Before Bali Even Began: Travelling 24 Hours With A Toddler

"Ha! They won't let your baby in the bassinet, he's massive." A six foot seven Australian woman cackled at me whilst I watched our toddler, Rudy, run his millionth lap of the airport's play area. "We flew here from Aus a few weeks ago and we weren't allowed to put our baby in, so you've got no luck."

My eyes moved from Rudy to the tiny lump rolling around the floor, at most half his size.

She's wrong, I thought to myself. I've booked a bassinet, so he's going in it. We were about to embark on two long-haul flights, and without that bassinet he's seatless and I'm trapped, so he's going in it.

Thankfully I only had another three hours to worry about it; getting to the airport super early is always a great idea, until you're at the airport, super early. We ate, shopped, and watched in awe as our 16-month-old boy recruited older children to chase him around. Yet somehow, no time had passed. This was going to be a long few days.

As the evening went on, the busy crowds thinned out and still we waited. The lights dimmed, shops closed and we sat bored and, quite worryingly, already tired.

At last our gate was displayed and we, plus the Australian woman and her tiny little baby, made our way to the gate. We showed our passports and then stood in our allocated pens. The aeroplane was huge, double-decker, and judging by the amount of people around us, pretty full. Exactly what you want when you're about to board a flight from London to Doha with a toddler.

We were called on first and shown to our seats in an empty section upstairs on the plane, big comfy seats and extra space for our legs. Result.

I'd tried to upgrade when we arrived at the airport, shamelessly using the phrase "it's our honeymoon". Upgrades were available, but at the cost of £700 (each!) we decided to skip the luxury and hope for the best with the seats we'd booked.

"Good evening!" A well-groomed male air hostess came over.

"Hi," I smiled. "We've booked a bassinet for the baby..."

"Oh no. He's too big." He interjected with a menacing smile, as if he hadn't just delivered the most stressful news to already tired parents embarking on a very long journey.

"He's under 2," I forced a friendly smile.

He shook his head, "It's so stupid they say that online. Really, these bassinets are for babies a few months old. His legs will poke out."

I stared at him blankly, trying my hardest to hide my fury. "Get it."

Sure enough he did, and sure enough Rudy's legs hung over the edge.

"See." He smiled, "It's not safe."

I curled the momentarily placid boy into the foetal position and looked back at the man desperately.

"I'm sorry, it's just not safe."

"No worries mate, that's fine." Ev finally spoke up, before I screamed, or cried, or both.

It most definitely wasn't fine. We had a minimum of 16 hours of airtime ahead of us and now not 1 minute of respite. I concealed the panic and snuggled the snoozy boy onto my lap. Other customers were now boarding around us, each one noticing the baby and reactively showing faces of "fuck you for bringing a baby on this flight". The space around me felt smaller and smaller.

Flight one was mostly painless, by some miracle a lot of the seats around us remained empty. After many arguments with said flight attendant, we had an hour or so of Rudy laying comfortably across two empty seats and Ev sat on the floor alongside him, then when he was ready for a doze, snuggled peacefully on my lap as we shared beers and airplane meals. Apart from watching The Rise of Gru on repeat, our sanity was still pretty much intact.

We thought the worst was behind us.

Then came flight two. The only flight of our four where we weren't sat in a side aisle, just the three of us on two comfy, almost-private seats. Instead we were in the middle aisle with another couple and their tiny baby, who was allowed in a bassinet.

This was the flight where we didn't have the luxury of empty seats around us, or the calm of the evening spreading around the cabin. It was Doha to Bali on a hot afternoon, the plane was full, loud and, unexpectedly, after boarding had finished, delayed. For two hours.

We were hot, tired, cramped and increasingly stressed about being hot, tired and cramped. The thing with having a baby, or a toddler, is even when everything is fine, there's a niggling feeling in the back of your head (or maybe PTSD) clawing at you that in a heartbeat everything could implode.

No, he's not screaming this second, but who knows what's coming. Will he shit up his back? Or decide everyone on this flight deserves total misery? Or maybe he'll carry on sitting here calmly watching The Rise of Gru for the 8th time in 12 hours. It was this apprehension that sent Ev over the edge. The waiting, to depart and to control an unwanted situation that may never come. I turned to him about half an hour into the wait and his eyes looked like they were ready to pop out of his skull.

"What have we done." He said so quietly it gave me chills. The contrast to his normal booming sound was utterly unnerving. "We should get off." He looked totally crazed at this point.

"Really?" I panicked.

Silence.

I could see his rapid pulse pumping through his temples. I had no idea if this was it, honeymoon over, or worse, husband over and his skull would just spontaneously combust.

He stood up. And sat down. Then up again, facing back at all the people behind us with this manic look on his face. I thought if nothing else he might scare other passengers off the plane and we'd have some more space.

Then he paced. Huge strides down the aisle into the distance without a look back. I sat there helpless. I had no idea what to do, presently the baby was fine but the husband was not, and would become categorically worse if the baby became distressed. So I stayed put playing and chatting to Rudy as if his dad hadn't just mentally detonated.

"There's no empty seats." He reported upon his return, confirming the bleak reality that we'd all be squashed in these seats for the next nine hours of flight time, plus however long we'd continue to be delayed for.

He stayed silent for a long time after that.

Later I found out he was experiencing his first panic attack. I'm a seasoned panicking pro, but he is not. Not once did his face crack, it was stone-cold silence. I don't know if it's terrifying or impressive to be able to mask that level of fear. Never once have I kept that much emotion inside whilst feeling it all at once, it pours out in tears and hyperventilation or endless word vomit.

As always, the apprehension was worse than the reality.

Yes, the baby cried, and we took turns going up and down the aisle. Yes, he pooed and we had to change him in the tiny toilet, and at times I'm sure people were fed up with the noise and the constant movement. But he slept, in fact we all did, as the mother next to us was so effective in shushing her baby it sent all three of us into a well-needed sleep. Plus, for the most part, the people around us were understanding and played with him across the aisle or over the seats, trying to help and secretly pleased they didn't have a child to entertain for the duration. And really, to some extent, all of these things would have happened anyway in a 24-hour period, so nothing was too much worse. The exhaustion, perhaps. But he slept, ate and we got there in one piece. On reflection, and enough distance now that it feels safe to say it, the baby was a dream considering we had taken away all his usual comfort and wedged him into a tiny space hundreds of feet in the air.

The same cannot be said for the journey home.

Fever, chills, projectile vomit, diarrhoea, multiple in-flight medical interventions, talks of an early landing/immediate medical intervention in Dubai, debates of an extended stopover and a rescheduled connecting flight............

Panic. Panic. Panic.