Flying with Kids: A Few Tips

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Flying with Kids: A Few Tips

Before we dive into the nitty-gritty kids on airplanes stuff, did you hear about the Sea-Tac airport rebranding? Yup, they are rebranding Sea-Tac Airport as simply “SEA.” Read all about it here. Interesting, right?! I’m not sure how I feel about this change, although I’ll probably always call it Sea-Tac.

Now, to the kids talk. I recently took a flight with both boys on my own from Sea-Tac (hehe) to San Diego to visit my parents (grandparents trip!). While I’ve flown with just Caleb and me a bunch in the past, I was very anxious about flying on my own with two kids. Two would outnumber me and I honestly can’t remember what I did with Caleb - something I like to call parental amnesia. I knew Caleb (4 yrs old) would be relatively easy since I can basically just hand him an iPad and he’s occupied for a good while. However, Wesley was another story. He’s 14 months, so he’s not watching shows or playing games, yet. He’s also in that very awkward stage between crawling and walking and is very, VERY wiggly. In addition, I remember Caleb being a terrible airplane napper (so I do remember somethings), so I wasn’t banking on that for Wesley either (rightly so, apparently, as he did not nap).

The good news: All the planning paid off because both ways went incredibly smoothly. {insert cheering!} No meltdowns and really not a lot of fussing either. Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.

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Toddler Flight Survival: Tips and Tricks

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Toddler Flight Survival: Tips and Tricks

We are headed to Chicago in just a few short weeks to visit family and go to my cousin's wedding. We're really looking forward to it, except for one thing, the flight. Dun dun dun. Actually, knock on wood, but the last flight with Caleb went pretty smoothly. With more attention span, it seems there are more ways to entertain. More ways to entertain mean a better flight. Can I get an amen?! 

Growing up my mom had a severe fear of flying. In fact, she had to go to a fear of flying class just like Meg Ryan in French Kiss (my family loves this movie). A few weeks before we traveled, my mom always got nervous and weird. In a way, I have a fear of flying like my mom but for a different reason. It's a fear of flying with a toddler. I picture a manic toddler screaming the whole way and me crying. Just like my mom, I get all weird a few weeks before our flights trying to come up with some magical trick that will keep Caleb happy. 

When I get nervous, I tend to go overboard on research. I scour the internet for ideas, I ask friends, and over think as I'm trying to fall asleep. I hope I'm not the only one like this...please tell me I'm not the only one like this.

Luckily, I'm feeling much more confident this time around as I've acquired quite a few tips from all our previous flights. I figured I ought to share! 

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Toddler Flight Survival: Apps

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Toddler Flight Survival: Apps

Do you remember the days when you could go on a flight and just read a book or watch a movie? Oh, or even better, just close your eyes and fall asleep to the drumming of the plane? So dreamy. Instead, I get this knot in my belly before we go on a flight. Will my son be the next viral YouTube sensation like the "Demonic child" that threw the 8-hour tantrum (it's true, check it out)? I hope not! But, I do what I can to prepare to make a smooth, tantrum-free (or tantrum reduced) flight. 

Before my flight down to San Diego to visit my parents (Caleb's grandparents), I decided I better load up on apps. I know there are other tips and advice for keeping a toddler busy on a flight, and maybe I'll write a post on that sometime soon as well; however, I want to focus on apps. I want to focus on apps because when I did my search, I was completely overwhelmed at all the options. Almost like bringing a toddler into a toy shop and asking him to pick just one. How?!? 

So I did what any reasonable mom would do. I turned to FaceBook. I went to all my mom groups and looked for past inquiries from moms on apps. Here's the kicker: every time I saw a mom ask for app suggestions, everyone just gave other tips for flights. That's cool, but they (and I) want to know what APPs we should pick. That didn't go as I hoped, so I took another try: my friends. 

This is when I start singing, "With a Little Help From My Friends" to myself because when I asked MY FRIENDS on FaceBook, I got some real results. Thank you, friends. You rock! 

I couldn't purchase all of them, but I did download quite a few and noted the others for later (likely our next flight). I even created a folder on my phone for all the apps. Here's what it looks like (side note: there is a third page to the folder, but it's like white noise apps, etc.):

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