Dreading flying with kids

[Thatlldopiggy]

I’m flying soon with my 6 and 3 year old (and DH).

We’ve flown with them once last year, a 1.5 hour flight. DC1 was great, sat nicely and was no trouble.

DC2 was a nightmare! She hated being confined to a seat, wouldn’t sit still, wanted to climb all over the plane. I spent the whole journey trying to distract and contain her.

Our upcoming flight is 5 hours. I am dreading it so much. I would really appreciate any advice, what could we take with to make the journey easier?

We only have one ipad which we will be taking with. But DC fight over it so much that I am tempted to leave it at home!

Lenovo Tab M7 (3rd Gen) 7 Inch HD Tablet – ( MediaTek MT8166, Octa-Core 2.0GHz, 2GB RAM, 32GB eMMC, Android Pie) – Iron Grey https://amzn.eu/d/2Tpotoq this is great for a cheap one! My son has it.

You could always put the kids together for 2 hours in flight to watch a movie on the shared ipad, do activities separately with them the rest of the time. Unless that would likely result in squabbling! Or share the ipad so each child gets 1 episode of something, then they swap and have 30 mins screen free with a new toy, before getting it back again. Better yet would be a second screen though! Refurbished Fire tablets are sub £60 on amazon.

I agree with a previous poster. Your husband to sit with a child who doesn't have the screen.

Colouring books, puzzles, toys without small parts to fiddle with, uno, guess who, books, snacks and bribery. There were no smartphones when mine were small and we lived overseas, long haul to the U.K. and I flew with them every few months often alone, my eldest is autistic and they were fine. From age 2 I took their car seats onboard, they needed to be FAA certified to travel into us airspace, so mine were (and narrow enough). You need to be prepared to be talking to them and entertaining them the whole flight (unless they fall asleep obviously) no such time as downtime flying with little ones! I also often got lucky as due to my routing there were often British grandmothers going to see grandkids abroad who were keen to read stories, cuddle (when there were younger) etc. you can spot a likely candidate if they are smiling and playing peek a boo (I learned the signals!)

I do the car seat for the toddler too as it gives them a headrest at their height to sleep comfortably without lolling on me. Love it. That said I don’t think any UK toddler seats currently available are airline approved and if using an American one, which ours is, it’s not actually legal to use it in a car in the UK, and if you decide to do it anyway then you must fit it with isofix/latch because UK and US seatbelts work differently so it would be dangerous to belt install it when abroad. And you have to drag it through the airport. So it is a lot of faff and if I were OP I’d definitely go with an extra tablet instead of a car seat. Screens aren’t a new thing either. Even as a 90s kid we had screens as entertainment on flights, you used to even get them short haul back then but they were just teeny with little to no choice of programme but I guess that was generally what we were used to! Then portable DVDs were the thing in the 00s.

I think you’ll find she’ll be much better this time. DS was 3 both flights last year and he was fine and just done a 13 hour flight at just turned 4 and he was no bother. I even read a book! I’ve got everything crossed for you!

I don’t think I can talk DH into buying another tablet (even a cheap one) as this holiday is costing a lot of money already!

In that case can you have the 5 year old and the tablet and he can sit with the 3 year old without and keep them entertained throughout? THought not.....

When I took my 3yo on a 3-4 hour flight I did the following:

• broke up the flight into 20-30 minute chunks of activities (if something kept their interest longer - great!)
• downloaded films/tv/apps onto a cheap kindle fire
• had a range of different snacks
• had card games, activity books, a pencil case of dinosaurs (didn't lose any!), some new novelty toys, activity books, a drawing board (like a modern etch a sketch)
• basically I rotated all the different activities every 20-30 minutes for the whole flight, with additional distractions of looking out the window etc

It was fine - much less hassle than I feared it would be.

Good luck!

Sorry I am late coming back to this thread! I really appreciate all the tips.

Still not persuaded DH to buy another tablet (bit I‘m not so keen either so it‘s ok).

I‘ve bought a few sticker books/ water drawing/ LED drawing tablets/ activity books etc and am hiding them until we are on the plane. Will bring them out one by one as suggested.

DH has agreed to sit with DD, he has more patience than I do and is better at entertaining her.

In general she is better than she was when we last flew, but of course the last few weeks she has had a very difficult phase. She legged it in the supermarket today 🤦‍♀️

If you're travelling with young kids, you'll be offered priority boarding. Don't use it, otherwise your kids are stuck sitting down for even longer while everyone else boards.
All go to desk when *families with young children" are called but when you reach the desk send DH on to the plane with most of your hand luggage (you'll have loads) so he gets to stow it and get all the important stuff out on your seats.
You let the kids run round until nearly everyone has boarded, then get on LAST

A great tip, thanks 😊

At that age we had a headphone splitter and we used to one tablet and headphones each to watch downloded episodes of peppa pig.

We have this and dds share, you need an adaptor

As someone who has just flown with 2 nightmare children behind, please, for the sanity of everyone else on the flight just buy a 2nd iPad / cheap alternative

Little rucksack each to carry filled with goodies (snacks/colouring/stickers/) let them choose a little bag of treats from the shops before you board. Mine love to sit and do a puzzle book with us. It is full on parenting for the flight, we have 3 children and it does get easier every time as they ‘get’ what’s expected.

My DS2 (who was a nightmare toddler) flew nine hours at just turned four with no issues whatsoever. BUT we did get him his own iPad. He slept for the second half of the flight because I booked a late afternoon flight to the US which meant that four hours into the flight was his usual bedtime.

We flew seven hours when he was 2.5. That was slightly more challenging but only in the airport as he was so excited. My husband took him back and forth on the travelator near to the gate to wear off all his energy. We got on the plane almost last even though we had priority boarding - because it was an A380 and they take a while to fill up and I didn’t want him sat for ages. He got on the plane and fell asleep on take off. Woke him up when we got to Dubai!

Set expectations beforehand now youngest is older, and role play it at home in advance. Put your chairs in an aeroplane formation and role play and remind them what happens and have a big cardboard clock and get them to move the arms around and tick off the hours.

Rub it in why they need to stay in their seat and not be too loud and disturb the other passengers. Mimic the air hostesses doing the safety talk and why you have to stay quiet during that, and serve drinks etc.

Make it all sound positive and exiting but also say parts of it might be a bit boring too (a nearly four year old can understand and handle that to a degree) but explain why it’s still important not to run around and “my expectation of your behaviour will be : A B and C, but it will be worth it because once we get there we can: swim in the sea, make sand castles, eat ice cream etc.”

Children tend to behave much better when they can grasp what’s going on in advance.

Pack bags with snacks and activities my Dd likes the sticker books, colouring, take some small pots of play doh..wrap them up and they can open one every 45min if they are good get cheap stuff from Poundland .. the 6yo should be fine .. if it’s a night flight make sure they are not overtired .. kept my daughter up all day once and was the worst flight ever. If possible buy or borrow another iPad and don’t let them watch it for a week prior. Avoid foods and drink that may make them hyperactive. Don’t stress try make it fun my DD likes to make her chair into a little den with blanket and teddies, we fly 8hrs regularly and oddly the only bad time was a 3hr flight when she was 2 so don’t think it ll be as awful as the last one it might be fine.

www.bakerross.co.uk

They supply schools so all the stuff is suitable, safe, non toxic etc. Prices are good. Loads of stickers & craft stuff. A lot is not messy.

Have a lovely holiday!

Yes I agree with not tiring them out beforehand too. Personally I felt it worked better when my two travelled well rested.

Also, don’t forget to take 10 mins and go through the sticker books and remove the surrounding blank paper op, unless you want to be doing it on the flight! And wrap up the little presents. It makes it more exciting for them.

Maybe I'm asking the obvious and it's been addressed already but why can't one of them use one of your phones? Just download a few shows like you would with a tablet. That's what we did with our two kids last week.

So they had colouring and sticker books for a while and then gave them the phones with headphones for the rest of the time when they started to get bored. We just made sure that we had a book each to read ourselves for when they had our phones.