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We flew last year when my son was 13 months. I think the flight was an hour and 40 minutes. We changed his diaper right before boarding and kept him in the car seat the entire flight. We had an early flight and he was able to sleep during part of the flight which was great.

We are going on a 3 1/2 hour flight tomorrow with our now 28 month old and I'm sure that'll be a different experience. We are bringing a car seat on this flight too because he will be a mess to handle if he's free to sit in the airline seat without a car seat.

It was rough when we did this with dd because it made it easier for her to kick the seat in front of her. And she had a rough time sitting still in it. Plus we had a huge car seat. The flight was 5+ hours though. Never again for us.

Generally, when my son was small and he had his own seat, he spent the majority of time strapped into the car seat. We did flights that were about 6 hours, so he was in for takeoff and landing and I would take him out every so often for diaper changing and what not.

@SteelerGirl: Yes, although not at that age because DD used to get carsick whenever we'd go more than 20 min, and she was too young for dramamine until age 2. She did fine on the plane though. But as I mentioned, she slept through at least half of it. Does yours use a pacifier? Mine was happy at that age as long as she had her binky, so that helped too (plus snacks).

We're doing the same flight with our 8 month old in a few weeks and I'm more worried about him because we don't have a seat for him so I think he will have a harder time napping, plus he doesn't take a pacifier and doesn't snack. Lol we are screwed.

Following. My son is about to turn 2 and has flown several times, but all as a lap child. Now that we have to buy him a seat, I'm not sure how this is going to go!

@MrsADS: Was it easy as a lap child? We are in the opposite situation, we always bought a seat for DD, but decided to have DS be a lap child for our next flight. I always liked having an extra seat so I am worried about it.

@MrsADS: We just flew with DD in her own seat for the first time at 2. It went great! The Cosco Scenera was really easy to install on the plane. Strapped her in for whole time (both flights were about 1.5 hours). We talked it up before and she was super excited about having her own seat on the plane. Between snacks and toys (and a nap on the second flight) she was occupied, and her legs were still too short to kick the seat in front of her. Plus I LOVED not having a giant toddler on my lap like when we flew at 23 months!

@SteelerGirl: We just did this with DD (age 2) and she fell asleep in her carseat just like in the car. One (probably horrible parenting) thing we do if she won't fall asleep in the carseat, is hold our phone in front of her face and flip through all the pictures of her. Focusing on that calms her down enough that she starts to zone and eventually passes out. As for taking her out, I'd treat it like the seatbelt sign. Seatbelt sign is on, she stays in. Seatbelt sign off, you can get her out.

My two year old spends the whole flight in his car seat, but now that we are potty trained I'll take him to the bathroom.

When I've had a seat when he was younger it was more a place to put him for naps. But so worth it!

I also bring a bottle of pumped milk to feed if needed at a moment when I can't nurse while traveling. It's saved me in the rental car line or during a forever long time waiting to take off.

@MrsADS: we have the Cosco Scenera Next which is very easy to install rear facing on the plane which we plan to do tomorrow when we fly. The only issue with the seat is that my son has almost outgrown it rear facing height wise. You can install it forward facing and get more life out of the seat that way. We haven't forward faced our son in our car yet so I don't want him to get a taste of it on the plane and then expect it in the car too!

ETA: the Cosco Scenera Next is such a great travel seat because it's so light weight! We bought a car seat backpack on the advice of another poster just so we have an extra set of hands to wrangle our LO!

I'll echo the cosco scenera next. We've flown with it, gosh 20 times? We started getting her her own seat around 10 moths for a cross country flight. Everyone was much happier. SO much happier. I've even been able to read a book and drink a glass of wine. She sleeps, she plays, she watches peppa.
I don't take her out unless I HAVE to because then she doesn't want back in and the flight goes downhill
The cosco installs in the most narrow of planes. I'm talking tiny 1-2 configurations. My next fit would not have fit. And it's so light.

Oh yes and print the faa rules. Our last flight a junior flight attendant tried to tell us we had to turn her until a senior attendant came up and told her that we were fine and actually commended us for flying safely with our child. Wha-what!?! To her credit the junior FA was nice...she said people rarely bring car seats and she had thought only infant buckets could rear face. And she was happy to be informed.

At that age he was buckled in the seat for about 65% of the time, we took breaks because it was with long cross-country flight and we had also some delays on the tarmac. For the other 35% of time, this is what he did: