Flight attendants, like mostly anyone else, have a job to do. Much of their job involves keeping hundreds of people safe at the same time. Not obeying a FA's order is a federal crime and could be a felony.
Having said all that, if I thought I could get the baby out of the sling without waking them up, I'd probably try that first though. (I'm pretty sure most flight attendants aren't enforcing this silly rule to begin with, because I'm pretty sure I would have experienced it if they were, I used these slings / carriers all the time, including on planes.)
Just being a flight attendant doesn't make them great humans to be around.
Uh, you'd be surprised. Once you refuse, they are going to insist, and if you still refuse to comply, or they're going to return to the gate and have your ass removed. They don't pick and choose which rules to enforce.
And yes, they do enforce this rule. We experienced it all the time when my son was a baby.
If the flight attendant did stand there, I would probably wait for awhile for them to decide to move on. I would certainly not become angry or loud or aggressive (definitely a bad move). If they really can't let it slide, I'd probably stop being stubborn at that point. But an initial polite "no" seems like a reasonable battle to pick even so.
> all these silly rules [tray tables and seat backs for instance, seat belts...]
Most of these rules are based in sound research, and were created to avoid repeats of things that exacerbated deadliness of previous air accidents. Calling them silly really makes one look like the sort of know-it-all who thinks that the whole aviation industry is dummies. Exactly the sort of person who bickers with FAs trying to inform you of the safety rules.
PS: I support the baby carriers myself. Argue it with the FAA, not with the FA on a plane.
The point of that paragraph is that it's just not true, in my experience, that all these rules are strictly enforced because they are of Utmost Importance, as a number of you have told me is the case.
I think this is indeed a genuine personality difference. I'm always making decisions about risk tradeoffs and about what battles are worth picking. That doesn't turn off and switch into blind obedience mode the moment I step on an airplane. The tradeoffs do change quite a bit, but they don't go away.
I do think it's notable in this whole discussion that I've never had anything but pleasant interactions with flight attendants. I just don't have this same experience of them as robotic appliers of All Rules, the way you and others seem to be describing them.