Travels tips — 1 & 3 year old

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not gonna lie, we rely on the tablet *a lot* for travel with our 3 yr old. It’s only for travel, so it’s special, and we don’t limit it. It terms of games she likes the Doc McStuffins drawing games (basically just like the computer game Paint) and this phonics game called Super Why at the Fair or something like that. Make sure you also download some shows ahead of time. She likes to do activity books and stickers too but the majority of any flight is tablet time.

+1 same. I am very anti-tablet except for travel.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks, all! Yes, I don’t expect my baby to watch a tablet all flight but I am trying to be as prepared as I can be. If it can hold his interest for small increments, that’d be helpful. I am far less concerned with my almost 3 year old.

Keep the ideas coming! They’ve been great.

[Anonymous]

OP, your biggest stressor with the 1yo will likely be sitting still/wanting to move around. I suggest using a carseat for the flight. It puts them in "I have to stay still" mode. I was never one to walk my kid down the aisles either. And we've taken 8+hour flights with baby or toddler.

For the 1yo try new toys they haven't seen yet. WaterWow notepad etc.

[Anonymous]

Fat Brain Toys Whirly Squigz are great for sticking onto a plane window or tray table to help keep your younger kid occupied. I'd also consider getting the Fat Brain minispinny or one of their dimple toys. Books, obviously. And my kid loved to watch me draw random things (like stars, moon, poorly drawn trucks) with a cheap LCD Writing Table at this age. He could sort of use it himself around 18m, so it might be a bit young for you right now, but I'm sure your 3yo would like to use it too. And it's better than paper, as it can just be reused over and over again.

[Anonymous]

Endless Alphabet for your older child. It’s an annual fee but worth it IMO.

[Anonymous]

Window stickers are really good for this, like the Melissa & Doug kind. If your kid sits in the window seat.

[Anonymous]

For the one year old, have a bunch of videos of them/your family ready to watch. At that age screen time wasn’t helpful during travel, with the exception of videos of themselves. Also lots of fun individually packed snacks. My 3 and 4 year old love the Water Wow and stickers. I would check the Busy Toddler website - she always has great ideas for things like this.

[Anonymous]

My 19 month old loves videos of themselves and cocomelon (downloaded to view offline from netflix). Also loves sticker books, alphabet puzzle (a lot of picking up involved though), a cup of ice from the flight attendant to play with, flap books.

[Anonymous]

For the almost 3yo: tablet, stickers; water wow or better yet those books where you color with a clear marker and color appears, more window stickers; snacks galore, little toys, maybe cars, a stuffy, whatever. Snacks:

13mo is a tough age to fly, as others have said. My only advice is just be prepared with snacks and little toys and stickers.

Bring a ch age of clothes for each adult.
Also consider enough entertainment for waiting in customers
S
And security lines. Especially at the end of the trip I found this the hardest. Truly, they are tired, you are tired, and you have to wait. We’ve let kids sticker all over the carry on suitcases: whatever:

My mantra is: this is temporary and will end.

[Anonymous]

Oh also music. Download songs without cartoons might work

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get over the head headphones. Practice with them. Expect the toddler to not like them. Bring a charging bank and charging cords. Download some drawing apps. Pay for you tube premium family for a month ($22 and goes across multiple devices) and download their fave cartoons so you dont need wifi. Get tiny toys and dish them out every 30 min. Snacks for sure but separated into lots of baggies or pill containers as they will inevitably spill. Bring extra clothes for each kid. Put them into cheap zip sweatshirt over a t shirt or long sleeve tee so you can take off the sweatshirtnif they barf easily and not over their heads. Lolly pops for the order one for takenoff and landing. Landing is always worse. Sips of water from a fave straw cup for the little one. Bring a gallon zip lock with other ziplock for dirty clothes and anything else.
Definitely buy seats for everyone if at all possible. Muslin blankets rolled up for each kid, as a blanket, pillow or fort. I always sat between the two kids until the little one was ofer 3. Inevitable they both want to sleep on me. Dh is in charge of carrying ipads and snacks and sits across the aisle so hes fresh at arrival and can lug everything and/or a sleeping kid.

Assuming you are traveling with spouse I would caveat this only assuming the seating is four across. At those ages I would rather be al four together I’m a three across than two and two with a stranger in the third seat.

We have done many 3 across flights and its usually me and the kids and dh separate. It works for us. Maybe notnfor everyone.

Why not two and two? I personally would not be okay with dealing with two little ones while DH got a pass, but to each their own I guess.

NP here
If you read what pp said, DH gets the "pass" during the flight because he's going to be doing all the hard work AFTER the flight lugging all the stuff.

[Anonymous]

We got the “inflatable travel foot rest pillow” to make the seat a bed so kids could lie down to sleep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get over the head headphones. Practice with them. Expect the toddler to not like them. Bring a charging bank and charging cords. Download some drawing apps. Pay for you tube premium family for a month ($22 and goes across multiple devices) and download their fave cartoons so you dont need wifi. Get tiny toys and dish them out every 30 min. Snacks for sure but separated into lots of baggies or pill containers as they will inevitably spill. Bring extra clothes for each kid. Put them into cheap zip sweatshirt over a t shirt or long sleeve tee so you can take off the sweatshirtnif they barf easily and not over their heads. Lolly pops for the order one for takenoff and landing. Landing is always worse. Sips of water from a fave straw cup for the little one. Bring a gallon zip lock with other ziplock for dirty clothes and anything else.
Definitely buy seats for everyone if at all possible. Muslin blankets rolled up for each kid, as a blanket, pillow or fort. I always sat between the two kids until the little one was ofer 3. Inevitable they both want to sleep on me. Dh is in charge of carrying ipads and snacks and sits across the aisle so hes fresh at arrival and can lug everything and/or a sleeping kid.

Assuming you are traveling with spouse I would caveat this only assuming the seating is four across. At those ages I would rather be al four together I’m a three across than two and two with a stranger in the third seat.

We have done many 3 across flights and its usually me and the kids and dh separate. It works for us. Maybe notnfor everyone.

Why not two and two? I personally would not be okay with dealing with two little ones while DH got a pass, but to each their own I guess.

NP here
If you read what pp said, DH gets the "pass" during the flight because he's going to be doing all the hard work AFTER the flight lugging all the stuff.

Lmao those are NOT equivalent jobs.

-NP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get over the head headphones. Practice with them. Expect the toddler to not like them. Bring a charging bank and charging cords. Download some drawing apps. Pay for you tube premium family for a month ($22 and goes across multiple devices) and download their fave cartoons so you dont need wifi. Get tiny toys and dish them out every 30 min. Snacks for sure but separated into lots of baggies or pill containers as they will inevitably spill. Bring extra clothes for each kid. Put them into cheap zip sweatshirt over a t shirt or long sleeve tee so you can take off the sweatshirtnif they barf easily and not over their heads. Lolly pops for the order one for takenoff and landing. Landing is always worse. Sips of water from a fave straw cup for the little one. Bring a gallon zip lock with other ziplock for dirty clothes and anything else.
Definitely buy seats for everyone if at all possible. Muslin blankets rolled up for each kid, as a blanket, pillow or fort. I always sat between the two kids until the little one was ofer 3. Inevitable they both want to sleep on me. Dh is in charge of carrying ipads and snacks and sits across the aisle so hes fresh at arrival and can lug everything and/or a sleeping kid.

Assuming you are traveling with spouse I would caveat this only assuming the seating is four across. At those ages I would rather be al four together I’m a three across than two and two with a stranger in the third seat.

We have done many 3 across flights and its usually me and the kids and dh separate. It works for us. Maybe notnfor everyone.

Why not two and two? I personally would not be okay with dealing with two little ones while DH got a pass, but to each their own I guess.

NP here
If you read what pp said, DH gets the "pass" during the flight because he's going to be doing all the hard work AFTER the flight lugging all the stuff.

Lmao those are NOT equivalent jobs.

-NP

Whatever works. Hardly anything is 50-50 but if OP and her spouse feel it's a fair division, it's fine. My DH handles 100% of sitting on the plane with our kid (I handle bathroom trips). He would rather sit beside her zoned out on her tablet than overhear me sounding strained trying to get her to sit still.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can buy milk from Starbucks or a deli on the other side of security. Learn from my mistakes and if you put it in a sippy/straw container unscrew and rescrew the lid at altitude before you flip the straw.