I've flown in business class on dozens of airlines. The seat I used to avoid is now my favorite as a parent.

After nearly a decade of flying in premium cabins, I thought I had business-class travel figured out. Then I became a dad.

Over the past 18 months, my wife and I have traveled extensively with our son from our home on Vancouver Island, Canada, taking advantage of policies that let children under two fly free or at a steep discount.

It's been a major shift from my more than a decade of flying solo. Back then, I cared most about things like direct aisle access, uninterrupted sleep, and working my way through elaborate onboard menus.

But after countless hours of family time at 35,000 feet, my priorities have flipped. The private suite-style pods I once sought out are no longer my favorite — the older seats I used to avoid are.

What those older cabins lack in privacy, they more than make up for in floor space, wider beds, and the ease of entertaining my son during long flights.

So far, he's joined us on 29 flights to nine countries, including France, Georgia, Australia, and Japan. We exclusively use points for long-haul business class tickets, which means we pay a fraction of what can easily run $5,000 to $10,000 per seat.

Cabin layout matters more than the seat itself

As a family, we've flown business class on Air Canada, LOT Polish Airlines, Qatar Airways, and Japan Airlines, and one thing has consistently defined the experience: the cabin layout.

My Qatar and Air Canada flights use a 1-2-1 configuration, with one seat by each window and two seats side-by-side in the center.

One of the biggest advantages of this setup is that every passenger can freely access the aisle, so no one has to climb over a seatmate to get up or move around.

This more premium layout has become the gold standard in modern business class as airlines revamp their cabins to meet booming demand for upscale inflight comfort.

But after several long-haul flights as a parent, I've realized I often prefer the older cabins with a 2-2-2 configuration like on LOT and JAL. These older layouts are generally considered less desirable because window-seat passengers may have to climb over a seatmate if the other person is lying flat.

For families, though, that setup can be a huge advantage.

Having a guaranteed pair of seats together makes it much easier to spread out, pass items back and forth, and manage naps, bottles, and toys during a long flight.

It's also far easier and often cheaper to find award seats, meaning paying with points, in the lower-demand older cabins than in the newest suite-style business class products.

With a baby under two, he travels as a lap infant, which is typically 10% of the adult fare plus taxes and fees on international flights (these costs can vary with point redemptions).

Floor and bed space are everything

One of the main things we've noticed is that there's a lot more real estate for three people to share in open layouts than in closed layouts like the pod-style I previously preferred.

In cabins with 2-2-2 configurations, there's a good amount of floor space shared by the two seats. When the seatbelt sign was off, we'd put down a blanket on the floor, as it's not the cleanest part of a plane, and he'd have space to play.

In most pods, this just isn't an option since there's typically a small space between the bed and the aisle. This means he spent most of his awake time sitting on our laps, and when toys or books fell, it was hard to reach them.

The extra space also translated into a better sleep experience, which was especially helpful on our 16-hour ultra-long-haul flight between Doha and Montreal or a nine-hour overnight flight from Tokyo to Vancouver.

Initially, we were excited to try out bassinets on international business-class flights before our son could sit upright on his own; however, we didn't have good luck with them.

Some were positioned high up on the wall (which made them difficult to access), while others were just tricky to reserve in the first place. He's since grown out of bassinets, which are usually weight and size-restricted.

Business-class seats, when in lie-flat bed mode, tend to be a few inches wider in a 2-2-2 configuration than in a pod setup. My wife, who is quite petite, found it much easier to get some rest when she co-slept with our son on the wider seats.

Even an extra couple of inches made a big difference, and there's also more legroom without restrictive footwells. For our sake (and for everyone else in the cabin), our son is a great sleeper on planes, and we managed to get a reasonable amount of rest on long-haul flights.

I am guaranteed to have two side-by-side seats in older cabins

One of the most underrated advantages of older business-class layouts is how much logistically easier they make flying with a small child.

With 1-2-1 configurations, there's sometimes a wall between the middle seats that may or may not retract, and the seats are often angled rather than facing forward.

If you're in a window seat one behind the other, communicating and sharing the parental load is also more difficult.

In older configurations, it's easier to pass him between parents to give each other breaks, or so we could each take a turn enjoying the meal service.

Flying with a little one can be exhausting — even in the best circumstances — and I've found that having easy access to each other allowed us both to enjoy the experience more.

Our favorite cabins

So far, we've had the best experiences flying with our son on LOT Polish Airlines and Japan Airlines.

On LOT, it was the first overseas flight with our son, and we found that the seats were wide enough to share space and appreciated how easy it was to pass our son to each other.

On Japan Airlines Sky Suites, there was a sliding window between our two seats, and our son enjoyed standing on one of our seats and looking through to the other parent.

When older cabins aren't available, I look for center seats that keep our family close together — for example, I prefer Qatar's QSuite for its side-by-side "honeymoon" seats, which make logistics easier because they don't angle away from each other.

Overall, pods certainly have their place.

Travelers flying solo may prefer the privacy of a sliding door and guaranteed aisle access. But after dozens of flights with an infant, I've found those same features can make business class feel surprisingly cramped for families.

The older cabins I once avoided now offer what matters most: extra shared space, easier teamwork between parents, and a more comfortable setup for sleeping and playing on long-haul flights.

T.J. Dunn is a freelance travel, loyalty program, and credit card expert based on Vancouver Island, Canada. He is the former editor in chief at Prince of Travel and has published digital and print articles in major publications across Canada, including the National Post and The Toronto Star.