Tuesday, July 3, 2007

travelling

We are heading to Colorado late next week and I am in need of some airplane tips with toddlers...I have found these so far:


Sleep in clothes--we had a flight that took off at 8 am and so we left the house around 5:45 am. Booo. It helped a lot to have the boys already dressed, down to the baby's socks and Robeez, and it didn't seem to disturb their sleep one bit. My older boy is potty trained by day but sleeps in a diaper so I just put his underwear on over his diaper and whipped the diaper off when we had time at the airport.

Use your carseat bag for more than just carseats. This is a high risk/high reward kind of hack, because if you're checking your carseat and it gets lost, you're in trouble. I gambled, though, and put our coats and blankets in the bag with the carseat--this meant I didn't have to deal with wearing them (we are always hot on the plane, it seems) or carrying them and worrying about losing one.

Double umbrella stroller! An absolute must, and gate-checkable. Hang everything off of it.

Once you get to your seat, immediately dole out snacks and customize the seat area to your needs. I like to stick a pack of kleenex, a pack of wipes, and a bottle of water into the seatback pocket as well as a plastic bag for trash. That way you aren't hunting around for these things when the inevitable messes come, and you have a central place for all the trash you will immediately begin to generate.

We aren't going to bring a stroller and will use the baby backpack instead in order to have two hands to manage the boy in the airport.

Are there any suggestions out there to make travelling easier? Or good toys/activities to pack for such a major trip?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

okay so I found a few more tips that I like:

Jelly beans
pack balloons and make balloon animals
rip your DVD's onto your video ipod
give your kids a disposable camera
dress your kids in their travel clothes the night before if you leave on an early flight
Buy a bunch of little toys and gift wrap each of them
pack spare clothes in a big ziplock bag, then you have something to put the nasty clothes and diaper in
bring sticker and peel off the background so that the stickers are easier to get off (this is a brilliant tip and one that I will def. use)

Anonymous said...

i've got a good one: slip some Jack Daniels in their sippie cups! Easiest trip ever!

just kiddin'.

um, the one time that i traveled with the Brown kids, we were on an international flight overnight so they pretty much slept the whole way (or watched Finding Nemo 3 times). I brought a pad of paper & a small pack of crayons & that kept them occupied for awhile. i made a makeshift Candyland game for them. We also practiced our french words on the way there. But you won't be speaking another language & Asher has a limited vocabulary as it is.

hopefully the plane won't be packed out- you can make friends with the flight attendants & maybe move to another seat assignment that has more seats on either side so you'll have more room. I'm sure you've thought of that though.

i hope it goes okay!