Flying solo with my 2 year old - help! (Tips please)

[gonegrl]

As title suggests I've just booked a 7 hour and 45 min flight solo with my 2 year old. The timings are pretty good (take off 8.30am, land 11am local time, 4pm our time). If she naps well on the plane, I'm hoping she'll adjust to new bedtime reasonably.

Any tips for making this bearable? She has her own seat and we are flying club (a family member works for the airline and gave us a staff upgrade, we couldn't actually afford this!) so she will unfortunately be sitting separate from me, in her own club booth.

Realistically, she will need to sit close to you. I can't really picture what you mean by 'sit separately from me in her own club booth', do you mean business class seats where everyone can screen off their own little area but she is next to you? Or do you mean, really properly separate, like can't see or touch you during take off/landing/turbulence? I think the former is probably okay, but the latter is going to be a challenge. She's very little still to be sitting independently on a plane (my 6 year old would probably struggle if he couldn't see or reach me), never mind the poor people around you if you can't comfort or attend to her as needed. When she's sleeping/watching something on a tablet, it will be fine. That said, we flew 11 hours to San Francisco with a 4 year old and she didn't sleep a single second of the flight, so do be prepared!

For the plane, I'd bring lots of snacks and don't rely on the food being decent enough for her to eat (mine are not impressed by airline kids meals), interesting things to do (tablet, colouring, small toys that aren't noisy or otherwise annoying), and bring change of clothes/nappies if she is still in them. Where is she in terms of potty training, if not totally confident she won't have an accident, consider bringing pull ups/a puppy pad to put under her on the seat if she falls asleep. Keep her moving as much as possible in the airport. If she still has milk before naps or another similar routine, I just kept that the same. The flight attendants have always been lovely with filling up a cup of milk or heating as necessary.

Thanks @mindutopia the whole situation isn't ideal but it is what it is! Yes, I mean the business class booths, we will be in the same little set of two booths but we will be separated by a sliding window. I'm hoping that the sliding closing door on the booth will help block some of the sound for other passengers (especially as they've payed a lot to be there!!!). She's not fully potty trained so the puppy pads are a good idea, they might end up getting scribbled on though...

How have you found other people on flights? Have they been understanding or annoyed? I'm very conscious of not upsetting other passengers so my plan is to plug her into screens for as long as she will tolerate and help her to sleep. That's good to know that they'll give you milk on request, I hadn't thought about that and was trying to work out how to bring milk into the plane yesterday! One less thing to think about. My plan is to basically try and have her on my lap for as much of the flight as she will tolerate too, as she'll certainly be calmer then too.

@mindutopia By law, they won't give them seats far from each other's. If you fly, for example, BA in business, the middle row club booths can be opened together or separated by a wall. It feels like you are sleeping in the same bed if the wall is down.

In terms of entertaining, it's really depends on what she enjoys. My dd has limited tv time and no tablet or phone at home, so she is absolutely glued to the tablet on the plane when needed. Maybe cut some of the screen time out before the trip so it will be more interesting.

Loads of snacks, food, games (puzzle, sticker books, colouring etc) and make sure she will be tired before getting on the plane.

Spare clothes for her and for you. I put my relatively newly trained two year old in a nappy for flights – she mostly didn't use it, but it removed the stress for both of us. Spare clothes for her and for you, just in case.

Check if the airport you're going through have children's facilities – some have a mini softplay or playroom. Check if the airlines either have toddler restraints or allow something like the Cares harness. My two year old had fastening/unfastening the plane seat belt sussed within the hour, and of course then that became a fun game. Plus she was so small relative to the seat that I wasn't convinced it would actually do much good if we hit turbulence – it looked like she would just fly out from under the belt.

On the flight we did sticker books, colouring, puzzles, books, snacks, more snacks (and played with the seatbelt...). I also brought some modelling putty stuff (neater than playdoh, although also a bit harder) and a matching game. I did have the tablet in reserve, but we mostly used it after the plane, travelling to our accommodation when everyone was tired.