I have left on my business trip to the US. I will be away from Hong Kong for a total of four days and fifteen hours. As I write this we are about one hour from landing in San Francisco. I am sitting in the same seats that we’ll be taking when we head back to Canada the end of June. I guess you could say I am test-driving the seats. The flight to SFO is about 14 hours and pretty much everyone – both adults and kids – feel yucky by the time we all step off at the end of the flight.
There have been numerous kids in the vicinity of my seat, all of them very young, ranging from maybe one to three years old. At one point one of the three year olds went crazy in the middle of the night. He was obviously tired, disoriented, confused AND hungry. He was also extremely, extremely LOUD.
After a few minutes of pure screaming in the aisle, and standing less than two feet from me, I was pretty much un-phased. This was NOTHING compared to what I’ve heard in the last year. His parents were clearly scrambling to remedy the situation and I was pretty confident this lil’ guy would be quiet very soon. But the passenger next to me, about ten years my junior, had a different opinion.
"OH MY GAWD!" He said condescendingly. "That is HORRIBLE. His parents obviously don’t know what they’re doing. They’ve got his schedule completely mixed-up!"
"I am sure he’ll be quiet soon. Airplanes are tough for little kids," I said but as I did, picture the following thought cloud hovering above my head: "something tells me you don’t have kids."
The fact is: airplanes, especially long flights, are very tough for babies and toddlers. First, there is the constant noise of the plane. Second, they are way outside their comfort zone in an unfamiliar place. Third, there is no place to run around or stretch or play properly. As the flight goes on and on, things get messier and messier and more disorienting. Fourth, dehydration and fatigue eventually settles in. This is a recipe for creating unhappy little campers.
Fortunately, though, Tess and I have had quite a bit of luck with airplanes and Sebastian. Sebastian has turned out to be a very good traveller who is generally low maintenance on planes. Here are some tricks we follow and I am interested in any other ideas people would like to contribute:
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Timing: Pick a flight late in the day, therefore, probability of child sleeping is high.
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Eating: Don’t feed immediately before the flight because eating is a great time consumer and pacifier. Therefore, feed shortly after take-off. If your kid is old enough, request a child meal through your travel agent – the meals often come with toys or other treats.
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Fluid Intake: We encourage Sebastian to consume lots of fluids for two reasons… first to avoid dehydration that canmake a child irritable and second… trips to the bathroom, while repetitive they can be annoying, are still a great time consumer.
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Sleeping: If Sebastian falls asleep on a plane, we watch him for two things… first, being comfortable to avoid him waking up and second, avoiding noise and light that could wake him up. We’ve even been known for building little tents, with blankets overtop of seats, to decrease the chance he’ll be woken up. Pillows strategically placed next to ears can also help dullen the roar of the plane.
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Chunk Theory: Break the flight up into 20 – 30 minute activity slots. Each activity can be repeated once. If the flight is six hours long, that’s six to eight activities. You may not use them all but it is beter to have the variety of activities.
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Less is more: Choose activities with minimal pieces in case they drop off the seat. (Dropped toys often take a while to recover as they roll all over the plane!) Suggestions: books, colouring books, blank books for drawing, stickers, etch-n-sketch toys, small cars (if you’re like Seb).
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Toys – small is beautiful: Toys need to be small so that the relative play area is large. I.e. large car won’t drive far, but a small one can drive around a tray table hundreds of times… this is a good thing.
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Favourite Toys: Take along favourite toys that have mysteriously been hidden away for a few days before the trip. When you pull out the toy on the plane your child will be that much more delighted to see it.
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Keep track of toys… it’s easy to leave behind a toy that can be a real heartbreaker later. I always try to keep track of them by keeping a bag nearby that a toy can be thrown into instead of stuffed into a seat back pocket where it may be pater forgotten.
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Walking & Exploring: Walk up and down the aisles whenever possible. If your child becomes fascinated with some ridiculous thing, let them investigate. This will help pass the time.
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Windows: if possible, snag a window seat and keep track of what it flying by. You might find some interesting mountains to watch, or even find funny formations in clouds. Sebastian loves seeing cars driving on roads thousands of feet beneath the plane.
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TV & Movies: The ultimate time consumer is TV. Find out if your plane will have personal TVs. If yes, consider buying a headset for your child that will provide better sound than airplane headsets. (Some airlines are now using an earplug-type headset that is uncomfortable for kids to use.) If no, an alternative is a portable DVD player – either bought or borrowed. (Don’t forget to charge the battery!)
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Comfort Items: We do our best to insure Sebastian eats and sleeps properly on the plane, but we are also realistic… a long plane ride is no fun. Therefore, we make sure we have plenty of comfort items for distraction and consumption. (Okay, it’s pure bribery, call me a bad parent!) If that’s TV or watching a movie so be it. If it is letting Sebastian eat more Goldfish or Chocolate Bear cookies that normal, we will let him. These items are usually introduced late in the game when an unhappy camper needs to be settled down… keep your cards close to your chest and save these tasty items for when they are really needed. All of these fifteen items are a series of carefully planned distractions to help Sebastian (and soon The Terrific Trio) be better travellers when they are young.
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Manage expectations: Tess & I not only build up the excitement of going on a plane with Sebastian, we also make him aware – or remind him – of what he’ll do on the plane… such as going to the bathroom, sleeping, eating, and even getting tired. Before going on the 17 hour flight to Torontoin March we drilled into him over and over that the flight was long and he would need to be patient… we even practised "eating on the plane!"
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Backpacks: I also find backpacks extremely useful for airports. A backpack allows both hands to be free to care for kids… hold hands… restrain… chase, you name it… if you are carrying bags it is all harder to do.
Those are some of our ideas for now… if you have your own that you would like to contribute please fee free to do so!
Reader interactions
11 Replies to “Planes, Kids & Uncomfortables”
You just hit on the reason I so wish airlines would introduce family sections. Ah well, it sounds like you’ll be prepared 🙂 I have seen some parents do some really cool things to settle their child down – one lady brought a laptop and her kid spent practically the whole flight drawing on “paint” and watching DVDs. I’ve seen stories on CD being used on personal cd players with headphones. One of my favourites as a child was those little snap cards, fuzzy felt (although they may not make that anymore) and character dominoes. I used to love the little face masks and ear plugs the airlines sometimes give away too. Oh and toys – silent is also beautiful 😉
Thanks for the tips! We are contemplating travelling to England from Australia with our 3 year old (are we completely stark raving mad??!). Travel time would be about 22 hours. I’m thinking of taking his leap pad with us. And sedatives (LOL).
during the next week we will be making our kid’s longest trip yet. florida to south carolina to kentucky back to florida. two things in our favour: first, we are driving. we have the opportunity to get out and stretch and run around if necessary. second, we have arranged it so no single day’s driving should exceed 10 hours (maybe a couple more if we take longer stops). downside, adults have to stay alert to keep from plowing minivan into oncoming mac truck. i will try to make very good use of your handy travel tips (i’ll probably even print them out for reference).
regarding tip 1, when i flew with the kids in january (see my bbs for my exciting, fun-filled return trip!) i got priceline tickets and didn’t have a choice of flight times, but as it turns out, the times were quite good. flights started VERY early in the morning. we got the kids up way too early and then they both just went back to sleep on the plane. sort of the same thing as a late flight, but the other end of the night. it worked well.
regarding number 12, i did just get home from a midnight trip to wally world to buy our first portable dvd player for the chil’uns. ours has the added bonus of two screens and some built in games (probably dorky, but hey, he’s three, he won’t know). i’ll let you know how it goes. also, for other readers in the US, blockbuster (and probably other places as well) will rent a portable dvd player. it’s only $17 US for one week.
some tips of my own: first, for very small ones consider using a sling/baby carrier/baby wearing for in the airport. when i flew alone with a three year old and a two month old, being able to carry the baby hands free was a HUGE help. i guess this is along the same lines as the backpack tip, but applies to the living luggage.
second, try your darndest to convince kids to drink/chew gum if they are old enough/nurse/take a bottle/hold their nose and blow during descent. i couldn’t convince the toddler to do this and he was very unhappy until we landed.
third, no matter how good your kids are with regular cups on land, sippy cups, bottles with screw caps, juice boxes, or some other secured top drink container is a good idea on a plane. no matter how graceful, they will just be putting down their drink when the plane will hit a bump and that drink will go everyrwhere.
Sue, thanks for reminding me about the leap pad! i’ll have to bring that too!
Great ideas! 🙂 I didn’t even notice that my mom did those with us kids when I was a wee one. Now that you wrote them up, she was a champion kid-distracter.
All I’ve got to add is two games- useful for when Seb’s a little older:
– “Dot to dot” box game (dot a grid of 8 dots by 8 dots- or larger, or smaller) each person takes a turn drawing a line from one dot to another dot. The person that connects that last pair of two dots and makes a box, gets to put their initials in the new box. Once there’s no more dots to connect and all the boxes are created, you count and see how many of each initials are there.
– Three-fold drawing. Ie: fold a piece of paper into three. First person draws the head of a character onto the top segment–and draws the “connection” lines that extend over onto the second segment, then folds the top part out of the way so that person #2 can’t see what was drawn on segment #1. Paper goes to person #2. Person #2 draws the midsection of the character, and the connection lines for the legs. Paper now goes back to person #1, or on to person #3 who draws the legs. No one knows what the other person (people) have drawn until the paper is opened up. This kept me occupied FOREVER.
We only did road trips, though. Up to Maine every summer . ~4 hour drive maximum. Having a brother close to my age also served to keep me busy. So Sebastian should be wonderful with the triplets. (Except for occasional fighting, which is unfortunately unavoidable?)
great tips…thanks we’ll be using them soon enough..Terri told me about having one new thing to introduce at least every hour of the trip…so we are trying to find some “new” things for Noah…he’s just excited to be going on the bus to the airport…he loves planes…if not DRUGS!!!!
Have a great trip…missed you tonight!!! xo lyns
Charles, thanks for the useful tips. I will need to use them probably in a year – two or so when our baby will be older. When I was flying with her back to HK from SFO when she was 4 weeks old, she was absolutely fascinated by intercom lights next to the toilet 🙂 That kept her quiet for a long time until she fell asleep again.
This is a great list. Thanks for sharing! We’re headed from western Canada to Scotland soon with 5 year old triplets, haven’t done such a long trip with them before. We’re checking out the portable DVD players in the stores, have to see the viewing angle to know how many we need for 3 kids. One or two? Also have to start copying favourite music to take along.
Any suggestions from anyone on dealing with the time change? We’re planning nothing for the first day after we arrive – except that the parents will need coffee!
Great tips. I also use decongestant for plane travel (one dose at the airport for shorter flights): my husband suffers major pain if he doesn’t take one, and as dear daughter was below two, this sounded easier than asking her to blow or suck at the right time. A totally unexpected bonus was that she spent most of the time asleep. I promise I didn’t plan on the sleepiness side effect.
To do two things at once is to do neither.
— Publilius Syrus
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