As promised, I’m going to share a few tips on flying with a toddler that I learned.  The biggest thing I learned – every baby is different and what works for mine might not work for yours but, hopefully you will find a few of these helpful.

1. Take a morning flight.  We’ve flown mornings, afternoons and evenings (unexpectedly thanks to a delay!) and morning is definitely the best for us.  We’re all more alert and happy.  Afternoon flights are tempting in hopes that he will sleep on the flight but that just doesn’t happen for us.  There’s too much excitement for him to fall asleep on a plane.

2. Buy the kid a seat.  If you can swing it, buy a seat for the toddler.  We have always done this once Maxwell was mobile and it just gives everyone more room and gives Maxwell his own space.

3. Take a car seat.  We’ve done it without a car seat and with – and I definitely say go with!  When we didn’t have a car seat Maxwell was just climbing all over the place – all over us, all over the seats, dropping toys on the floor and onto the people behind us, etc.  I also felt like he was basically licking the entire plane seat because he was just all over it.  Gross.  On this last trip I bought a cheapo car seat from Wal-Mart and took it with us and it was the best decision ever.  Maxwell totally sat in it the entire time and watched his videos, etc.  Sure there were times he wanted out, but we just explained to him that those were the rules of the plane and he couldn’t get out….and fed him plenty of snacks!

This is the car seat we got for traveling – Cosco Scenera.  It was perfect because it’s one of the smallest on the market and easily fit into the airplane seat. I think our Britax seat would have been too wide for the seat…not to mention too heavy to carry!  Also, we had him in the middle seat for the first leg of our trip but put him by the window for the rest of the trip and that worked better.  He loved being able to look out the window – even if I did have to help him raise and lower the shade about 500 times!

4. Get a Go Go Kidz Travelmate for the stroller.  These things are genius.  You don’t have to lug the carseat through the airport and the kid can just stroll through the airport in his carseat!  So smart!  Maxwell rode through the airport in his but actually ended up walking quite a bit too just because he was tired of sitting and needed to get some energy out.  But, when he wasn’t in the carseat, my diaper bag was!

5. Take an iPad.  I know you may not have one – get one.  🙂  It was perfect because it takes no time to “boot up” like a portable DVD player and I could quickly switch between various apps and his Sesame Street DVD’s that I had downloaded.

6. Take books.  I loaded up his 3 favorite books and they gave us something to do during takeoff and landing when we couldn’t have the iPad on.

7. Take a variety of snacks.  On this last trip, I probably gave Maxwell a new snack every half hour…but he loved it and it kept him occupied.  I had a variety of foods broken up into ziplocs in my bag and could easily slip a new one out for him to eat on.

8. Pack your patience.  I’m not so good at this.  I have a tendency to stress out about things.  But, Robert is pretty laid back so we make a nice team.

And some “not necessary” items…

1. Toys.  I stuck in a few toys like a MagnaDoodle and some trucks and they just took up space in my bag.  Maxwell had no interest in them and was much more fascinated with things like the tray table and the air sickness bag!

2. Headphones.  I got these cute animal headphones and he wore them for about 10 minutes before pulling them off.  I just turned up the volume on my iPad a bit to where he could hear it and that was fine.  I do think he will like the headphones as he gets older though so I’m going to keep them in mind for our next trip.

A few other things to note – our flights were pretty short, all under 2 hours.  Longer flights might require a different strategy.  Also, I’m a big fan of the family/companion care bathrooms at the airports.  So much easier for changing diapers/dealing with toddlers.  Take lots of disinfecting handy wipes and hand sanitizer and have them out at all times. I would wipe down the entire seat area as soon as we got on the plane.  Also, and I have no idea if this actually works, but my mom read somewhere that if you put a little bit of Neosporin under the baby’s nose while on a plane, it’s supposed to help kill germs that they might breathe in.  Might be totally not true but it doesn’t hurt!

I’m sure as Maxwell gets older, there are going to be new tips and tricks that we pick up and I’ll be happy to share!