Surprisingly, it really wasn’t too bad…aside from almost missing it (obviously my fault). Mrs T was brilliant for the majority of the six and a half hour BA flight to Dubai (I even managed to watch a WHOLE movie). But for the last 20 minutes when we were descending, she kicked off. It must have been the air pressure. She would not stop crying. There was really nothing we could do until we landed – no amount of comforting would do the trick. There was the odd let up when she calmed down enough to suck her thumb but it didn’t last long.
Mrs T gets checked in
One thing you realise when you have kids is the majority of the population have them too and completely understand. There are obviously those who don’t. In my younger days, I probably used to be one of them. But, on this flight, the staff and those around us were really good. I didn’t see any disapproving looks, although to be honest I didn’t dare look. My husband was probably the worst… He was more worried about his fellow passengers and would not stop apologising, over and over again. I felt this was drawing unnecessary attention to what was already a rather stressful situation. Babies cry…especially when their little ears are in turmoil. Thankfully, that was something most people appreciated, and in the end, they were the ones reassuring us…perhaps that was Cal’s intention…a bit of reverse psychology.
Before all that, Mrs T managed to get a bit of sleep in the bassinet- no idea how! It was TINY. She is very small for her age (in the lowest 2 percent weight wise) and I doubt most average sized kids over 12 weeks would fit in it. It was like getting her into open coffin. She just fit in lengthways but couldn’t stretch out her arms at all! While she was awake we managed to successfully entertain her, walking her around, amusing her with some finger puppets she got for Christmas and playing with her rattles. But, she really didn’t take kindly to the cabin lights being turned off… NO idea why. It was a noon flight from Heathrow- what was the point? Who wants to sleep then – there’s only a four hour time difference.
Anyhoo, thank goodness we got that flight- one day later and we’d be stranded at Heathrow due to snow. We felt six hours in the air was really doable and was part of the reason why we chose Dubai (as well as wanting some sun) but six hours stuck on the tarmac … No thanks.