Panic - flying long haul with a toddler

we will have this problem in a couple of weeks and we are only flying to Australia- which I am still not looking to. i think 24 hrs on a plane with an active toddler, which just about finish me off.

we have started to put aside some new small toys to take on the plane with us and a friend suggested wrapping them up in paper, so she could unwrap them. have also brought some new books so she will have something new to look at and I am going to make her, her own book of all her favourite pictures (dogs,cats, buses etc). also pack lots and lots of snacks, it was suggested to get some sugar free lollipops for her to suck on the way down and up.

also a book I was reading suggested if you were flying a long distance with a toddler/baby to book seats for you and your partner that weren't together so you each have a bit of break.

that's all I have got at the moment, but I also look forward to hearing what others ideas are.....

thanks, Ill check out that babycentre site

Well some people may not agree with this, but my best friend lives in London and she has brought her 3 yr old to NZ three times in his short life, one of those times was without her husband.

She swears by phenergan which is a toddlers antihistamine which makes them drowsy. its perfectly safe if used as directed.

Obviously she doesn't give it to him for the whole trip and only gives the recommended dose, but she said it makes life ALOT easier. She was given the tip by another mum who travels long haul alot.

You could perhaps see your doctor regarding this for advice, but I am a health professional myself and can't see anything wrong with it as long as you follow the directions on the packet.
Flying long haul is stressful enough as it is, and if you are the couple with the noisy toddler on a 12+ hr flight, you may not make many friends.
(Sorry! Its just that I have flown between the UK and NZ so many times, and kids that run riot really don't make an already unpleasant journey any better. I am dreading having to do it myself when our little on comes along.)

The problem with kids and other kinds of sedatives (eg sleeping pills etc) is they can actually have the reverse effect and make the children go nuts.

Definitely Phenergan. I swear by it. Use it for the times when your son should be going to sleep. The medicine and the drone of the plane will help send him off to sleep.

Also try to ask at check in whether there are a any empty seats nearby. Possibly get the 5 middle ones allocated to your family so you have more space. By lying down for the sleep your son will get a better sleep and you will get more time with a quiet child.

He might be interested in the movies or you could get a portable DVD player with a couple of his favourite movies. Definitely sucky things for take off and landing.

Also let him run around the airport departure lounge as much as possible before you board. I would almost suggest getting on last even though they say that families with young children can board first and get settled. Maybe one of you can get on and get the "stuff" stowed away and the things you need ready and then the other one can board last with your son .

Good luck and try to enjoy your trip.

If you are  considering using phernergan I would suggest trialing it before the flight. Ethan is one of the children who has the reverse reaction. I was prescribed it when he had chicken pox to use a dose at night so he could sleep, WELL he was awake for about 7 hours literally running up and down the hallway. If it worked I would use it on a long haul flight though.

get good seats...and buy things they havent seen before (toys books lots of things to bribe!!)
we survived a trip to japan with 18mth old, very sucessful so it can work out

We flew to Ireland at Xmas with 11month old twins. They weren't walking at that stage but could walk holding our hands so spent a lot of time doing that.

On the way over we flew direct and on the way back we had a stopover in Vancouver.

Bring lots of snacks for them to nibble on. What airlines are you flying with? One of our legs were with Lufthansa and we got no meals for the girls even though we had requested. We had taken jars and cereal with us so were ok.

We found the other passengers to be very tolerant with the girls and a lot of time was spent playing peekaboo with those sitting behind us
Also there were at lot of 'clucky' passengers who were just itching for the chance to get a cuddle or interact with them

Books were great too and easy to pack. Other than that we had minimal toys packed for carry on. We had them dressed in stretch n grows for the entire journey too.

We were able to take our buggy to the gate at each leg too which was a saviour.

If you have any other questions feel free to ask.

ETA: We didn't use Phenergan. I packed Pamol just in case but didn't even use that at any stage!

Edited by tishy

I found we had enough. I had some toys that clipped on to the nappy bag and not much else. They were more interested in playing with things like the seat belts and taking it all in than to be playing with their toys.

Also for the taking off and landing it was drinking water that helped more than the girls dummies.

Aoife loved looking out the window too.


The most important thing is try not to be too stressed about it as it's amazing what kids can pick up on. We just accepted that we were in for a long trip and would just try to take whatever happened in our stride.

On our flight from Frankfurt - Vancouver both girls had colds, Eimear was teething and we'd been up since 2am the night before. But we survived, lol!

Yikes Korean Air sound awful.

We are flying with Malaysian Airlines