Short flight solo with 2 year tomorrow, family arranged for carseat at pickup, still take ours?

[Anonymous]

I haven't flown Southwest recently, but unless they have lots more legroom in coach than other airlines, I wouldn't do a carseat.

I'm basing this on the fact that we just came back from our somewhat far-flung vacation, and our travel was broken down into a couple of 6-hour flights each way. Our child isn't quite two yet, and she's average height. We flew American - which was a better experience than I thought it would be, but the legroom is nonexistent.

We flew with extended family, so someone in our party was always able to sit in front of our toddler and very kindly agree not to recline. If anyone had reclined, it would have been horrible - there is just no legroom to speak of. We flew with the Britax Marathon, which in fairness, everyone on the Travel thread says is a beast to fly with. They were right!

This worked for us this time only because my super fit husband hauled the Britax around the airport, our child is still under two - I would never do this again when she will of course be older and taller, we were guaranteed not to have to deal with reclining, and our toddler does pretty well with kids cartoons on the iPad. We encountered many other under-twos and just-turned-twos on our flights. Some were lap babies, and some were just buckled in for the duration of the flight. Everyone did fine.

[The PP who said no one else uses carseats is right - in four long flights and two short flights we were the only ones.]

The major positive of having the Britax is that our not-so-great sleeper fell asleep more easily on the flights than she would have if she'd had to get comfy in her seat. She's used to falling asleep in her carseat. Nonetheless, the PITA factor would prevent me from ever taking it with us to use on the plane again.

For a one-hour flight I would leave the carseat. If you have time to get a Cares harness, do that, otherwise just buckle your child. On a one-hour flight, your kid will not have the chance to get bored and tired and PO'd that she's confined to a a small area on a plane. If you have an iPad, go to iTunes and download some cartoons. Get a coloring book and some stickers. It's just an hour - you will do great!