Plane rides

ajjudish

Advice for a plane ride with almost 2 year old! I'm regretting getting rid of our paci!! Any ideas would be appreciated!!

 

Thanks!

Crequito

I haven't taken DD on a plane yet but we did do a 12 hour car trip to Florida (my husband is a lunatic).  Do you have an iPad or other tablet LO can watch movies/shows on?  You could also try the books with music or sounds, though that might annoy the people around you.  Depending on the length of your flight you might need to let LO get out of their seat for a bit just because I know my DD gets antsy.

Without the paci I'm not sure how you can circumvent the ear popping LO will experience - I assume LO is off the bottle??  

LSU628

I don't know what it is about planes, but they knock both of my kids out! I'm guessing it's the overwhelming white noise. I flew by myself to Boston and Denver this summer with both kids. I brought some gummies and puffs to help with take off, landing, and boredom. I had books, the magnadoodle, crayons, paper, and little cars and whatnot for the airport wait. DS slept on at least one if not both legs of my flights. I was able to time my flights and layovers around lunch/meal times so we would hop off, stretch our legs, eat, find a place to watch the planes until it was time to re-board. A lot of planes now have on board television. I let DD get a movie (Rio 2 was playing) for the 3 hr flight. It made the time go by much more quickly. Also, I'm not sure what it is about the safety brochures, but both of my kids will look at them and open and close them for a good bit. GL!

LtlAngL

I'm In Aruba with my little guy now. Our flight was 6 hours and he slept for 2. I bought him a little book bag and filled it with little toys and activities for him. Pinterest has some great ideas - just look up "toddler plane activities" and you'll find a lot of quiet books and other easy things to make for kids to play with. We actually managed to only get through like a third of the toys and not pull out one electronic device. It's totally doable!!!

prof&mom

I have something for LO to suck on during take-off and landing, so for him that's a cup with a straw and water in it.  He has never shown discomfort with his ears and I hope that this strategy has something to do with it.

I also like to go out and get our little guy a few new books and small lap toys, and only reveal them for the first time on the flight.  Their novelty makes them much more interesting to him than the ones he's used to.

I try to time flights so that they do not interfere with either his midday nap or his bedtime, so that he is at his most cheerful and alert for the flight.  

Good luck!  

fusionbride

we flew with LO when she was 20 months old. we got her a seat and she sat in her carseat which was great when she was awake, but made it hard for her to sleep because the carseat wouldn't recline and her head kept flopping around waking her up.   Best activities were story books (that we read to her over and over), stickers, goldfish crackers and other things she could eat slowly, her lovey, and a notebook and ballpoint pen.  We tried the ipad with books and interactive apps, but it was too new and she wasn't that into the headphones-- if you are going to go this route, I would introduce it a few weeks before the flight so they get used to the headphones and learn how to do the apps so it is fun (not frustrating) for them.

we had no ear issues, but did have food pouches ready to try and avert a meltdown (which actually worked some of the time!)