Flying and ear trouble

[mckennasmom]

We will be flying on a long flight Monday and my almost 4 dd has had a little congestion and ear trouble-it seems to be cleared up but my whole family is telling me I need to give her Dimetapp before we fly. Any thoughts or suggestions?

[annie7]

Ok, Nobody yell please... I already know how bad this sounds, but I also have taken a 3 yr old on a plane 2,000 miles and found it works in the pressured cabin:

Let her have chewy sticky candy and let her chew sugary gum. :eek:
the constant working of the jaws and the swallowing action helps the ears to "pop" relieving the pressure against the ear drum. If you travel with an infant... let them be a tad hungry getting on the plane and then nurse (or offer the bottle) while in flight...same reasoning applies.

Running out of the room and ducking now!! :(

[Christa]

I won't stone you, Annie :p - you can't judge unless you have been there. Besides, I used to give Angelina 2 little boxes of orange tic-tacs to eat on the 1 hour car drive to the airport whenever we flew when she was little. Otherwise she would scream bloody murder the whole time that we were in the car, & I thought that I was going to crash!

Back to the ear thing, though, I got Tessa some ear drops with tea tree oil at our local Vitamin Cottage the last time she had a slight ear infection. They worked really well. I can't imagine that putting something like that in her ear for a day or 2 before you go would hurt, even if her ear trouble has mostly cleared. It may work as a bit of preventative maintenance.

[alexis]

Ok, I've been travelling since I was little so I can tell you plane travel is rarely very pleasent for a little kid during the take off and landing. Chewing gum is a good thing. Keep lots of gum on hand. Hard mints are good for sucking on and in case of air sickness. My mom used to hold cups over our ears if they got too blocked. I don't know how that helps, but I suppose it's worth trying. Hope that helps, have a nice flight. :)

[beth]

I seem to remember a flight attendant steaming two dixie cups and putting them over my ears when I was a kid. Something like that. I just flew to Texas yesterday with my one year old and she was just fine during takeoff and landing. The rest of the flight was another story...