californiagirl
07-26-2004, 12:04 PM
We recently flew SF-LA and back with DD, who is almost 5 months. She is a big flirt and a charmer, which is good because otherwise the other passengers would have been voting to have her roasted and served with an apple in her mouth, after she screamed moderately all takeoff and howled inconsolably all landing. Since SF-LA is pretty much all takeoff and landing, she was really only quiet for a few minutes, and she was actively nursing during those minutes. Well, on each flight we got 5 minutes of only intermittent shrieking out of letting her suck on ice cubes, which is also absolutely hysterical to watch; she screws up her whole face as if she hates it for a few seconds on every suck, but she pursues the ice cube like a little shark and whimpers the instant she can't get to it. It is very, very difficult to hold an ice cube securely while the baby sucks on it. And nursing after the baby's been eating ice for 5 minutes is, umm, refreshing.
She can take a sippy cup, but won't on descent. If water happens to drip out of it into her mouth, she swallows and is quiet for a second or so, but trying to get her to swallow from it just makes her madder. DH and I disagree whether the better technique is to try to get her to swallow all the time (in the hope that she'll get enough swallows in a row to clear her ears and stop howling), or to wait until your few seconds of grace is up before trying again.
What do other people do about getting a breastfed baby in a car seat to clear ears on descent? She's never had a pacifier, and while the plane is landing she won't suck on fingers, letters, the tail and tag on her lion, her sippy cup -- she behaves like all of these normally enticing objects are poisonous! She's still exclusively breastfed, and bottles of EBM normally score lower on her list than any of those things.
She can take a sippy cup, but won't on descent. If water happens to drip out of it into her mouth, she swallows and is quiet for a second or so, but trying to get her to swallow from it just makes her madder. DH and I disagree whether the better technique is to try to get her to swallow all the time (in the hope that she'll get enough swallows in a row to clear her ears and stop howling), or to wait until your few seconds of grace is up before trying again.
What do other people do about getting a breastfed baby in a car seat to clear ears on descent? She's never had a pacifier, and while the plane is landing she won't suck on fingers, letters, the tail and tag on her lion, her sippy cup -- she behaves like all of these normally enticing objects are poisonous! She's still exclusively breastfed, and bottles of EBM normally score lower on her list than any of those things.