On the Airplane: What Worked For Me
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Little Airport Sticker Book (pictured above)
On the Airplane
Here are some photos and notes from our latest airplane trip. For more travel tips, check out Traveling with Littles: Tips and Tricks! These activities kept the littles entertained for a decent amount of time! Traveling with a 1 year-old and almost-3-year-old is no easy task, but we did it!
A couple of general tips I learned on this trip in particular… As we were about to take off, my 1 year old was getting pretty fussy. He usually drinks whole milk but I didn’t bring any because I didn’t want to mess with it. I figured he would be fine with water for a couple of hours. Well, he wasn’t really loving the water, and the flight attendant offered him some apple juice. He LOVED it and I was so glad she offered that because otherwise I think he may have been fussier and thirsty the whole flight! Sometimes you have to go with the flow and just do what works. That’s my greatest travel tip 🙂 Also, do what you can to get them to sleep… I was singing “5 Little Ducks” over and over again and patting his little bum with the shaker which did actually work to get him to fall asleep! But 15 minutes later I had to repeat it all to lull him back to sleep and 15 minutes after that I gave up and we did snacks and activities the rest of the flight!
A summary of the activities/toys I brought, photos to follow:
- Little Airport Sticker Book (pictured at top)
- Stroller Cars
- PipSquigz Loops
- Water Wow Cards
- For toddler entertainment, Amazon Video app on an old phone. More details below!
My toddler’s entertainment set-up: We used the Amazon Video app on an old phone. We downloaded the shows the day before the trip. He watches Amazon shows at home, his favorites right now are Tumbleleaf, Daniel Tiger, and UmiZoomi, so those are the ones we put on the app for the plane ride. He has Lil Gadgets wireless headphones that were a gift from grandpa… I confirmed with my husband that if we were to buy the headphones, we would buy the wired version for a couple of reasons. The wireless ones are really neat and work great, but we feel like the savings is significant and you wouldn’t have to worry about charging them and making sure you have a cord just in case something goes wrong…
Cosco Scenera Next is the Car Seat we use for travel
I snapped the last photo in this post as we were about to get into the taxi for the airport — I find this setup easiest to get through the airport with. We debated not bringing a stroller at all, but I am no minimalist and I don’t know how we would have carried all these bags through the airport without it. I had the backpack full of diapers plus potty seat, my other diaper bag filled with the activities, snacks, and baby carrier, then my purse with my computer and other things I needed for the trip, and my husband had his bag with his computer in it. We weren’t able to use our computers on the plane but needed them for the trip and didn’t want to check them…. We checked our other bags at the check-in counter along with the car seats. I usually try to bring at least one car seat on the plane, but this was a completely full flight, so we had to hold our 1 year old the whole time. Exhausting when you have a baby who doesn’t sleep well on the go! He slept about 30 min when usually he would nap at least an hour and a half!!
Be sure to join Naptime Deals so you don’t miss a great deal when these activities as well as other great recommendations for moms go on sale!
