safe way to take her. Maybe if I can roll up the soft yellow plugs in her ears and then put a quality head set on her it might be enough. I don't trust those $12 walmart ear muffs.

What have you got to gain vs what does she have to loose?
 
Tony_Scarpelli said:
I have a five year old and I have not taken her flying yet. I am very concerned about hearing loss. I just do not see a safe way to take her. Maybe if I can roll up the soft yellow plugs in her ears and then put a quality head set on her it might be enough. I don't trust those $12 walmart ear muffs.
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Then get one of those special headsets designed for children like the Cadet model from Pilot Avionics.
 
Tony_Scarpelli said:
I have a five year old and I have not taken her flying yet. I am very concerned about hearing loss. I just do not see a safe way to take her. Maybe if I can roll up the soft yellow plugs in her ears and then put a quality head set on her it might be enough. I don't trust those $12 walmart ear muffs.

What have you got to gain vs what does she have to loose?
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Most any industrial supply or gun shop will have foam roll up plisgs that will fit a 5 year old. The molded orange 3M ones I get I have even fitted to a newborn with no modification. A 5 year old should be getting big enough for a Clarity Aloft with no issues or even a set of Zulu or Sierras.
 
Tony_Scarpelli said:
What have you got to gain vs what does she have to loose?
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I'm on board. From now on, my kid is never leaving the house. Ever. There's just too much risk out there.

The guy who taught me to fly has been in planes since 1962 (age 3) with something close to 10k hours by now, and his hearing is as good as mine. Probably better, since I damaged mine from 8 years of playing pipe organ.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I'm on board. From now on, my kid is never leaving the house. Ever. There's just too much risk out there.

The guy who taught me to fly has been in planes since 1962 (age 3) with something close to 10k hours by now, and his hearing is as good as mine. Probably better, since I damaged mine from 8 years of playing pipe organ.
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I had to go into the hearing box on a physical a few months back and I'm amazed at the quality of my hearing considering a life of often severe levels of sound polution. The gal said my hearing results were excellent, my ex wife would disagree, but that's another subject.
 
Henning said:
I had to go into the hearing box on a physical a few months back and I'm amazed at the quality of my hearing considering a life of often severe levels of sound polution. The gal said my hearing results were excellent, my ex wife would disagree, but that's another subject.
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:rofl:

I think a good deal of it is total actual exposure. With 2,000 hours of flight time, our exposure is still relatively low compared to other realms. I've probably got 3,000 hours playing pipe organ, and that was typically very loud, with no hearing protection. Since hearing loss is cumulative, there's more to it. Someone who has headphones on all day long has more exposure than us pilots.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
:rofl:

I think a good deal of it is total actual exposure. With 2,000 hours of flight time, our exposure is still relatively low compared to other realms. I've probably got 3,000 hours playing pipe organ, and that was typically very loud, with no hearing protection. Since hearing loss is cumulative, there's more to it. Someone who has headphones on all day long has more exposure than us pilots.
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Yeah exactly, between a life of racing, industry, and rock n roll; flying has been low exposure to me because I always used good hearing protection.
 
TulsaWeather said:
I'm hoping to tackle that next winter, paint comes in January.... finally.
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Completely off topic, but how do you like the 177? I've been doing some planning for a first plane and love the way they look. Not many high wings have a "good" look to them like the 177.

Also great thread! Taking my 2.5 yr/old up soon and getting some great ideas here.
 
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