There can be a bit of debate amongst family travel bloggers and even family travelers in general about what to do with infants while traveling on a plane. Here were some BoardingArea articles from awhile ago by Ed from Pizza in Motion and Summer from Mommy Points (since migrated to The Points Guy).
The facts are that your child is definitely safer in a car seat than in your arms. True, if the plane crashes from 30,000 feet, a car seat is unlikely to make the difference, but think more along the lines of turbulence as well as taking off and landing
On a recent family air trip, we had to face this dilemma. When I first wrote this post, our youngest was a little older than 2, so technically she couldn’t have ridden as a lap child anyways, though I bet we probably could have gotten away with it.
(SEE ALSO: I’m calling it now – no more free “lap toddlers” on flights)
But in any case, we chose the car seat anyways for a variety of reasons
Lugging the car seat around the airport
One of the cons often given against bringing the car seat is having to lug it around the airport. I can definitely see why that would be an issue, though it wasn’t too bad for us. Although we ended up with 17 (yes SEVENTEEN) different pieces of luggage at the airport, I had a pretty good system that left us with no lost luggage there and back! That’s one good reason to have so many kids – gives you lots of helpers to haul stuff around 🙂
Where does the car seat go?
So once you’re on the airplane, where does the car seat go? We had an issue with this on our recent family trip to Reno. Our flight was only about 2/3 full, so since we were in the back, we thought we’d put the car seat in the middle seat with my wife in the aisle.
Our thinking was that it would be unlikely that anyone would choose to sit there (we were on Southwest which doesn’t assign seats). I mean seriously – is there a worse seat in an airplane than all the way in the back next to someone else’s toddler? : -D
(SEE ALSO: Can you save seats with Southwest Airlines seating?)
But then we were alerted to a problem
One of the flight attendants came by and told us that because the car seat was sticking out past the edge of the seat, we wouldn’t be able to have it there if someone DID come by and sit in the window seat, since we’d be blocking their exit in case of an emergency.
That makes sense, but I was not amused since we had actually just gotten the kid to sleep in the car seat a few minutes before….
Thankfully, nobody came by to sit there, so we were able to keep the car seat in place (not that she slept very long…)
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
I wouldn’t swear by it, but I don’t think FAA regulations would allow pretty much any car seat in a middle seat for the reason you mention (impeding aisle access in an emergency).
With our first child, we went lap child until 2, then car seat for a bit, then CARES harness (www.kidsflysafe.com). Our second child didn’t like traveling as much at a young age, so we went to car seat much quicker, which is likely a safer route.
We really liked the CARES harness when our kids got just a bit older. It’s small enough to fit in a purse (even a small purse) but provides a 4-point harness similar to a car seat. Our second child didn’t love it the first time he used it, but it’s a lot easier than lugging a car seat.
And, if my wife ended up with 17 suitcases for a trip, I think I’d cancel. 😛
Right – I think that you’re right about the middle seat of a carseat. And the good thing about 17 pieces of luggage (they weren’t ALL suitcases :-D) is that at least we have several older kids that can help lug them!!
Thanks for the tip on the CARES harness also!
Middle seat is fine, IF your family is occupying the seats on each side.
That was not how the flight attendants explained it to me (though it’s possible they were misinformed or incorrect). They said nobody can be blocked by a carseat if it sticks out past the edge of the seat (as ours and most do). Worked out for us because the flight was empty enough that nobody sat at the window.
My wife volunteered to go to the window so we wouldn’t have to move the sleeping toddler, but they said that wouldn’t work.
If you are on a widebody with a bank of 3 in the middle, there’s no question since there are aisles on each side. The FAA website says only “should be placed”, not “must be placed”, on the window side. IMO if the seats on each side are occupied by the parents it’s not an issue, and I’ve never had a problem about it.
4 years ago we boarded a redeye back from Hawaii seated comfortably in our seats and rolling on the tarmac when an FA suddenly decided we were “too close” to the exit row and we had to move. She was making up a rule that doesn’t exist, but we had to wake the baby and move because she told the pilots to stop the plane until we did.
Our daughter just turned 2, and we have switched to the CARES harness which works great! No more lugging around car seats, but the harness is familiar signal of “we stay seated”. It’s not so much a safety thing for us, as it is “time to sit”. So for the last 4 flights we’ve had no problems on the plane. I wish we have known about this when her brother was a toddler. With the CARES harness there is no concern about getting across a child, so we are done with that concern.
We rent cars from Hertz, and AAA CDP gives us a free car seat per rental so we no longer need to lug it along for that reason either.
I have always heard it goes in the window, or the middle if it is a middle row (like 2 3 2 configuration).
Thanks for the tips:) My question: Are there any safety guidelines for where to put the car seat? I remember reading something about safety experts recommending window seats? Here’s what I came across on the FAA site: http://www.faa.gov/passengers/fly_children/
And I’m a huge fan of checking car seats rather than bringing them – we made it through two years with a lap baby and no car seat on a plane (following this strategy for frequently getting our little one her own seat: http://hintmama.com/2014/09/01/todays-hint-the-seats-to-book-when-youre-flying-with-a-lap-baby/), though I know the safety experts recommend using the car seat in-flight.
What about in the domestic first class seats on the United 737 aircraft in row 1 that have an airbag in the belth? Last time the flight attendant said okay with our Duna. I asked her to check with the Captain. She came back and said no car seat with lap belt so we swapped with row 2. Apparently they can disable it with an extender but it was just easier to swap.
The flight attendant was really clueless. They checked their manual and they said there was nothing in it so it was okay. The Captain couldn’t find anything, called tech ops and his dispatcher, they couldn’t find anything, so he just said no row 1 to be safe. Anyone else have this experience?