Ask any parent who has done it and the answer is usually: it's fine. The anticipatory anxiety — the hours spent imagining a screaming baby and glaring fellow passengers — is almost always worse than the reality. Babies, particularly under six months, often sleep through substantial portions of flights. Older babies can be occupied, fed, and walked up and down aisles. With good preparation, flying with a baby is a manageable, even pleasant, experience.
This guide covers everything from booking through to landing, with practical, evidence-based advice for each stage.
Book your seats strategically. When booking, request a bulkhead seat (the row behind a partition wall). This is where aircraft bassinets (also called sky cots or bassinets) are mounted. Bulkhead rows also typically offer more legroom — essential when you are navigating a baby, a changing bag, and your own belongings.
Request a bassinet early. Bassinets are aircraft-mounted cots that fold down from the bulkhead wall. They are available on most long-haul flights and some medium-haul routes, but there are a limited number of them per aircraft. Request one at the time of booking through the airline's customer service — this is almost never possible through the main booking website. Bassinet weight and size limits vary by airline but are typically suitable for babies up to around 9–11kg or approximately 8–12 months. Confirm the limit with your specific airline.
Your baby needs a passport and may need additional documents. Children in the UK have not been included on adult passports since 2006. Even a newborn requires their own passport. EU countries may also require a birth certificate as supporting identification in some circumstances.
Check what the airline allows in hand luggage. Most UK and European airlines allow formula, breast milk, and puréed baby food in quantities exceeding the standard 100ml liquid limit, recognising that these are medically necessary for infant care. You may be asked to taste breast milk or formula at security. More than adequate liquid is allowed but always declare it separately.
Travel insurance. Ensure your travel insurance covers the baby and, specifically, covers medical care abroad. NHS provision does not extend outside the UK in most circumstances. An EHIC/GHIC card provides some cover within Europe, but comprehensive travel insurance is still essential.
The golden rule: pack more than you think you need and accept that your hand luggage will be heavier than usual. Aim for every contingency without reaching the absurd (there is a line between prepared and over-packed).
Nappies: Pack more than the flight duration suggests you need. Delays happen. A flight is not the place to run out of nappies.
Wipes: Abundant. Not just for nappy changes but for every surface, your own hands, the tray table, the seat belt, and anything your baby touches.
Changes of clothes for the baby: A minimum of three. Blowouts happen, and aeroplane changing facilities are cramped.
A change of clothes for yourself: One. You will at some point be covered in something.
Milk and feeding supplies: For formula-fed babies, consider using pre-made liquid formula for the flight — it requires no measuring and no hot water. For breastfeeding parents, no equipment is needed beyond a cover or muslin if desired.
Snacks for weaning babies: For babies on solid food, bring a selection of familiar, easy-to-manage foods. Pouches of baby food are convenient and usually allowed through security.
Favourite comfort items: A familiar toy, a small soft comforter, or a dummy if used. The familiar smell and feel of these items is genuinely soothing in an unfamiliar environment.
Dummy/soother: Even if your baby does not usually use one, bringing one for the ascent and descent can be invaluable for managing ear pressure.
A muslin or light blanket: Versatile. Nursing cover, shade from cabin lighting, impromptu changing mat, warmth.
Pain relief: Infant paracetamol and ibuprofen (if baby is over three months and appropriate weight) in case of teething or discomfort. Check current guidelines on doses.
The discomfort associated with flying during ascent and descent — the sensation of pressure change in the ears — is a genuine concern for parents. Adults manage it by swallowing, yawning, or performing the Valsalva manoeuvre (pinching the nose and gently blowing). Babies cannot do any of these things voluntarily.
The most effective solution is feeding. Suckling — whether at the breast, on a bottle, or on a dummy — promotes swallowing, and swallowing is what opens the Eustachian tube and equalises the pressure difference. This is why airlines are not wrong when they recommend feeding during takeoff and landing.
In practice: Begin feeding shortly before the aircraft starts its ascent or descent — during taxi for takeoff, or when the descent begins for landing (the captain usually makes an announcement as the aircraft begins descending). Continue feeding throughout the pressure change period. For breastfeeding parents, a laid-back or cradle hold works in most seats. For formula-fed babies, have the bottle ready and warmed (or at room temperature) before you need it.
If your baby will not feed at the critical moment (they are asleep, not hungry, or simply refuses), a dummy is the next best option. Suckling on a dummy promotes the same swallowing mechanism.
Accept that you will not sleep. Particularly on a short-haul flight, sleep is unlikely. Approach the flight as an activity to get through rather than time to rest, and you will be less disappointed.
Walk the aisle when needed. When your baby is unsettled, a walk up and down the aisle is often more effective than any entertainment. The movement, the change of scenery, and the slight vibration are all soothing. Most passengers are far more sympathetic to a parent actively managing a unsettled baby than to a parent sitting helplessly beside a crying one.
Use the bulkhead changing area. Most aircraft have a fold-down changing shelf in at least one of the toilets. It is small, but it is there. Baby changing in the seat is theoretically possible but practically difficult and unfair to neighbouring passengers.
Take advantage of boarding first. All airlines offer families with babies priority boarding. Take it — having time to settle in, arrange your belongings, and get the baby comfortable before the rest of the passengers board makes the start of the flight considerably less stressful.
Be kind to yourself about screen time. The flight is not the moment to worry about screen guidelines. If your phone playing nursery rhymes keeps your baby content for thirty minutes, use it without guilt.
Change your baby's time zone as quickly as possible. For short trips, this may not be worth doing. For trips involving significant time differences, expose your baby to daylight during daytime hours at your destination, offer feeds and sleep at destination-appropriate times, and expect a few nights of disruption. Jet lag in babies typically resolves within three to five days.
Flying with a baby requires preparation, realistic expectations, and a willingness to accept that some things will not go to plan. It also opens up the world in ways that staying at home never could. Most parents who have done it once do it again without hesitation.
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