It takes patience, planning, and often some giving and taking to get through the problems that come up when you fly with young children. For the woman in today’s story, though, a simple flight turned into a nightmare.
She told the story from her point of view.
Our 3-month-old and 2.5-year-old went on a 3.5-hour flight with my husband and me not long ago. We couldn’t get seats together, so I had the baby in the middle aisle and he had the aisle seat across from me. The toddler was in the middle.
My husband gets up to go to the bathroom about an hour into the flight while I’m nursing the baby. As soon as he leaves, the toddler crawls over to me. The toddler won’t sit down on my lap because he makes the baby stop eating, so the baby is crying on me while I try to hold the toddler and not bother the two people next to me. Also, my husband got stuck behind the drink cart for 20 minutes while he went to get the toddler.
In the evening, my husband gets up to go to the bathroom again while I’m feeding the baby. This also happens when I’m trying to feed the baby while my toddler is on my lap. having a baby cry and a toddler sit in the middle seat.
To give you some background, my husband pees a lot. I told a pelvic floor therapist how often he pees, and she agreed that it was too much and that he should see a physical therapist to avoid problems in the future. He says he’s fine and says it’s because he drank a lot of water. He has a full-time job in an office and can hold it for hours when he has calls right after each other, so he’s good at it. He has never pooped or had an accident. This year he did see a urologist, who ruled out prostate problems and cancer.
When we got home, I told my husband how hard it was to keep both boys in check and asked him to hold his pee. I have to go to the bathroom a lot of times while watching the boys, but I wait until a better time. He said he couldn’t.
Next, I asked him if he could ask me before going to the bathroom when the baby isn’t being fed and I have both hands free. He said no, and he should be able to go to the bathroom whenever he needs to.
I’m scared because we have a lot of flying to do this summer, including a few trips to other countries.
PS: He gets a physical every year and is in great health. There is no diabetes, and all of the lab tests are normal. He has never peed on himself during an ultramarathon.
