Life in the air: Charting my children’s growth through the flights we’ve taken

A significant event that unites most parents who call the UAE home is a baby's first flight.

As a mother of three, my children’s lives have been measured in the flights we’ve taken to and from the Emirates. My memories of those journeys serve as an equivalent of the time-honoured tradition of marking their height on the wall.

For me, with boys aged 12, 10 and seven, each time one moved out of a flight stage, the other stepped right into his shoes.

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I wish I could tell you that packing and flying became sleeker, more streamlined, a well-oiled machine. But, who am I kidding? My hand luggage is still a mess of bribe-snacks, chargers, comics, broken crayons and changes of clothes because they never grow out of spilling stuff.

Even so, with every journey, I was a little wiser and knew what was to come. Here is what you can expect – or simply accept.

The baby stage

When Anne of Cleves left for England in 1540 to marry Henry VIII, she did so with an entourage of 263 attendants and 228 horses. I would wager they did not carry as much luggage as a parent flying with their baby for the first time.

There’s the change bag filled to bursting point with bottles, nappies, muslin cloths, changes of clothes, wet wipes, soft toys, blankets, dummies, teething rings, nappy sacks and more changes of clothes.

Then there’s the eternal baby carriage conundrum: do you check in the pram and transfer the baby to a sling, or wheel it up to the gate? And if you go with option two, how long will you stand by the plane door trying to collapse the thing – an act that requires a doctorate in spatial engineering – watching people with babies in carriers walk past to claim the overhead bins that you really needed for the change bag and the spare change bag and the spare-spare change bag.

But there’s also joy to be had. The delicious extra legroom of the bassinet seats, the cabin crew coming by for baby hugs, the low drone of the plane finally sending baby off to sleep, that is until we hit turbulence and, with it, the dreaded, “Please remove babies from the bassinet,” announcement.

The toddler stage

The toddler stage of flying comes with all of the above but with an additional layer of fraught. Not only are you still firmly in could-cry-loudly-at-any-time territory, but you also add the delight of not sitting down into the mix. Not once. Not for the entire flight as your toddler discovers the joys of this playground in the sky and you clock up steps on your smartwatch doing laps of the aisle.

Then there's trying to eat your meal with a small foot lodged into it because you’re in the baby-on-lap stage of flying. Having them change the channel on your screen repeatedly means accepting it will take you the entire duration of the flight to watch one episode of Big Bang Theory.

The small child stage

They’re in their own seat, hurrah. You have to pay extra, boo. They finally appreciate the free gift bag, hurrah. You’re interrupted every 30 seconds to change the channel from Bluey to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. No, back to Bluey, boo!

This will play out for the entire flight, no matter the duration. Even if they want to play one of the games part of the in-flight entertainment, the random, slightly aggressive jabbing at the screen annoys the person in front who side-eyes you through the gap in the seats. On the plus side, children are too physically small to mind when that person later puts their seat back.

This time, they'll get their own meal tray, but it is highly likely they won't eat anything. Read: bring alternative meals and snacks regardless. At least they can let you know now when they need to go to the toilet, but you will end up squeezing into the barely-fit-for-one bathroom with them as the flush will likely scare them.

The kind flight attendant will swing by to check if you need anything, but it's because your child has pressed the call button for the 27th time.

The older child stage

While the rest of the world defines adulthood as 18, the airline industry has decided it's time to cough up for a full-price ticket by age 12. Yet on the plus side, this stage is both a freeing and poignant part of the flying-with-children experience.

Those tiny people who once fitted into a bassinet no longer need you to take them to the bathroom or help them choose what to watch. They’ve evolved in an epicurean sense, so they’ll now eat the bread roll and the chocolate on their meal tray. They still don’t mind when the person in front puts their seat back because it brings the TV screen closer. They’ll pull a funny face in the Polaroid photo, and you’ll finally get to watch a film from start to finish. Every cloud.