Rebecca’s Guide to Travel with Youngins

We’ve been flying with our kids since our first was 3 months old, and now with our boys ages 3 and 5 I feel like we have some pretty solid expertise in the area of what to pack. I go big on packing prep because I dread the logistics of travel and know that if the kids are happy I will be too! I always set a calendar reminder for 10 days before an upcoming trip to give myself time to order any amazon stuff I want, hit a grocery store (and sometimes a craft/toy store) and that covers pretty much everything we need.

Without further ado, here are some of our best tips:

MAKE FRIENDS

One of the best ways to make traveling more pleasant is to change people’s expectations of what it means to be near kids on an airplane. Our #1 strategy is to dress the kids like pilots and practice politeness and friendliness with them in advance.

- Pilot costume: white collared shirt, pilot’s hat ($3 . . . seriously, $3 . . . on amazon), black clip-on tie ($5 on amazon), epaulettes (pilot stripes) made from cutting two small rectangles of cardboard, covering them with a black sock (or any black fabric you want to buy or cut up), and one glittery silver or gold elastic headband cut into 3 parts (easy to find at a dollar store or local Walgreens). Attach it all together with staples (it doesn’t need to be perfect, no one looks closely) and pin it to shirt with safety pins. The minimal time/effort you spend on this will be worth it – other passengers and the flight crew change from “ugh, kids” to “awww, kids!” They get invited to sit in the cockpit every single time, and usually the pilots want photos with them. Practice with the kids in advance on saying where they’re flying to and reminding them to respond to the oohs and ahhs they’ll get in a friendly way.

- Candy: If you have younger, potentially crying kids, it doesn’t hurt to bring along a bag of mini chocolate bars or candies to hand out to nearby passengers. Again, doing it in advance changes expectations and ingratiates you with your seatmates.

- Introduce yourself to the people sitting in front of your child. Let them know that they can turn around anytime to say “feet, please” if your kid starts to kick. Saves you the built-up rage of an angry seatmate if you give them the easy tool to address it when it first starts.

FOOD IS FUN

Snacking on treats is a great way to pass the time (and bribe the kids!). We buy all of the little junk foods that our kids never get at any other time (novelty is key on a plane!) and offer them a few at a time. Our kids aren’t too sensitive to the sugar rush effect so that hasn’t been a problem for us.

- Yogurt-covered raisins: these are a family favorite. Get them in little boxes and it makes for a fun, hands-on snack.

- Cheerios or froot loops: you can play games counting them or even stringing them onto thread (or whatever you can use as thread – even headphone cords!) for another hands-on snack

- Crackers, cookies, PB&Js – the key is to keep the portions small and keep switching it up.

- Plastic tupperware – all you really need is one shallow tupperware bowl for each kid, which makes it easy for them to use as a snack holder when they can’t reach the airplane tray table

NECESSITIES

- Small pocket knife: I still haven’t figured out if these are plane-approved yet, but I’ve never had mine confiscated.

- Mending kit: always worth having

- Keychain flashlights: small and useful

- Battery-powered tealites: these make the best hotel nightlights. When there aren’t a lot of electrical sockets or we want to make a path to the bathroom, a few of these go a long way. It’s even been worth it to pack one bulkier and brighter motion-sensor nightlight so that kids can really see without turning on a bright bathroom light in the middle of the night. The tealites seemingly last forever (one set of 8 that we used on a 3-week trip never burned out).

- Travel first aid flipper: these are so small and convenient that frankly I always carry one in my purse because it’s great for all kinds of emergencies, though fortunately I’ve never had to use it. Unfortunately I’ve only found them for sale on a stand-alone website (rather than a site like amazon) but it’s worth having a couple around anyway, and you can buy a magnetic one for your fridge. 

- First aid kit: always pack extra bandaids and consider ordering single-use packets of cortizone and antibiotic cream in advance. On amazon you can buy them in packs of a few dozen, which are so easy to stick in a purse rather than carrying around messy little tubes. 

- Paper clips: we have the colorful kind that have proven useful for situations like clipping hotel drapes together for better blackout coverage, but they also function as a fun toy that you can make ‘jewelry’ out of by attaching the clips to each other in chains. 

- Painter’s tape: this is the holy grail of airplane/travel toys. Tape is always, always useful. We have used it for hanging dark sheets in front of windows in too-bright kids’ rooms, building paper art, and stringing it around like spiderwebs on airplane seats for fun (or rolling it into balls, wearing it, making mustaches, etc!). Seriously the top travel toy ever.

- Emergency labels: before each trip I print out a sheet of label paper with our name, phone number, and other relevant info. Usually I just fold them in half so that the sticky part isn’t exposed and the kids keep them in their pockets, but when they don’t have pockets I can use the sticky side to attach it to their pants waistbands. They both know that if they get momentarily separated to freeze and then to look for a mommy or daddy with kids for help.

TOYS AND ACTIVITIES

On most flights the kids spend most of their time on their iPads – we always max out their storage in advance with movies, games (Angry Birds!), and other apps (drawing, phonics, Reading Rainbow stories). But when they need the occasional break from screen time, we have a full (zippered!) tote bag devoted just to fun.

- Dover books – these are the absolute best. They’re just a buck or two apiece on amazon or at chain toy stores, and you can get anything from books filled with mazes, connect-the-dots, ‘what’s different?’ (great for even young kids for finding the differences between nearly-identical pictures), or theme books like Outer Space with a variety of activities. 

- Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty – this is the perfect travel and restaurant toy, and it’s the only toy I keep in my purse at all times. Like silly putty but more awesome (cooler colors and heat-reactive color changes), as long as they don’t stretch it into extremely thin strings it’s mess-free and endlessly entertaining. 

- Spot It – a popular card game where kids of all ages look for the matching item when comparing two cards (mathematically it astounds me, but within each sizable set there is exactly one item on each card that matches an item on any other card). 

- Matchbox cars – maybe not best for the plane itself, but great for the airport chairs and moving walkway handrails

- Model magic – such a great anywhere toy – Crayola makes a clay/putty that you can shape mess-free and then draw on with marker. They air dry. Buy the individual packs of either .5oz or 1oz and ration them out. If you make balls, they’ll dry and bounce!

- Drawing supplies – a gold standard. We buy the triangular-shaped crayons so that they don’t roll, and get different kinds of coloring books, as well as asking the kids for some requests of favorite character coloring pages that they want us to print (thank you google image search) in advance. 

- White paper – infinitely useful – everything from blank drawing pages to paper airplanes to snowflakes to origami to masks to crowns (thank you painter’s tape!)

- Brown paper lunch bags – these are useful as temporary trash bags, but also really fun for making puppets

- Books – this is always something that I nearly forget, but picture books are key. I forget how much the kids can enjoy just sitting and looking at books, and I wish I could bring more. I try to max out at around ten and always choose the paperback ones to lighten my load.

- Bouncy balls – so small and easy to tote around – obviously not for airplane use but great for the inevitable open spaces you’ll find while traveling. Not my favorite toy to manage but the kids are always really grateful when I pull these out

- Balloons – best hotel room toy ever! Cheap and easy to pack, we blow up a few of these and let the kids play soccer or see how many times they can hit one up before it falls to the floor

- AquaDoodle – a reusable drawing pad with a refillable water pen so that kids can draw and watch it evaporate away 

- Finger puppets – we rarely pull these out, but when we do, they’re a quick, fun activity. Super cheap sets on amazon, plus you can combine them with paper and painter’s tape to create little sets for scenes.

- Craft activity – travel gives me an excuse to hit the craft store and pick out some fun kits that I can do with the kids. Before our latest trip I saw lanyard string and thought that it would be fun to try to teach our five-year-old, and we both had fun with it. I’ve also had success with macrame and sculpey clay. I also brought a lacing activity (cardboard dinosaurs with shoelaces) that the kids could do independently.

SUPPLY-FREE GAMES

Just because you don’t want to carry around a bag full of games doesn’t mean you can’t play some good ones. These ones have killed hours worth of time for us.

- What’s missing – at restaurants we make a line-up of available items (one sugar packet, one fork, one salt shaker, one key, one earring, etc.) and take a moment to study them before we close our eyes and one person removes one item. First person to guess the missing item gets to be the hider in the next round.

- 20 questions – a classic, but with young kids we don’t keep count of the number of questions asked, and just have fun doing different categories to make it a little easier for them (animals, foods, etc).

- Alphabet game – pick a category (like animal or food) and go through the alphabet trying to find things that begin with each successive letter (ex. Antelope, Bear, Cat, etc).

BAGS

It’s not just what you bring that matters, it’s how you carry it. We never, ever want to check luggage (and haven’t yet) and even though we carry a lot of stuff, we’ve managed to do it pretty efficiently

- Ziplock bags – these are my secret to stress-free packing. I label gallon-size ziplocks with things like “Kid 1 shirts” or “Kid 2 socks” so that I can easily lay them out and stuff them. It keeps things really well separated and helps me to never forget anything. I do the same for small ziplocks for things like “kids shampoo” and “toothbrush” and even bigger things like “sound machine” and “baby monitor” that I can leave on top of my suitcase to remember to pack last-minute. I’m usually all about lists (and Wunderlist is amazing for creating packing lists that you can duplicate and reuse!) but the ziplock method has been the ultimate fail-safe. Even better, they hold up really well so we reuse them trip after trip.

- Luggage strap – a great way to attach two rolling suitcases on top of each other to free up a hand

- Go Go Babyz Roller – a relatively easy (although, practice once in advance!) but pricey way to roll bulky car seats through airports. Even better, the kids can ride in them while you roll them, and best yet if the kids are walking you can throw other bags and suitcases on top of them. Gate-check them. 

- Insulated snack tote – we always pack our snacks and sandwiches in an insulated soft-sided bag (our favorite is from Zabar’s). It doesn’t need to have thick insulation, for us the advantage of any insulation at all is that it helps the bag keep its shape which makes it easy for packing and accessing. We include a few plastic utensils and a bunch of napkins, as well as a plastic bag that we can use for trash. Don’t forget hand wet wipes.

- Soft bag for sweatshirts and a few other bulky things. I keep a change of shirts from the pilot uniforms so that the kids can get comfortable in their seats, and two animal neck pillows that double as stuffed animals. Even though we bring all of our luggage on the plane, it’s nice to have the important things (diapers, some tissues) easily accessible in one bag.

BUY WHEN YOU GET THERE

There are certain things that take up too much space or are too difficult to pack, so we always hit a grocery store when we arrive.

- Liquid soap – so much easier for kids than the inevitable hotel bar soap

- Diapers – almost never worth packing a lot of these – just a few days’ worth and then buy more.

- Toddler stool – we used to actually order the super cheap ($10) amazon one and have it shipped to our hotel in advance, but now we’ve found that most places have removable dresser or bathroom drawers that we can flip upside down. A toddler potty is a must-have for real little ones if you don’t want to be lifting your kid up and down from hotel toilets all day, and that’s another thing you can usually order to a hotel or airbnb in advance, or buy on arrival.