I can't express how much easier it is to care for and entertain children in car seats as opposed to lap infants. For one thing, they are used to riding in a car seat and mostly without constant entertainment. When I put my twins in their car seats in the plane, I don't pull out any entertainment or snacks until they start getting bored which is usually well after take-off. Then there is the sleep issue. Most babies have no problem falling asleep in their car seats. They've done it before and are comfortable with it. Making sure your children get their naps at approximately the normal times is the most important rule for having a peaceful flight. Tired babies do not tolerate much and overtired babies have the potential of crying the entire flight. On my first solo flight with my infant twins I was obsessed with making sure I had everything ready, everything prepared to keep them busy the entire time just in case. Would you believe this is what the entire flight was like:
And I didn't bring anything to read or do for me. It was the most boring flight I've ever been on.
Now that I have raved about the benefits of taking your car seat on board, I know that's not always practical. If the cost-constraints of purchasing a ticket mean lap infant or no trip, go with the lap infant, just read my other posts on preparing for this.
All infant and child car seats that you plan to take on the plane should have a sticker on the side that indicates it is approved for aircraft use. On one of my car seats it was an official looking sticker, on another it was a generic sticker with a couple of paragraphs of writing with the phrase "approved for aircraft use" buried in the text. It's good to be able to quickly point out that it is aircraft approved if a flight attendant asks. That being said I would not recommend trying to take all aircraft approved car seats on a plane. Baby car seats can be much wider and longer (for infant seats) than will work with most airline seats.
Since my twins were born preemies, we had purchased infant carrier car seats that would fit preemies and were on the smaller size for infant carrier car seats. These fit perfectly and allowed the seats in front of us to recline. The infant carriers were by far the easiest to get onto the plane and strap into the plane and I used them up until the babies legs were too scrunched in the seat to be comfortable. By then I had purchased convertible car seats to use in the car and, though approved for aircraft use, there is no way they would fit side to side in an aircraft seat. I found very little information on the Internet, so I did a lot of research on car seats that are the best to use on air planes. I did some measurements of all the car seats at our local baby stores and found a couple of measurements to be the keys to a comfortable flight for those around the baby.
First measure the seat across the widest spot. I then checked www.seatguru.com to see how wide average coach seats were. Most are only 17 inches wide with the arm rest down. The average convertible car seat is 18 1/2 inches wide and some are over 20 inches wide. If your car seat is 18 inches wide or under, the seat will not be encroaching into your space and you'll have a comfortable ride.
For infant car seats I will have to make some measurements on the airplane this weekend and update this post.
For front facing car seats, the second measurement I found helpful was the distance from the airline seat to the baby's butt area. The closer you can get your baby's rear end to the airline seat back the longer their legs can grow before they are kicking the seat in front of you and kicking the tray table down the entire flight. This is a hard measurement to make and may require some guessing, but the smaller this measurement, the better. My car seat measures about 4 1/2 inches and at 2 years old they don't cause any trouble for those in front of us (yet).
While I consider those two measurements the key to not encroaching on other people's space, I have also found that it's good to have a car seat that has a smaller distance from the baby's rear end to where their legs fall over the edge at the front. Shortening this distance means your child's legs can hang down as they get longer instead of being propped out the front and aimed at the seat back in front of you. Some car seats are awesome recliners in this way, but not suited for the airplane.
Funny enough, I have found that the car seats that tend to meet all these requirements best are the cheap high back boosters with a 5 point harness. The car seats that tout being slim also measured up well, but were so heavy that I didn't want to try to carry them onto a plane (realize that carrying car seats onto a plane usually means lifting them up over every one's head on the way in).
One other thing I noticed with all the car seats I have owned, the padding is not sufficient for a long, comfortable ride. I noticed red marks on both my babies' backs in the same places after a long flight and realized the padding was just too thin. While I cannot recommend going against manufacturers rules about modifying your car seat in any way, I bought some foam padding and cut it to custom fit my car seat under the manufacturer's cover. Since they will let me hold my baby with no restraint on the plane, I didn't think a little extra padding was going to hurt anything. When you are in the convertible car seats this is even more important because the airline seat buckle usually connects right in the center of the baby's back. And those buckles are really bulky and uncomfortable. I used 1 inch thick foam for extra padding on my convertible car seats.
If you can tell from my pictures, when I fly with my babies, I tether everything they need right to their car seat. Pacifiers, sippie cups, and blankies are all attached to the car seat. There are lots of products on the market that make this easy or just use some ribbon.
The last tips I will pass on is about transporting your car seats through the airport.
Most infant car seats are purchased these days with matching strollers or you can buy a frame stroller for an infant carrier. This is the best way to get through the airport and up to the plane doors. Tell the gate agent that you will be gate checking the stroller and they will give you a tag to do so. Just wheel up to the end of the Jetway, remove your car seat, fold up the stroller and leave it by the door, and head into the plane. I have had stroller fabric damaged even when it was just gate checked, so I put mine in a stroller bag as well and have the gate agent tag the bag instead of the stroller. If you don't have a stroller made for holding the carrier, I can't recommend it, but I have put the infant seats into my reclined stroller seats on a regular stroller and it was secure enough not to fall. Do what you think is safe for your baby.
Once you get to the toddler or convertible car seat stage, it gets a little trickier to transport the car seat through the airport. You can strap it onto a rolling carry on and carry the child or have them walk. Since we travel frequently and I travel with two babies, and sometimes by myself, I have opted for a Go-Go Babyz travelmate which attaches to the back of the car seat and allows you to roll the car seats, kid and all, like luggage through the airport. They have been a lifesaver for travelling on my own. You can see them in action in the picture below. The travelmate collapses and can fit laying down in the overhead bin. On small aircraft or really full flights I have had to gate check them. Check the manufacturer's website to verify that it will work with your car seat before making this investment.
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