Holland: Surviving the flight FROM Amsterdam

The flight back to Bangkok was probably a tad worse that going to Amsterdam…mostly for us since we both only managed at MOST 2 hours of sleep throughout the 10 hour flight journey; with only about 8 hours of sleep the night before.

It was a stressful period prior to boarding:

• At check-in, we found out that our seating arrangement were split and I was assigned to a seat some aisle and rows away from Silver Bullet and Spud .
• We had excess baggage and had to repack as the Dutch Union rules that each baggage should not weigh more than 23 kg. (our biggest bag was at 30kg).
• The security checks were massively hideous. We had a full bag of baby’s stuff we need on board, a stroller, a pump bag, some handy personal belonging plus all the pumped milk liquids in tow. Not the most convenient when everything had to be checked (and I mean taking out almost every single thing that is liquid or in some form of liquid)

The icing on the cake to the stress was when Spud decided to pick the most appropriate time to get cranky just as soon as I got out of the body scanning area and into the “waiting to board” area. I was then instantaneously greeted by a hundred pairs of eyes darting towards me. I sensed that sinister sense of outrage from the fellow passengers as I shamelessly refuse to make any eye-contact whilst I tried to shush Spud down and put her to sleep. However, the harder I tried, the louder she cried, and the more violent the screams became. I can’t really blame her – she was over-tired as not only was it was past her bed-time, she also had very little nap in the day.(Silver Bullet was still clearing security at this time)

All I could do was trying my very best to soothe her without biting her head off! I even retreated to the nearby toilet so I could get her to sleep. One Chinese looking lady walked into the loo to use the bathroom and mouthed off “So loud” when she saw me. I just rolled my eyeballs.

5 minutes later, Spud finally gave in, but decided that she’d wake herself up again on after 2 minutes of power nap. She was more than cranky, but wide awake when we boarded the plane (those hideous dagger eyes again!).

As soon as we settled ourselves down, out came the antihistamine to nurse her cold. She was out for slightly more than four hours slightly before take-off, and we managed to have her in the bassinet again. By the time the meals were served, we only had about an hour of nap before she woke up and started being active all over again. It took us a while longer to get her to sleep, but this time round, Spud definitely got more sleep and was not as cranky as she was on the flight to Amsterdam. She was also playing quite a bit in her bassinet and seemed to be enjoying herself! I even managed to capture a couple of shots, bassinet and all!

Meanwhile, both Silver Bullet and me were utterly shattered trying to entertain her the whole time. Her energy, like any other normal days, is certainly relentless.

Like the trip to Amsterdam, it would have been a lot worst if not for the prescribed antihistamine handy. So, yes, we “drugged” our child on a long haul flight.

I am aware that our actions may sound selfish. Many would probably disapprove strongly of what we did. However, since it was a prescription drug, it worked for us to some extent in minimisinh her crankiness as well as saving our sanity. This, however, is by no means a measure of our (lack) of parenting skills. My take is, if that is the worse a parent can get, I can deal with that quite easily. Besides, it is not like I am giving my child an unprescribed valium for crying out loud. For us, we did it not only for our sakes. What’s more the child needs her sleep.

And if you have seen evil dagger eyes coming right at us whenever the little imp starts her musical orchestra, I am certain that those passengers were pretty glad we managed to keep Spud down for quite a bit.

I think most were not even thankful, let alone empathetic that we went through hell and back just to keep our child from crying bloody murder…I reckon they expected it.

So, before you make any judgments on sedating a child while on the plane, think of all the distress we saved you as you could easily be the next one on board a plane sitting next to a child who just will not stop crying.

Or maybe, just for the fun of it, we should just fly business class and WITHOUT any antihistamine or any drugs that will potentially make a baby drowsy. For the fun of it, I’d like to see the looks of horror of those lounging in the business section of the plane.

Imagine paying so much money for comfort and only to be sat next to a bawling baby. Beat that!

Good news is that I don’t think we can afford flying on business class.Ever.

Long live Antihistamine!