Surviving a flight with a busy toddler

Holy Moly- we leave for our vacation in THREE days. I can't believe it has came up so quickly. This will be Chloe's second plane ride. We went to Lake Tahoe back in December and will now be leaving for Mexico!!

I am sitting here in bed and just going over the "lessons learned" from our last flight with Chloe. Man was it interesting to say the least. I will go over the Do's and Don'ts that I learned from this experience. lol yeahhhh. It was more than interesting.

Chloe is a very very very active toddler. Like she CANT sit still. My mom and I actually just took her to a dance show tonight. She loved watching the dancers.. briefly! haha Otherwise she was literally climbing up and down the bleachers over.over. and over. again. AND she threw a little fit when I wouldn't let her continue down the stairs. So you can about imagine how our first plane ride went!!
Got a little picture/vision in your mind!? haha

#1 lesson:
The first trip we went on I think we were OVER prepared. We wanted to have anything and everythi
ng to keep her occupied during the flight that we honestly just had way to much stuff.
We brought puzzles, a dvd player, play doh, a sticker board, colors, stickers, blanket, bunny, snacks, more snacks, and much more where that came from. We had a big bag of stuff just for Chloe. haha

The reason I will NOT be doing this the second time around-
I found out that its the small things that entertain her. She watched very little of the movie because she was so excited (makes sense right?!) .. hello mom, we are on a PLANE?! And you think I want to stare at this movie and be quiet?! Not happening.

This time around I will be bring a few things that she was entertained with the first time around. The trip TO Lake Tahoe was kind of a learning lesson.. she was also very very excited so wasn't all that interested in focusing on toys or anything else. The trip back was much better than I had expected actually! She played with Play Doh for a long time, then her sticker board FOREVER, and otherwise she ate some snacks!

#2 lesson:  
Pack LIGHT. And by light.. I mean the stroller too if possible! We hauled along our big Jeep stroller on the plane. We brought it to the boarding gate and everything. It was definitely nice to have don't get me wrong.. but my goodness!!! When it came to loading that thing up and throwing it on the cart they have without holding up the entire line of passengers… Anxiety level RISING.. hahaha
Seriously though, it was so unnecessary. Plus the dang thing BARELY fit into our trunk.. and to find room for our luggage after we had it in the trunk was another task of its own.
So PACK LIGHT!!
























#3 lesson:
Try to stay cool, calm, and collected. I think maybe my fear of the whole situation going bad made it harder on me as a mom than it needed to be. This time around I am really going to try to just go with the flow and stay CHILL. hahaha Which is not at all easy to do in the moment.. but we will have her dad along this time to help us out also ;) Score!












What am I going to do differently this time around?
So I am sitting here in my bed, it is 11:30 pm and I am thinking about how I am going to pack for this trip and what I am going to do differently this time around. And I am the type of person where, unless I get this off my chest and think or type it out… write a list or something.. I won't be able to sleep.

So this time around I think I am definitely going to be packing lighter. Chloe is potty trained now so that will make things easier on the plane. I will bring..

A few pull ups in case
Extra underwear and a pair of pants
Fruit snacks
sippy cup with water (doesn't get nasty as it gets warm)
A banana or other snack
Sticker board (shown in picture)!- she LOVES this thing
Play doh- also loves!
MAYBE her little kids tablet

Other than that I am going to pack up the rest in our suite case.. including her blanket and stuffed animals.. WHY?? Because those are so hard to hang onto throughout the airport and on the plane. She isn't incredibly attached to them so this is possible for us.. she won't even notice!














Last Tips-
  

Be Creative with them! Chloe loved it when I played "pretend" with her dinosaur fruit snacks. (I might get some JUST for this trip) haha We played "dinosaurs" for a very long time. If you bring play doh you can make different animals, shapes, etc out of it! I think we also made ducks and played pretend with those for probably an hour! And the sticker board she loved.. mainly because it had animals on it. She wasn't so interested in sticking them on the board as she was playing pretend with them.

So honestly as I write this, I am finding out that all of her favorite activities had to do with playing "pretend" with different things. So finding out what your child enjoys and likes most will help. And bringing along things that can take up a lot of time.

For instance- Chloe likes to color, but only for about 3 minutes at a time. So that would probably be a waste of time/space/effort to bring those along because I know it won't grab her attention. Now if we could PAINT on the plane, that would be a different story! ;) haha

I hope this helped you!! If you are leaving for a trip and worried about how things are going to go. I promise, you are not the first one to bring a toddler on the plane. Our last flight had a toddler walking up and down the aisle almost the entire time. Its perfectly normal ;)

Safe Flights!

xo
Bri