Best advice you've had for travelling with kids on long-haul flights?

[ProbablyJustGas]

Hello,

I'll be travelling with my DSD (6) and niece (10) in a couple months to the States. We're in for a long journey - a flight from Scotland to Paris, a four-hour layover and terminal transfer in CDG, and then ~7 hrs on the plane until the USA. Then we're doing it all over again on the return flight, except via Amsterdam instead of Paris.

I'll have my DH, MIL and FIL with me, but this will be the first time I've ever traveled with children. I'm definitely planning to bring DSD's DS and LeapPad with us in the hand luggage, but I reckon she'll be fed up with them after a few hours. Thinking coloring books, card games, Barbies, story books and the iPods will be useful too. But even then, I'm not sure how effective the entertainment committee will be for that many hours. Right now, I'm praying they'll just sleep!

What's the best advice you've had for travelling with kids on journeys this long? My niece has been on vacation to places like Tenerife before, but I think this will be her longest trip yet. DSD has never been on an airplane before and gets impatient after a few hours in the car. Any tips will be handy for me and DH!

At that age, they should do pretty well with the inflight entertainment system on the long flight - most long-haul fllights have a good choice of child-friendly films and tv programmes, so my DCs (now 9 & 12) have spent most flights for the last few years watching endless films.

The things you take with you will come in handy for the short flight and the stopover. All the things you mention sound sensible. We usually end up picking up a children's magazine or two at the airport as well. I'd also suggest taking quite a lot of snacky food, as the airline food never comes when they are hungry (and often doesn't appeal) so it's good to be able to produce a few things from your bag. The food at CDG is also horribly expensive, as I discovered last month.

If you're lucky they will sleep a bit on the plane, but I have to admit that mine rarely sleep for more than a couple of hours on a 12-hour flight.

Will any of the planes have seat back entertainment? We travelled to New Zealand last year with DS1 (8) and DS2 (6) and did pretty much what you've planned, added books and the films and games in the seat backs and we were fine. Walk around during your time in Paris as much as possible to kill time and stretch legs. Also, encourage them to sleep although DS1 was determined not to and managed only 1.5 hours in over 24 of travelling (he fell asleep on the floor in the bank the day we arrived!)

I recommend explaining stuff like turbulence to the non flyer (i.e. that's just the wind outside shaking the plane - it's completely safe). Mine was petrified and just sat there shaking until I figured out what the problem was and explained.

Don't take wax crayons - they melt :(

Thanks, this all very helpful. Will make a note to take color pencils and snacks (I like snacks too :) ). And will speak with the non-flyer about turbulence - we had a quick chat about potential culture shock yesterday, which went pretty well.