Back in the days before personal computers found their way into the average American household, parents used to beam with pride when their 2-year-old built a tower out of Duplos. In our current era, however, a growing number expect their toddler to be as comfortable with the computer mouse as she is with Mickey Mouse.

This trend is driven not only by eager parents who want their children on the cutting edge of technology but also by computer, software, and toy manufacturers churning out products for younger children. Advocates claim that introducing very young children to computers gives them an intellectual head start. They believe computer programs designed for toddlers can strengthen problem-solving abilities, increase hand-eye coordination, and stimulate budding minds.

Other experts are more skeptical, urging parents to proceed with caution. "There's a lot of hype, but does a 2-year-old need to be on the computer?" asks Colleen Cordes, who co-coordinates the Task Force on Computers in Childhood for the Alliance for Childhood, a College Park, Maryland-based advocacy group.


Many educators consider 2 to be the ideal age to introduce computers, primarily because most toddlers by this time have the attention span and the hand-eye coordination required to move the mouse and follow the arrow on-screen. Most 2-year-olds are enchanted with the brightly colored images and enjoy making them change by clicking the mouse. At this age, children can usually grasp the concepts presented on beginner computer programs. Studies have shown that such programs can help toddlers learn shapes, colors, letters, and numbers, says Ellen Wolock, managing editor of Children's Software Review, a publication that covers children's interactive media. However, Wolock warns parents against replacing traditional learning materials with computers. "They should be used to supplement, not replace, traditional learning toys like blocks, sandboxes, and crayons."

Computers can also teach the relationship between cause and effect, notes Vicki Folds, Ed.D., vice president of Tutor Time, a Boca Raton, Florida-based company that owns and franchises child-care centers. "If the students push something on the keyboard, something happens on-screen," Dr. Folds says. Tutor Time's schools have been using computers in their curriculum for children ages 2 and up for the past decade.

Pamela Uncles introduced her daughter, Tara, to the computer shortly after her second birthday, with a program called Dr. Seuss Preschool. "She was transfixed," recalls Uncles, an educator in Reston, Virginia. "It helps her with her vocabulary."

Jill Burg, of Hartsdale, New York, echoes those sentiments. After she started her 2-year-old daughter, Rachel, on the computer, she saw a marked improvement in the girl's vocabulary and hand-eye coordination. Moreover, when Rachel wanted to learn about caterpillars, her mom found a Website that would let the two of them watch one instantly transform into a butterfly.

Not everyone, however, is sold on the virtues of early computer use. Critics point out that the skills computers teach can be acquired just as easily through old-fashioned, low-tech activities -- as indeed they were before the proliferation of PCs. In a recent report, the Alliance for Childhood detailed the potential hazards of computer use among young children. The report concluded that an overreliance on computers can give rise to the sorts of problems long associated with television use: stifled natural creativity, hampered social skills, and health effects such as eyestrain and obesity.

"Young children need a hands-on relationship with nature and the physical world around them, not interaction with machines," Cordes says.

Jane Healy, Ph.D., an educational psychologist in Vail, Colorado, and an outspoken skeptic of widespread computer use by youngsters, goes even further. "These children are not formulating language or expressing their needs," Dr. Healy says. "They're pushing a button to get their needs met. It's causing language use to diminish."

Dr. Healy, the author of Failure to Connect: How Computers Affect Our Children's Minds and What We Can Do About It (Touchstone Books, 1999), believes that, as with TV, allowing children too much exposure to computers at an early age can be detrimental to the developing brain. "The first three years of life are when children learn the foundation for creativity and develop critical motor skills," she says. "It's a time when kids should be encouraged to experiment and interact with people and their surroundings -- not to sit in front of a screen."

Most experts take the middle road, pointing out that the keys to making the most of computers are moderation and realistic expectations. No parent should park a child in front of this electronic baby-sitter. "In the end, software is just like any other interactive toy," says Susan Fryer Patrick, who designs educational programs for the Learning Company, in Novato, California. "It's one more way for kids to explore the world."

As our daughter Cleo turns 14 months old, my wife, Sally, and I are proud to report that she says "Mama" and "Dada," stands up all by herself, and has flown a total of 36 times, including to the Caribbean and Europe. Most of our experience flying with our infant has been positive. On more than one occasion, Cleo has happily let flight attendants stroll up and down the aisle with her and even take her up to visit the first-class area, where we could only guess, from our seats back in coach, how she was getting on.

But flying with a baby can also be an ordeal, especially in the United States, where many airlines these days seem ambivalent about their youngest passengers. It's increasingly common, for instance, for airlines to deny families with young children the opportunity to board the plane first. Fellow passengers can be even more intolerant of babies: I've watched travelers go completely pale when -- loaded down with an infant, a cumbersome car seat, and an overstuffed diaper bag from which the melody "Farmer in the Dell" was escaping -- I hesitated in front of their seat just long enough to ask Sally if the next row back was ours.

To cope with these and other travails of flying with an infant, we've put together a set of strategies we use to ensure that the flight is not only as safe as we can make it for our child but also as pleasant as possible for everyone else on the aircraft.

How to Prevent Problems

Be polite.
If we had a second golden rule, this would be it. Infants can't apologize for their actions, but you can apologize for them. The biggest complaint about infants on airplanes is not their crying or their delight in hoisting themselves up on the seat in front of them, but the seeming indifference of their parents toward the discomfort any of this may cause other passengers.

If your child is feeling out of sorts and expresses it by ripping the headset off the balding man in the seat in front of her, you have to apologize -- and you have to mean it. You may not placate the man, but you are likely to gain a few sympathetic nods. And you may even discover that the man was tired of listening to country classics anyway and would rather play peekaboo with the cute little baby behind him.

Plan your seat ahead of time.
When you make reservations, let the agent know that you're traveling with an infant who will have a child safety restraint, as there are restrictions about where it may be placed. (Normally, the seat goes by the window so it doesn't block another passenger's access.) Try to get as far forward as possible, because the back of the plane is noisier, vibrates more, and is less convenient for deplaning than the front.

If your child is particularly active, a bulkhead row eliminates the possibility that her Mr. Worm toy will land in the glass of anybody sitting in front of you. But we don't like bulkhead rows, because you can't have most of your carry-ons near you during takeoff and landing, when you tend to need them most. We don't like the bassinets that bolt to the bulkheads, either, because they're so flimsy that you'll worry constantly about sudden turbulence.

Handle baggage better.
You become most aware of how much baggage a traveling infant requires when you arrive at the airport and unload everything on the curb. If you're lucky, a check-in or a skycap will be right there. As much as you may have disdained these in your pre-baby days, be grateful for them now and tip accordingly ($1 per bag is standard). If neither is available, then your stroller becomes invaluable. Throughout your trip, you'll use it only occasionally for an infant and more often as a private baggage cart. Every airline we've flown will let you check it at the gate. Get a tag for it from the gate staff, and drop it off just before you step through the door of the plane, where it will be returned to you at your destination, hopefully in time for you to make your next connection.

Watch your baby's back.
Because families with small children are often not allowed to preboard, infants are now in the thick of the boarding fray -- and more at risk for the injuries associated with it. There's the danger that somebody will drop a carry-on on them while trying to move it into or out of an overhead bin or smack them with a wayward bag when boarding or getting off the plane.

One way to minimize the risk is to have one adult board as early as possible, carrying the safety seat and anything that will allow you to stake a claim for the bin directly over your seat. Then, after everyone else has boarded, the other adult and the infant can make a late entrance. This also minimizes the time that your baby has to be aboard.

Pack extra supplies.
One of our most unpleasant experiences traveling with Cleo was on a flight from New York to Seattle that was supposed to last five hours but ended up taking two days. We sat on the runway at LaGuardia for three hours before taking off, made an unscheduled stop in Nashville because we were low on fuel, and spent an unplanned night in Dallas, where the airline refused to release our bags. At midnight, we had to hire a taxi to help us scour convenience stores for baby food and supplies. Needless to say, we now carry a two-days' supply of everything.

Protect her ears.
During descent and takeoff, we usually keep Cleo sucking on something to relieve ear pressure -- a bottle, a pacifier, or her favorite: the plastic seat-back safety card. We give her decongestants only if she's had a cold. So far, her ears have bothered her only once, when we made a quick descent for our unscheduled landing in Nashville. And even then, she complained less than many adults on that flight.

Diaper with care.
People seem so put off by seeing a diaper being changed that we change Cleo's in the cabin only if we are sitting three across in an aisle-window row and no one we might offend can see us. On short flights, if she isn't uncomfortable, we wait until we get into the terminal; on longer flights, we try to get in and out of the lavatories as fast as we can. I find that a particular challenge, because although Cleo has been reluctant to accept the fold-down plastic shelf in the lavatory as a changing table, she has discovered that if she clings tightly enough to my neck, it functions quite nicely as an infant trampoline.