Your best-ever tips for in-flight toys/games/distractions

[PreciousLittle]

What goes into your hand luggage to keep the kids happy, especially on long flights? And tell us the age of the children you're trying to distract! I need some fresh ideas, and maybe others could use some too?

Mine are 3 & 7. I always have some new activity books on hand - I've ordered Dover Little Activity ones the last couple times and they went down well. They're cheap and in endless variety on Amazon. Also CBeebies-type magazines.

Horrid henry joke book, read loudly to terrified 4yo during take off and landing. Keeps the whole (smallish) plane amused.

Uno to play with the 7-year-old. Also spent many a happy hour with child of this age on long journeys playing 'squares'. Here is a link in the unlikely event that you've never played it. You can just do it with pencil and paper, by preparing pages with the dots on prior to the journey. here

I don't really have a suggestion for your 3-year-old as mine seemed to be asleep most of the time (unlike me).

Hope this helps.

Having just done Oz/UK return ON MY OWN with a 3 and 5yr old, I would suggest that the tv kept them most amused. Toy Story on loop for 12 hrs basically.

Otherwise they had the attention spans of gnats for all the toys - my little pony, play doh, fishing game, stickers, colouring, and reading books that I fretted for weeks over.

The toys/games etc were all good and useful but mostly they liked the telly and all the food and drinks they kept getting, also going to the loo was quite the highlight.

As an aside, quite who at Malaysian Airways that thought Spaghetti was a suitable meal for a 3yr old in a confined space at 35,000 ft, probably doesn't have children.

Oh and also they wanted to play "phoning daddy" on the in seat entertainment device thingy for ages. To the point where my 3 yr old ripped it from the arm rest.

Buy earphones that go over the ear and they therefore can actually use

Where do you get those from GRB? As far as I could see the plane had wierd connections - that normal earphones wouldn't work with.

I'm quite one for these dolly dressing books.

Portable connect four (small and free from Swiss air) and a DVD player is what our DD has. she also likes her DS and annoying me.

Portable DVD player, and a DS work for ds1. When he was younger glove/finger puppets were good too. Ikea do a resonably priced pack of finger puppets if you've got one in your area.

These are genius ideas! Thank you everyone.

ClaudiaSchiffer, I know what you mean about the telly, but I've been on two (roundtrip) longhauls with them in the last year where seatback tvs were nonexistant or nonfunctioning on both legs of the journey. Bastards. (And spaghetti... I feel for you.)

LunarSea Do you have any portable DVD player suggestions? How long does the battery last? I have a 17-hour journey coming up.

GoingRodeo I had absolutely forgotten about getting decent kid-friendly headphones. Searching Amazon now.. (ClaudiaSchiffer: I think usually a one-point headphone connection will work?? Even if there are two points on the plane's armrest, you can just plug it into one. But maybe Malaysian airlines have something particularly unusual going on!)

For me... I borrowed DH's swish noise-cancelling headphones last time and now I understand why he looked so happy on the last few flights. It even dulls the noise of the children!

BatsBrains I'm getting the joke book!

I wonder if these airline headphone adaptors are worth it??

If you take a DVD player get one of those plugs so you can plug in 2 pairs of headphones. DD1 (4) can cope with the 'rest in ear ' types dd2 can't so we recycled an old pair of traditional headphones . She only watched 20 mins of ITNG and then another 20mins of MIckey mouse. DD1 just never stopped. We also bought a back up battery pack as we had flight then long car journey.

Preciouslittle, those are genius! I had no idea you could buy them, or that ordinary headphones would work in the seat socket (durr). I would definately buy decent headphones for my 3 yr old next time, as she did get hacked off with the airline ones sliding off all the time.

PreciousLittle, Assuming your 17hr journey is long haul with a major airline, then you don't actually need to use the DVD player for much of the journey: the in-flight entertainment system will take much of the strain. But some airlines do have in-seating power which means you could keep a DVD player (or other) charged during the actual flight.

The airline headphone adaptors are useful, but are not necessary for all planes as some use standard 3.5mm plug/sockets - ask your airline.

Watching this as we are off to Spain next week with a 3yo and a 1yo. Am very glad the 1yo is still BF as it should keep him calm. Thinking of treating 3yo to some sweets during take off, I heard that helps.

When ours were little, we travelled a lot from the Uk to Italy.

This is what worked with my dc:

• snacks (eating keep them entertained!!): grapes, crackers, and their top treat Organix Cheese Puff.

• Stickers/sticker books

• Pens and paper to draw/colouring in

• books

I remember vividly that when dd was 1 she spent a whole flight playing with coins from my wallet.

And another thing. We used to have to take a very early flight, this was great as they used to fall asleep during take off and wake up at landing. Success!!!

MrLSG - are you stalking me again? :)

Well I can tell you what I don't recommend! When DD was a baby, about 11mo, I flew to Sydney with her on my own. The toy I chose to keep her amused was a "Teddy's sorting suitcase" a yellow plastic case that contained a dozen or so plastic bits of "luggage" that had to be arranged by shape in the case.

It was slightly too big to go in my hand baggage so I strapped it to the outside. All well and good until they got us off the plane again at 2am because there was a problem and in the general melee at Heathrow someone barged in to me and Teddy's bloody suitcase busrt open and the luggage flew everywhere. But I couldn't then just cram it back in any old how because it was a "sorting" suitcase wasn't it? So there is me crawling on the floor at Heathrow at 2am with a howling baby on one hip, people milling around me and my own suitcases any old how while I try to put it all back together.

This sort of thing happened another two times on the journey. I am still amazed the thing made it to Austrailia. And back.

Lunarsea - yes of course . Long distance stalking though: about 1500 miles....

5Foot5 A warning to us all! I hope you've kept that toy, so you can 'recommend' it to your DD for when she flies with one of her one...

Pens and paper have always been great for mine, as have Hot Wheels-type planes (the cars just roll several rows back and require constant fetching.)

Good advice, of course, MrsLSG, but sadly it's 17 hours with a, ahem, lesser-known airline. We travel long-haul a couple times/year and I've had 'in-flight systems failure' several times, even on the good airlines. I want a back-up plan.

I've ordered a couple of the airline headphone adaptors, and I promise to return with a review!

I plan to download some cartoons etc onto the iPod, and have ordered a back-up battery pack and headphone splitter.

This is all going a bit tech-geeky, this thread!

Snacks, too, low-tech and hugely helpful.

Piriton

Everyone always looks aghast if you give them those mini bottles of vodka. Nanny state.