Traveling with Small Children: The art of distraction. Tips and tricks to help prepare yourself and your children for flying on an airplane.
We’ve had a few flight doozies. When my youngest was about eight months old, we took a trip with two legs to the trip. One longer flight, about 3.5 hours long and the second flight was an hour long. I planned to nurse him on the take off and on the landing to help keep him calm. (A bottle or pacifier can help if nursing isn’t an option). On the first leg of the flight, nursing on the take-off went really well. I was happy. Then, to keep him entertained when he got fussy, my husband and I took turns walking him up and down the aisles. On one of our jaunts, he was as happy as he could be, looking at the tops of everyone’s heads and “talking” to the flight attendants. Many people met his gaze and greeted him as we passed by their aisle. For a few moments, we stopped, getting caught in a line for the bathroom. He started blowing raspberries. In a moment of sheer horror, I saw, a little piece of spit bubble from his raspberry making, fly up in the air, and in what seemed like slow motion, land, splatting on top of a bald man’s head. My eyes widened. Making eye contact with the man, I said, “I am so sorry.” He reached up, with a look of disgust on his face, wiping his head and said, “So am I!” He was so mad! My profuse apologizing didn’t seem to help him feel any better. We laughed about it today, but I was not laughing at the moment.
Later, as the plane began to descend, nursing kept him calm and happy again. Phew. No problems on that leg of the flight. I had some experience under my belt and was thrilled that it went so well. I should’t have pat myself on the back so quickly.
The second leg of that flight, didn’t go very well.
I tried nursing upon take-off but I think because of the short duration of the flight, we did not reach as high of an altitude as we had in the first flight and the pressure on his little ears was too much for him. He screamed for the entire hour. Nursing..No way! My husband tried holding him and playing with him but nothing we did worked to calm him. I tried massaging acupressure points on his neck and ears but that didn’t help either.
He was upset, and screaming and there was nothing I could do. My nerves were rattled and I was in tears. I wanted to scream and pound my fists too but I was the parent now and I had to hold it together. I practiced some deep breathing and then squeezed my husband’s hand so hard that he grimaced.
Sadly, the only cure for his screaming was landing the airplane. Our nerves were shaken but we were relieved to disembark and get to our hotel. Thankfully we had a direct flight home.
Ironically, after that trip, we traveled a lot when our kids were little. And long distances! Sometimes we were in the air for 24 hours with several stops and layovers. We had trouble deciding whether one long flight would be better than 2 or 3 small flights with layovers in airports. Mostly, we opted for the longer flights because take offs and landings can be difficult for small ears like we had witnessed on our first flight and its just easier not having to deal with moving all of your stuff too many times.
For those long flights, I planned for weeks before each trip to make sure that there were lots of activities for the kids to do on the plane.
Distract distract distract was my motto. When one thing wasn’t interesting anymore, I would be armed with another and another and another… fun, interesting thing for them to do.
I didn’t want them just watching television or screens the entire time and I wanted them to be happy and entertained, rather than fussy and in tears and then having me be fussy and in tears too.
I created bags full of small-ish age-appropriate toys and things to entertain them while they were on the airplane.
I like a good deal so I shopped around.
We had a used toy store near our house and I loved to check there on a regular basis. A few of the items on this list, I found at there. My kids loved hanging out there and frankly, so did I.
I also brought a bag full of snacks that they would love. I didn’t want them eating a bunch of junk, so it was full of healthy snacks. Apples, cheese slices, cheese crackers, trail mix, grapes, carrots, homemade brownies, or my savory version of a Italian bread. Many things to give them choices.
Here are some of the ideas I came up with for our fun bag: (Note: I’ve given examples from Amazon and other websites. Some of them are affiliate links but they are there just to give you some ideas of what I’m talking about.)
- Get a shoebox with removable lid. On the inside top of the shoebox, Glue a piece of felt, and make small felt characters for felt board storytelling. The shoebox can double as a place to hold all of your airplane items.
- Small foil or paper squares. (I bought a box of foil squares at a dollar store). They can be used for folding into different shapes. You could use the ideas of Japanese origami. Get a simple origami book from your local library, or look up simple designs on the internet like this Origami puppy. Foil can also be rolled into a ball. Balls make the best toys. Make sure its big enough so they can’t eat it, or choke on it, of course.
- Colored Painters Tape. I packed this painters tape into my bag for something easy and fun for the kids to do — make designs on the tray/chair in front of us. Also in the airport, you can make lines for games to play while you’re waiting and they can balance on the line or jump between lines. Keep them moving, giving them mini-obstacle courses when you can.
- I brought Melissa and Doug 12 piece truck puzzles — my son’s favorite topic when he was about 2 years old.
At age 1: we used puzzles like this farm puzzle with animal sounds.
At age 1.5, we used smaller puzzles with a few pieces like this.
We also had a set of 3 piece story puzzles that had beginning, middle and end stories but I can’t find them online anymore. They were great for talking through scenarios and helping them figure out what would happen first, second and last.
5. We love love loved Brain Quest. Started with My first Brain Quest for ages 2–3. Each year we got a new set until they were in 5th grade and then they lost interest.
6. A friend of mine gave me small musical pin that I put on my shirt. The kids could press and play the music on the airplane. You might find this on a Christmas or holiday pin that plays music. Ours played Silent Night. If you have something like this, you should be careful that they don’t put it in their mouth.
8. Glitter wand keychain with sparkles inside. Toddlers love to turn them upside down and watch the things inside moved from one side to the other. Babies love them too.
9. A couple of small containers of Play dough. They can play with these on the tray in front of their seat.
10. A travel notebook made out of whiteboard material with dry erase markers. I used something like this Crayola Washable Dry Erase pack that I found locally in a used children’s toy store.
Depending on how old your toddler is, colored pencils and paper are awesome.
11. Our toddler actually loved to take hotel room keys and put them inside of a box. We discovered this when we were at a hotel and he took the room key and slid it into a desk drawer, opened it up, and put it back in. We decided to carry this idea with us wherever we went. We got a small cardboard box (like this one from Michael’s) and then cut a slit the size of a room key in the side of the box. He would put the room key inside of the box and then open up the box and take it out and repeat. When we collected several room keys, he would put all the keys that we had inside and then do it all over again.
Easy. Cheap. Fun!
When the kids got older and we got invited to toddler birthday parties, we would make them this box, decorate it and and give them some hotel room keys.
Kids don’t need expensive toys to entertain them!
12. When our first child was one, I got a very nice board book that had lots of things to feel inside. I remember taking it on our first long flight and it helped a lot. He could touch, squeeze, and rattle the different materials. He loved going through it looking at the pictures and feeling everything. Here’s a book like the one we had.
13. I never went to an airport without a bag of colorful balloons. While we were waiting at the airport, we could blow up a balloon and play balloon volleyball. I usually got them at a dollar store. If you have small children, just be very careful about them putting the balloons in their mouth and having them burst.
Those are a few of the things that we put in our airplane tool it.
I hope that some of these ideas will help you on your travels. Let me know if you used any of these ideas or if you have any tips to add. I’d love to hear from you.
