Travelling with a toddler tips

[Luxembourgmama]

I'm taking a 7 hour train journey to my inlaws with my DD and my DH for christmas. Any tips for surviving a packed train journey and entertaining DD. SHe's quite an active kid. We'll download some peppa pig on netflix but she's not really into watching stuff for more than a couple of minutes.

Sticker books. And be prepared to walk up and down the train, repeatedly.

Activity books, story books, colouring. Make a checklist of things to spot on the train and put the window. Lots of snacks. Let her pack her own little backpack with her favourite teddy.

Little jigsaws. A trip to the buffet car. Make sure you and DH take it in turns to entertain her.

Snacks - a chunky salad with things like peppers,.carrots, cucumber - its slow to.eat and they can have as much as they like. Boxes of raisins are also a slow eat.

New wrapped little toys and books.

Weirdly getting them to sit and have a back massage really helped my (almost) 4 yr old when he got to that bouncing off the walls bored / hyper point of the journey.

Hopefully she can nap for a few of those hours.
Sticker books
Play doh
Colouring in
Lots of snacks that she can sort of play with eg a hummus dip with cucumber
Maybe some sort of sandwich/ wrap that she can prepare herself.
Books with lift the flap pages.
She will no doubt want to have a little wander too though

We just did 2 x 7 hr flights with our three year old. It was surprisingly fine. We got a Keep Em Quiet bag (company that does age appropriate activity bags - recommended by a friend) and a couple of toddler magazines. We also had a tablet with various films on it plus her headphones. We came back with half the Keep Em Quiet bag untouched. She played with some of it but mostly watched films. The hardest part was napping - she just couldn't get comfy and kept sliding off the seat.

If there is somewhere to put up your pushchair on the train, then she could sleep in that - the wheelchair turning area on a virgin train is perfect - obviously you wheel out of the way if a wheelchair needs to turn, but the rest of the time it is out of the way for everyone and the rocking of the train encourages a long nap!