Flying with Toddlers

We're making our Thanksgiving trip by car, but we've taken our wee monsters on nine different plane trips over the course of their 2 1/2 year lifespan. So, in time for the holidays, here are my tips for flying with toddlers.

There's really only one way to fly with toddlers without making them miserable, traumatizing your seatmates, and losing your cool (or your mind): Be prepared. Really prepared.

My approach takes a fair bit of advance work, and entails hauling some fairly hefty carry-on bags. But it works. The last time we flew -- eight hours across the Atlantic, when our kids had just turned two -- five or six nearby passengers complimented us at the end of the flight on how well our (usually rampaging) twins had done.

It's crucial to pace yourself, and pull things out of your bag(s) little by little. If you show your child all the cool toys right at the start, you'll be in bad shape during that awful last hour. You'll want something to amuse your child in the long security line before you board, something while you're sitting waiting to take off, numerous things for throughout the flight, and something for the irksome, restless period while you're waiting for everyone else to get off the plane. (Make peace with the fact that you will be the last ones off.)

Save one really awesome, sure-to-distract amusement, and only pull it out if things get really bad -- an hour wait on the runway, two hours circling the airport, an interminable line at customs. If you don't use it this trip, you can always use it in the future.

Now, the specifics:

1. Feed the beastie(s)!
A hungry child is a cranky child. Don't rely on the airline food -- you don't know when it's being served or whether it's any good (probably not). Pack yummy, healthy food that your child likes, and lots of it. I always bring sufficient food for the flight time plus 5-6 hours, to allow for time spent at airports and for possible delays. For a cross-country or cross-Atlantic flight, my cooler bag usually contains pasta salad, steamed carrots, cubes of cheese, crackers, an avocado, a couple of almond butter sandwiches, some kind of fresh fruit, and some dried blueberries. Unfortunately, yogurt, cottage cheese, and the like are banned as dangerous liquids under the pointless, ineffective new restrictions. So are ice packs (I once tried to convince a supervisor that ice was, in fact, a solid ... but she wasn't having it).

2. Stay hydrated
Plane travel tends to dehydrate, and dehydration also leads to crankiness. It's worth shelling out the extra money to buy a big bottle of water after you go through security. Yes, the flight attendants will serve beverages, but you want liquids available throughout the whole flight.

Speaking of all that liquid, most airplanes generally do not have changing tables (although airport bathrooms, at least the women's ones, generally do)... you'll definitely want a changing pad in addition to the usual supplies, since you may be changing diapers on the cramped plane bathroom floor -- ugh.

3. Play up the adventure of flying
Most toddlers will find airports and airplanes exciting without any intervention on your part, but there's much you can do to make the experience even more engaging for them. The more time you can spend amusing them with their surroundings, the less time you need to spend amusing them through other means.

Talk to them about everything you're seeing, with as much enthusiasm as you can muster. Take some time to watch planes taking off and landing. Look out the window, and talk about it. And don't forget to play with what's right at hand at your seat: Use the airsickness bag as a hand puppet. Let them rip the in-flight magazine to shreds. Pull out the airfone and let them push the buttons to their heart's content (at least until the flight attendant tells you to stop). Watch out for the flight attendant call button, however: Even the sweetest, most sympathetic flight attendant will start to grumble if your child hits it over and over again.

Once my kids became old enough to understand what an airplane was, I found they loved having some kind of airplane toy to play with. Matchbox makes little diecast airplanes for about $2 each, available at stores like Target and K-Mart, or you can perhaps find a plastic one at your local 99 cent store.

It's also really helpful to bring one or more relevant books. Flying by Donald Crews gives a good, basic narration -- my kids really liked looking at the pages that corresponded to whatever we were doing at the time (taxiing on the runway, taking off, landing). This Plane by Paul Collicutt, while not as good as his awesome train book, is full of fanciful illustrations of different types of aircraft. Airplanes (Sticker Stories) by Edward Miller is a great, slim little book full of aircraft stickers and landscapes on which to stick them. All three of these are paperbacks and won't add much bulk or weight to your carry-ons.

4. Bring a couple of favorite books and toys
Think about what will be most comforting to your child (besides you) in a strange situation: that beloved stuffed bunny? the well-worn blankie? your tattered copies of Cat in the Hat and Where the Wild Things Are? Bring them, take them out when your child seems in need of comfort ... and double-check at each stage in the trip to make sure you don't lose them.

5. Bring an array of other amusements
Think of what you have or can cheaply and easily acquire that is small, portable, and potentially good for 15 minutes of toddler entertainment: A box of crayons. A small notebook in which to draw. Some sheets of stickers. Any of the Sticker Stories, or similar books. Some little plastic animals. Some finger puppets. Little diecast vehicles. Mardi Gras beads. Some small-sized books (like Beatrix Potter) and/or a good-sized stack of paperback picture books.

6. Bring one or more special new toys
For longer flights, it really helps to debut something exciting when the experience is starting to get stale. I don't just bring new toys ... I wrap them in festive wrapping paper, add some colorful ribbons and bows, and make their unveiling an event in itself.

You don't have to get anything expensive -- in fact, the most successful toys I ever gave my twins on an airplane were shoe boxes I modified myself (one turned into a mini-meadow complete with plastic cow and paper flowers, another outfitted with a ramp and a tunnel sized for Matchbox cars). You can also wrap up a toy they haven't played with in a little while.

For airplane play, I've had great success with a magnetic fishing game (a velcro one would also work), and with a Woodkins dress-up doll, which is designed for children who still lack the fine motor control to use standard dress-up dolls.

7. Take care of yourself
We always seem to come last on the list. But make sure there's a snack for you to eat, don't let yourself get dehydrated, try to doze if your child is napping, that sort of thing. And if you're flying the red-eye on Air France, definitely say yes to the sympathy brandy sometimes offered to weary parents of wee ones.