Flying with 1 year old, HELP!!

[Fernsinthegarden]

We have an abroad wedding to attend in roughly two weeks with a 1 year old and 4 year old. We flew to visit family a few months ago and 4yo was just so easy, happy and content to travel, (at the time) almost 1yo was a nightmare! We tried everything, snacks, producing random things from a pencil case, books, even borrowed 4yo’s tablet but all the little horror wanted to do was break free. She didn’t sleep for an entire 12 hours (flight delayed) and spent the entire time trying to evade capture.

She’s now 1 and with the upcoming wedding I am already dreading the flight, mainly because she can now run and is even faster at wriggling free! She’s happy enough, doesn’t get distressed with the actual flight but just gets extremely frustrated with not being allowed to wander around. Sleep is also the enemy so no amount of milk and quiet cuddles seems to send her off.

Please may I ask your best ideas/suggestions for keeping an extremely adventurous 1yo contained for a 4 hour flight! I’m already feeling worried about the poor passengers who will have to be seated anywhere within a 10 row radius of us!

Phenergan?

Tranquillisers..... for you! Leave other parent in charge....!

Failing that the drowsy antihistamines - but try before the flight as they can have the opposite effect on some kids and make them mentalists !

I'm not sure if Medised is still available.

Also their own kindle and headset. Let them choose some films / programmes / audio books and games. Should buy you some time before you reach for the gin.

Also worth trying to exhaust them
before the flight by taking a proper long hike in daylight and getting on an evening flight.

Good luck!

Take her onto the flight a tiny bit hungry and then ply her with snacks that take a while to eat (raisins, dry Cheerios, carrot sticks etc…)
Wrap up a few small toys (or seal them in envelopes) and give them to her gradually throughout the flight. We did this with my 18mo and she thought it was so exciting taking off the wrapping and then played with each toy way longer than she would at home.
We also took some different sized and coloured post-it notes and she had great fun sticking them in different arrangements over the tray table and the back of the seat in front (and even on me!).

What times the flight? We’ve always taken our children abroad from a few weeks old and always pick early morning flights and time leaving the house so they sleep on the plane.
Can you try new toys, snacks, a film? Don’t get yourself in a panic worrying about other passengers. You’ve paid to be there too. We were all 1 once.

Flight is at 630am, so she’ll be up and ready for the world at that time! I’ll try to stave off feeding her until the plane, we just did constant snacks last time so she was bored of it but in fairness the flight was so delayed we just had to keep going for survival!

Last flight we did:
post it notes
new flashy ball (primark)
a couple of small unfamiliar toys wrapped up in tin foil in a pencil case
new flap book

I’ll give the envelopes a go, that’s a great one and failing that, antihistamines 😂

Thanks for suggestions, she’s just the worst for sitting still for long, I’m hoping the bar will be open by the time we get to the hotel!