Tantrum on a Plane
After watching this video, I had flashbacks to my trip to the US when I was pregnant (8 months) with my little girl.
The big girl and I were flying back alone–Hubby was staying in the US to work for a few months, and we had just visited family. Our first flight from Milwaukee to New York went fine, but the second flight to Israel wasn’t leaving until 11PM. I couldn’t get the big girl (3 years old) to take a nap or sleep in the airport, so by the time she got on the plane she was exhausted. She fell asleep before they even served dinner. After about 1-2 hours, she “woke up” and started crying. I realized pretty quickly that she wasn’t really awake, and that this was a night terror, which we had just recently started experiencing. For her, these were primarily caused by being overtired.
I picked her up (remember…8 months pregnant….) and hauled her to the back of the plane (kitchen). She sat on the floor screaming, and any question I asked her she just said no. Her eyes were open, but she really wasn’t responding. After nearly 45 minutes, she started saying “pee pee, pee pee” which let me know she had woken up. We went to the potty, got her a granola bar to eat, and she slept the rest of the flight.
Luckily, other than a flight attendant telling me that she was awake (which she wasn’t) nobody threatened me or gave me a hard time on the plane.
UPDATE: Although this is for home and not on planes, here is a good list of the top ten things to do when your child has a tantrum.
Whoo, I vote no on those tantrum ideas! They sound pretty insensitive to me. Judging by the comments over there I guess I’m the only one who thinks so. TOddlers are in distress when they have tantrums and they need help from adults to get back in control.
Comment by mother in israel — January 28, 2007 @ 11:20 pm
I do think it is a bit tongue in cheek..and I also think it depends on the child…some do need to be ignored while other children need the parent to pull things around.
When my girls have problems falling to sleep and throw fits (which is rarely) they need to be ignored and they will go to sleep on their own, while other kids I know just get louder and angrier and won’t go to sleep.
Comment by Safranit — January 29, 2007 @ 10:01 am
Hey Safranit: This guy certainly has the right idea what to do with kids on planes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbnRRGISLQE
Comment by Jameel @ The Muqata — January 29, 2007 @ 5:08 pm
Thanks for stopping by the Silicon Valley Moms Blog. Great that you stayed calm during your flight tantrum.
So happy to hear from Israel. I spent a wonderful week there many years ago and a week in Eilat. Give us a yell if you visit Silicon Valley, California.
Comment by Beth Blecherman — January 31, 2007 @ 2:28 am