how do you keep your very little ones entertained on flights?

[girlsallaround]

they don't usually tune into the little bit of kids tv on the plane, and coloring/stickers doesn't last longer than 10-20 minutes max, same with snacks...

We bought a portable dvd player and lots of kids movies for our dd when she was 2. My son is younger, and I haven't found anything to hold his attention except for chocolate - and that doesn't last too long!

I'm interested to see what others are doing...

We just did a flight from London to Boston with a 4yr old and a 23mth old. I packed quite alot of colouring books, crayons, pens and the crayola magic wonder books and pens (the ones where the pens only mark the paper and nothing else). I also packed hundreds of stickers, simply ones like coloured dots or smily faces plus an etch-a-stecher (sp).
To be honest DD1 watched a childrens film for most of the flight and DD2 was kept amused with the headphones, food, the stickers (kept on finding them for days! god knows how)
I also packed a my first leapfrog but it wasn't needed.
Good luck and hope it goes well.

Having done a trip to Oz/UK/Oz with a 2.10 yr old and a 6 month old I would recommend HARD DRUGS and a nanny. Failing that of course then, I had lots of wrapped small puzzles, colouring books, story books, stickers, toy catalogue, activity books. Wrapping things was good as it took an extra few minutes for dd to get the paper off. God though it was awful. DD didn't like the plane telly so we had lots of intensive 1-to-1 parenting time, looking out of the window, walking to the loo etc.

Remember that quite a lot of the time is taken up with meals and snacks etc which she enjoyed.

Portable dvd player is a good idea. How old are your kids girlsallaround?

Exercise them as much as possible the day before, lots to drink and lots of fresh air to exhaust them. Hopefully they will sleep the best part of it.

Sit next to old people...they love talking to small children.

Actually, I am SERIOUS! I flew to Canada with my (then) 18 month old, I was pg...all those old holiday makers were a godsend!!!

It is a VERY good idea to time your flight well. I made a bad mistake and caught the 10pm flight from Heathrow by which time my children were mental with exhaustion and so screamed for the first 2 hours of the flight, as the cabin crew served dinner/drinks etc and didn't turn the cabin lights off until gone midnight.