Toddler Travel

Recently my grandma, my daughter and I flew to Washington state to visit some family. One of the biggest things on my mind as we prepped for the trip was taking every precaution we could to make sure my two year old wasn't that one kid on the plane that everybody hates. Plan A was that she would sleep the entire time we were flying but Plan B and C were snacks and easy entertainment. Let's explore some of the steps I took to ensure my kid wasn't 'that kid' on our flights.

1. The first thing I did was buy tickets for what I thought would be low traffic times, first thing in the morning and later at night. Our departing flight was one of the first out of the airport, meaning we were boarding before most of the stores and restaurants were open, so my daughter, El, got to walk around with me trying to find caffeine. Since I work overnight and drove up that night I was in desperate need for some good coffee but no luck. The early flight did make it easy to get through security, even with a toddler.

2. My daughter is too young for gum, so we were worried about the change in air pressure hurting her ears. We bought a couple of things to prepare for this, especially as it is one of the largest problems faced by parents traveling with young children. To substitute for gum we bought my daughter a couple dollar boxes of movie gummies, think Trolli and Haribo candy. Gummies provide the same chewing motion as gum which helps prevent ears from severely popping.

3. The other thing that we did was to buy my daughter headphones. The pair that can be seen in my daughters carry-on, the clear backpack, we found at Five-Below. I know that every store has headphones and probably even some specifically for kids but I picked the ones I did because they have Squishmallow plushies where the ear muffs would normally be. The added insulation between the sound and my child's ears was a big plus. To be realistic the headphones were also part of a back up plan to keep my child amused without disrupting everybody on the plane. She already has a tablet to watch movies and shows on, but let's be honest most adults don't like listening to child entertainment for hours on end and being contained wouldn't have helped.

4. Most of our luggage was carry-on friendly so that we didn't have to worry about checking luggage. I didn't have to check a carseat or anything because we were traveling to visit family. I confirmed with both of my aunts who we would be staying with that they had an extra carseat for us to use. If this is an option when you travel somewhere I recommend it because it made getting through security so much easier.

5. While the airport closest to our home is considered an international stop, it's not exceptionally large or busy. The one closest to our destination, on the other hand, is ridiculously busy and unnecessarily complicated. It was for that reason that we purchased a wrist to wrist leash for my daughter. She's had one since she was very young that was the animal backpack type but it takes up a lot of space so we switched. Even though my daughter is really good about holding hands and staying close I absolutely stand by leashing my child. Other parents that were traveling with children, even those with strollers which are their own hassle, asked me several times where I got the leash. It was something found on Amazon. It stretches out but is strong and sturdy being as its basically a bike cable with thick rubber material around the springy cord.

6. At the time my daughter was already pretty much completely potty-trained and rarely wore disposable pull-ups. Traveling long distance, my grandma and I decided that it would be better to prepare for the worst and have her in the disposable option for flying. We still took her to the bathroom any time she said she needed to go and when we were going as well. I didn't pack a whole lot of extra pull-ups because they do take up a lot of space in the bag and we choose to stop by a store when we left the airport to get more for the duration of the stay. I can say we were pleasantly surprised that despite the complete change in environment and being around slightly older kids who were not as thoroughly trained, my daughter managed to tell us when she needed to use the bathroom and keep her pull-ups dry.

7. There were so many forms of entertainment packed in my daughter's bag, including but not limited to a plain sketch book, her tablet, and fidget poppers. These were, and still are, staples of her enrichment at home so we figured they would be used a lot, however, about the only thing my daughter cared about was the water reveal coloring book I'd gotten specifically for the trip. I got the original one from Walmart by the kids coloring stuff, but it got torn up due to becoming submerged when we arrived. It didn't take much for us to realize that the return trip would have been hell without a replacement. We looked up the brand Melissa and Doug on Amazon and were lucky to find bundle packs with 3 different books. It was a mess free option that worked great on the plane and in the car. Ten out of Ten would recommend these coloring books for any traveling endeavor because worst case scenario if the 'paint brush' does spill or get knocked over it's nothing more than water.