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When hubs and I flew with our kids for the first time, we discovered four genius ways to make flying with kids a fun family experience. Read on to discover our hacks for flying with kids including the snacks, activities, and what we packed in our carry on to pull it off!
Traveling is stressful even to adults. Think about how worn out you get from a full day of travel and how TIRED you are of sitting by the end of it. Kids are feeling exactly the same thing, but they don’t have all the coping mechanisms adults do to make it through the day.
Not that all adults are great at managing the stress of travel either. Am I right? 😉
The first time I flew solo with my (then) 7 month old daughter, things went pretty well for the entire trip – until the last flight to get us home. We were both tired from the adventures during our trip. Then the full day of travel to get home completely threw off her nap schedule so she was seriously grumpy. The change in pressure when the plane took off made her ears hurt, making her even more upset. There were people all around, I was stressed out and had a nasty headache, which led to a really unhappy baby and a pretty brutal flight home.
You’ve either been the parent trying desperately to help your kids, or you’ve been one of the other passengers wondering how much longer the flight is going to last.
With a little planning, parents can do a whole lot more than they realize to make the entire travel experience a whole lot easier (and dare I say it – FUN!) for the entire family!
This past summer, hubs and I took our two kids, now 5 and 2, on vacation. Which involved flying with our kids. For two parents who HATE crowds and hate flying even more, this was terrifying.
But, I took some of the lessons I’d learned four years earlier and we planned VERY carefully to try to make those flights as enjoyable as possible. Here’s what we did to make flying with our kids an enjoyable family experience.
1. Assign roles to reduce the stress of flying with kids
Hubs was in charge of our luggage and carry on. I was in charge of the kids. This limited how much we could each be stressed about. I didn’t have to worry about our stuff, and hubs didn’t have to worry about the kids!
2. Check your bags
Yeah, for some airlines, it costs more, but checking your bags reduces how much you have to tote around the airport. And when you’re already trying to tote your kids around, the excess baggage can add to your stress exponentially. So just check the bags and save yourself the mental and physical stress!
3. Limit yourself to one or two carry ons
We brought two carry ons. Hubs brought his backpack as our main carry on. And we had a little backpack that our youngest wore that had enough for one diaper change in it.
Hubs’ Backpack:
- A change of clothes for each of us
- Diaper changing supplies
- Our electronics
- Empty water bottles
- Snacks
We organized everything in hubs’ backpack into gallon bags so we could just pull them out for the security check.
- Electronics in one bag
- Snacks in another
This also made it easy for when we got onto the plane. We could just pull out those two bags, stick them in the seat pockets in front of us, and stash the backpack in the overhead bin.
4. Bring your own snacks to make flying with kids enjoyable
If I’m being totally honest, I went COMPLETELY overboard packing snacks for the first flight. We were three days into our trip before we actually finished all the snacks I’d brought! But at least we didn’t have to worry about hangry kids (or parents) during the flights!
We stuck with snacks that I knew the kids LOVED to give them something familiar while we went through the entirely new experience of flying. I tried to keep it fairly healthy, but unfortunately processed foods pack the best, so our ratio of fresh to processed foods was a little off for travel day.
Here’s what we packed (and yes, I managed to squeeze ALL this into Hubs’ backpack. Not sure how…):
Morning Flight
- Bagels
- Applesauce pouches
- Fruit & cereal bars
- Sliced apples
Lunch
- Summer sausage, cheese & crackers
- Sliced apples
- Sliced sweet bell peppers
Afternoon Flight
- Goldfish
- Fruit snacks
- Teddy grahams
- Cheese sticks
- Sliced jicama
- Protein bars
The one unexpected thing we ran into was the TSA folks did not know what to make of our big bags of snacks. Apparently they aren’t used to the equivalent of three meals for four people coming through security at the Albuquerque International Sunport. They insisted on going through ALL the snacks. Funny, we didn’t have that problem on the return flight. Though I did pack slightly less for that flight…
5. Plan activities for during the flights
The actual flying part of flying with kids is probably the trickiest part because if the unexpected happens, you are STUCK on that plane for the entire flight. Eek!
We did our best to prepare our kids for what they would experience – especially the weird sensations during takeoff and landing. Our youngest was set with a pacifier in case her ears started to hurt, while Hubs, M and I used Starbursts.
The flights went really smoothly. Mostly because we talked with the kids to prepare them and made sure they knew they could talk to us about anything – whether they got scared, uncomfortable, or excited. And we planned activities to keep them busy, calm, and quiet once the excitement of flying wore off. Which was way faster than I expected!
Screen Time
I’m not a huge fan of screen time and at home, we work hard to limit screen time to 2 hours a day. Of course, we’re not perfect and some days are more, but then other days are less!
But for flying with the kids, having screen time as an option was a necessity. So we packed Hubs’ iPad and saved some movies and games on it to keep the kids occupied.
We also picked up some awesome headphones for the kids that are designed to protect their ears by limiting the volume. They worked amazingly!
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Non-Tech Activities
We decided not to pack any extra non-tech activities for the flight just to minimize the stuff in the carry on. But after about 45 minutes of playing on the iPad, the girls started to get antsy. They spent the rest of our flights alternating between wanting to watch out the window, wiggling in their seats, and going back to the iPad. In hindsight, it would have been nice to have another activity for them to do.
My friend, Amy at Growing Bubbles put together an amazing list of Usborne books and activities that would be perfect for non-tech entertainment while flying with kids! We’ll definitely be choosing some of these for our next trip!
- 1001 Things to Spot on Vacation
- Travel Games Pad
- Travel Activity Pad
- Never Get Bored: On the Go Puzzle Cards
- 100 Things to Do on a Car Trip – I’m totally going to have this for our next family road trip!
- Travel Pocket Puzzle Book
- Travel Doodles – My kids LOVE the other Usborne Doodle Books so this would be a great addition!
- 100 Things for Little Children to Do on a Trip
- Wipe-Clean Airport Activities
- Usborne has loads of other books and activities that are perfect for every age and interest. If you’re looking for anything in particular, head over to Amy’s Usborne Consultant page and she can hook you up!
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And now, for the most important hack to make flying with kids a fun experience:
6. Let the kids get their energy out in between flights
Kids (and adults!) are not designed to sit still for long stretches of time. Adults have just built up a good tolerance to sitting. Kids, however, are simply NOT capable of sitting still for a full day of travel. They’ll go bonkers.
If you’ve ever traveled with kids, or been in a jam-packed plane with fidgety, fussy kids, you know what I’m talking about.
Kids HAVE to get that energy out in between flights.
That was what was missing when my daughter and I had that awful flight home when she was 7 months old. I scheduled the flights too close together so we literally ran from one flight to the next and she didn’t get any time to just move and relax.
For our family trip, we were careful to schedule our flights far enough apart that we could comfortably get to the next gate, and have at least 30 minutes or more to do whatever we wanted.
In between our flights, we walked up and down the concourse to see the airport and played some active games. Check out the Active Animal Game we played!
Between helping the girls get their energy out and all the other hacks we used to keep our stress levels low, flying with our kids turned out to be a great experience. Even when our final flight was delayed for two hours, little H popped a fever, and we didn’t get home until after 10 pm, the girls did great. No meltdowns, and they’re still talking about how much fun they had flying!
Do you have any tips or tricks you use when traveling with your kids? Share them in the comments!
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