Has anyone taken their two year old on a red eye flight?

[Anonymous]

We are thinking of taking a red eye flight from CA to DC this summer with our two-year-old. Has anyone done this? If so, how was the experience?

[Anonymous]

I did it with a 16 month old. A 12 hour flight. Flying at night worked great, because he slept a good portion of it. He did not sleep as well as he would normally, though. But his being conked out a bit made the flight more tolerable. Coming home, he was awake the entire time.

[Anonymous]

Not to be a wet blanket, but one of the most stressful travel experiences ever was taking my then 19 month old on a red eye from IAD to CDG (Paris). DC was/is a great sleeper--through the night at 4 months, never a peep during the night, we thought it would be easy. Despite doing everything "right" (bought her a seat, fed/changed according to schedule, etc) she screamed hysterically when she woke in the middle of the night and basically kept the whole plane awake the WHOLE REST OF THE FLIGHT. She finally fell asleep before we landed, and restarted the screaming when we needed to wake her up to take her off the plane. She didn't do much better on the flight home, though it was daytime so we felt less sorry for the other passengers. As much as French people seem to hate Americans, based on the looks we got, they hate screaming American children even more.

We had a great time on the trip itself though--and thankfully, DH kept things in perspective by reminding me that we'd never see most of those fellow passengers again anyway.

[Anonymous]

We just went to Italy with a 23-month old and 5 y.o. It took a while for them to fall asleep on the red eye over there. With the excitement and time it took to get dinner out, they ended up sleeping only about 4 hours (mommy and daddy didn't sleep at all!). We had a 3 hour car ride after the flight, so the younger one slept almost that entire time. They adjusted much more quickly and better than I thought they would.

[Anonymous]

I did it with a 16 month old. A 12 hour flight. Flying at night worked great, because he slept a good portion of it. He did not sleep as well as he would normally, though. But his being conked out a bit made the flight more tolerable. Coming home, he was awake the entire time.

I just did this with my four year old and my 20 month old on a 15 hour flight. The kids slept the entire way over. The way back was a completely different story....

[Anonymous]

Did it twice SOLO with 3 year old twins from DC to London and the first flight went perfectly, second red-eye was not so good but only because they never slept.

Prepare to not sleep on the flight, and you might be pleasantly surprised when your child does.

[Anonymous]

We flew redeye (DC to Europe) with my daughter at 12 months, 2 years, and almost 4 years. It is hard at any age, but at least as a baby she slept. As she was older, there was too much going on on the plane for her to sleep plus they don't serve dinner till quite late and turn off the cabin lights even later. She didn't sleep for either of the flights when she was 2 and 4 but at least at 4 she would watch movies the whole way. I'd say 2 was the hardest because she burned out halfway through and was like "get me off this plane" and there was nothing we could do. I think my husband spent about 3 hours walking around the plane with her.....

[Anonymous]

Did it at age 3 (SFO to CVG) and it was a nightmare. Whatever money I saved by taking the red-eye was not worth it. But 1.5 years later, going to London, it was tolerable. Kids didn't sleep much, but as PP said, they could watch movies.