Travelling ultra-long haul with a 2.5 year old?

[wishIwasonholiday10]

Has anyone travelled to the other side of the world with a 2.5 year old and how bad was it? We would like to take our DD to visit family at Xmas when she will be 2.5 years old but am now rethinking it as we have just found a holiday within Europe with her at almost 2 pretty difficult and stressful. I feel guilty for not spending more time with my parents as they get older (and depriving them of time with their only grandchild) but the thought of travelling again during the toddler stage fills me with dread. Can anyone reassure me? The trip normally takes around 36 hours (2 long haul flights followed by a domestic connection).

I've done it at just that age on my own and with a five year old too. It was easy but once you are doing it then you are doing it. There's no turning back so you just get on with it.

UK to Australia at just over 3 years old. He slept 8 or 9 hours overnight to Singapore. We broke the journey there one night but don't think we needed to.

Did it every year from 6 months to 5, with one then two. All fine as long as you know their routine goes out the window while travelling. They clicked into local time easily. Me, not so easily but having family around to help made a difference.

We flew to New Zealand when my third child was 2.5. We stopped on the way in Dubai (3 hours) and then Bangkok for 5 nights but then flew home all in one go via 3, 8 hour flights 😬 We also had our 2 primary age children with us. It was absolutely fine!

He loved the novelty of everything- his own TV (luckily he had just got into watching TV), food being brought to him etc. we took loads of snacks and little toys etc. We also bought a thing called a Fly Legs up which was like a little inflatable section that fitted in the gap between his seat and the seat in front and turned his seat into a little bed - the rest of us were v jealous! The journey home was brutal but not especially because of him, just all the usual reasons! Good luck.

I flew to NZ when DD was just a bit younger than that. It was pretty miserable, there was a lot of walking up and down the aisles. But every hour was an hour I didn't have to live through again, and spending quality time with family made the flight more than worth while.

We took DD when she was almost 3 long haul. A 12 hour then straight onto a 5 hour connection. It was easier than the year before when we went to Spain! The difference was that her attention span had grown a lot between 2&3 and she was happy to watch the tv the whole time. On the way back I only packed one colouring book as on the way out she didn’t touch most of the things I’d packed! And she slept on the night flight back.