3 hour airplane ride with 3 m.o. and 2 y.o...am i nuts?

[Anonymous]

I want to spend a good long time where I grew up for the Christmas holidays since I'll be on maternity leave. My family wants me to come for 2 weeks, which sounds great, but DH can't take all that time off. I'm contemplating going solo with the kids down and having him fly back with me after Xmas. Is it nuts to think that I can handle the 2 kids by myself on a plane for 3 hours? I've flown with my DS alone a lot of times, but he's pretty high maintenance (walk up and down the aisles, lots of toys, etc) and I'm a little nervous about adding his little brother to the mix. Thoughts? Tips? I can make the flight arrangements for durin gtheir naptimes, but I'd have to get both of them to sleep...

[Anonymous]

I think it's doable. If it were me, I'd be sure to have some sort of baby wearing device for the infant and plenty of diversions for the 2 year old. Limit the amount of stuff you have to deal with - perhaps get the 2 year old his own small wheelie backpack for his toys, books, games, etc.

[Anonymous]

You can do it. I flew back from London on my own with kids the same age. Put my son in a baby bjorn and my daughter in a stroller. Try to have as little baggage as possible. And people were very helpful because they felt so sorry for me! If you are breastfeeding and your infant takes a bottle I recommend pumping for one bottle. This saved me as I was standing in line to check in and at the gate. I could feed him in the bjorn which was awesome. I could then breastfeed on the flight quite easily. I would also lobby hard for a spare seat if the flight isn't full. They may feel sorry enough for you to do it! I also skipped taking my daughter's car seat on the plane, it was just too much. For a three hour flight you should be totally fine.

Good Luck!

[Anonymous]

You can do it! It sounds like your baby isn't born yet, so you don't yet know if she/he is high or low maintenance. Most itty bitty babies sleep during the flight, so hopefully you get lucky.

Since you know your 2 yo is high maintenance, I would DEFINITELY buy a seat for everyone. PUt the baby in the carseat at the window, so that if you need to pop up and down a million times you can just leave the sleeping baby. It's so easy to take an infant carseat on the plane since you're just dealing with the snap-n-go. YOu only carry the carseat once you're on the airplane. If your 2 yo hasn't flown without a carseat yet, get the CARES harness. It is so easy to carry.

Really, I think the hardest part about flying solo with 2 kids is getting through security. If your DH can get a pass to help you through, the rest should be fine.

Good luck!