[VincentDC]

5 hour flight from PHL to PHX with mother and baby sitting directly behind me Window seat in Airbus A320. Mother was a motormouth with a thick southern drawl while her baby would not stop crying and hitting my seat back. Made attempt to give her a "concerned and serious look" to get her to quiet her kid. Kind of worked, but woman still would not keep her kid calm while she kept on talking on and on with her seat mate about her life. For five hours, all I dreamed about was standing up and telling her to shut up and to go back to the trailer park she came from, but that would be mean.

What happened instead: I politely complained to the flight attendant, only to see a smirk on his face with a casual "I'm sorry" response.

[Leatherboy2006]

Why does the scene from the last eposide of MASH popped in my head, it was a baby and not a chicken that was making the noise on the bus.
Flight attendant between a rock and a hard place, if says something to mother then would be accused by mother of being anti-family and now has upset passengar who doesn't want to hear crying baby.
Personally I believe in ambien for children on publice transport.

[countrynewsman]

Crying is one thing...can't do much about that...but hitting the back of your seat is something else. I would have asked the mother to stop the brat from doing that. If she refused, then the flight attendant should be involved and do something about it. It's just another issue you put up with when you cram people into an aluminum tube for several hours.

[Corbel]

not nearly as bad as what i experience last month. ORD-FRA. we were in the center row. 3 kids in front and 2 kids in back of us. kids in back screaming (not crying) the entire way and kicking our seats and pushing up and down the tray tables. we were turning around telling the kids to please stop, told the parents....but the parents did nothing and just smiled. we turned around at least 10 times telling the parents to please calm their kids. we land and the dad had the nerve to tell us we were being rude!! he tells me i should go home and control my kids (i dont have kids) tells that to my coworker (ummm her kids are grown and out of the house) he was so rude getting off the plane to us. i understand that kids cry, and with the pressure in the ears its recommended, its when the kids are screaming and restless and parents dont control their kids that bugs me

[Butch Cassidy Slept Here]

So evidently the seats by the toilet DO serve a useful purpose! There's only a bulkhead--no annoying kids behind you. There's also no recline and you'll probably need a face mask to deal with the stink. Hopefully the flight attendant won't make an issue over the mask.

Below a certain age there's probably nothing that can be done about noisy kids, or even kids who constantly bang the back of your seat. I think, a while back, someone did a post on here about an incident where a Frontier flight attendant intervened over some unruly kids, in-flight, and had the cops waiting on arrival. As much as the parents probably deserved it I don't know what was accomplished.

On "kid-popular" routes (ie: to/from Orlando) this is another reason to consider the virtues of Amtrak.

[VincentDC]

I was real close to confronting the woman, but she did make an effort to control her son, albeit a lackluster one. If that didn't work, I would certainly press the call button and have the flight attendant intervene. The row in front of the lavatory is a good idea.