International Travel w/Kiddos

[summer]

Okay ladies, the day is nigh upon us when I will be flying from the West Coast to Italy with a 3yo and a 1yo.  We will be in Italy for 3 weeks.  The only reason I am doing this is because we are staying with my BFF who has lived there for two years now.  But, in truth, I am freaking out about the flight and the adjustments and whatnot.  (This is not helped by all the other stressors in my life right now, but ain't nobody got time for that.) 

So, ladies who are living internationally or have traveled internationally with small children...please give me the rundown.  What do I need, best coping methods, anything that you think would be helpful would be so, so, so appreciated.  Thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!!

ETA: DH will be with us too. 

[expatmama]

OK first things first, you are two people. Huge difference. Each one takes a kid and is their personal entertainment system. If you are losing your mind, tap out and switch. If your kid falls asleep, congrats you have a break!

One is a tough age. We flew with our kids in a lap until they were 18 months but if you can avoid this and have a seat that will improve your situation substantially.

A few things we always do: Bag full of presents and snacks. The presents are small things and they get one every hour. Presents are often hot wheels, coloring books, stickers, etc. They are typically an activity or something.

Each activity usually entertains them at the age of 3 for max 20 minutes. So it usually works like this: A present, playing with iPad/phone, watching a movie or something rinse and repeat. It is exhausting at that age. Also if you are flying to Europe, it may be red eye so they usually sleep well going that direction and are up a lot going from Europe to the US.

Also, all food rules out the window. We save sugary snacks until the end and offer them endless popcorn, chips, and junk food because it keeps them quiet and then they get a lollipop for landing and cookies/chocolate towards the end.

I always pack some sandwiches or food I know they like because they usually don't like airplane food.

You can do this! It isn't so bad.

[brachysira]

I have not flown internationally with kids. I have flown internationally a lot pre-kids and regionally with kids. Do you have an i-pad or similar and headphones for each kid? Do you know how these things perform off-line (e.g. the Kids Kindle requires wi-fi for their videos). Have you figured out charging? We travel with an i-pad with a few new shows/games, a Kindle with kids stuff, an i-phone with games, and an old phone with a bunch of Mickey Mouse Club house videos. This gets us through problems like a battery dying or other issues. We hold off on these items for as long as possible, and toys they like to start out with are Water Wow (DS could do this at 18 months, so get 2 or more), books (esp new), a pad for drawing or similar.

Bring snacks like raisins in little boxes that take a long time to eat.

Pre-kids, when I flew internationally, I would get up and have a drink in the back of the plane. Probably they do not want kids running around but maybe a field trip once in a while, probably later in the trip.

Are you bringing a stroller? My kids will just sleep in their stroller whenever they need to on vacation and we tend to skip naps since they will take them as we walk through the city.

[crimsonandclover]

I agree with everything expatmama says. Your 3-year-old will probably be ok most of the time. DD2 (our Feb 13 kid) did pretty well this summer. We had her tablet, a big new sticker book, and lots of snacks. She was awesome for 6 hours and then got antsy (there were still 4 hours left in the flight). On the way back to Europe she was up for a long time before she finally fell asleep (I think until around 11pm) and slept until we got to the gate.

The 1 year old is going to be your real challenge. That's a very hard age to fly with (in my experience) because they can't be entertained by movies / games / stickers and want to move. On the way there you might be able to get them to sleep better with an Ergo, and then if you're lucky they'll keep sleeping. If they don't or on your trip back (which will be during the daytime), you just have to do anything you can to save your sanity. DH and I sometimes tag-team with the hard child, taking 1 or 2 hour shifts while the other has the easy child. Now with 3 that's a bit more difficult

But like expatmama said, all food rules go out the window. The DDs got gummy bears, goldfish, oreos, pringles, etc. They each had their little backpack with a bag of snacks in it. Like expatmama's kids, mine do not go for plane food. Bring a container of noodles, a PBJ, etc. But warning: On our flight to AND from the US this time, there was someone on board with a severe peanut allergy and they requested that no one on the flight even open anything with peanuts. So make sure you have plenty of non-peanut snacks!! For the trip there I had packed trail mix (with peanuts), granola bars (with peanuts), and peanut butter sandwiches. I also had a few non-peanut things with, but DD2 went through them all by the time we got to the US.
On the way to the US one of the flight attendants recommended we call before our flight back and get kids' meals for the kids (you have to do it at least 12 hours in advance). I did. On the flight, it turned out they had noted it as baby meals (as in - purees...), so luckily we had brought a Subway sandwich for DD1 (leftover from lunch at the airport). I sorely regretted not getting some more McD's chicken nuggets for DD2, though. Anyway, you can call the airline and ask if they have kids' meals you can order, or you can get something like McD's at the airport and bring it with you as a meal for your kids.

In general be prepared for little sleep and lots of stress, but it will only be 24 hours or less until you're at your destination. You can handle lots of stress for 24 hours. It'll be fine, and maybe even better than you expect Our flights this time were way better than I had feared, anyway!

[pinkie]

I agree that your little one will likely be more of a challenge. Is she 13 months 1 or 23 months 1? We flew when our little guy was 19 months and that was really tough, but when our older son was 13 months he wasn't too bad.

I think the others covered the big things, our bag of snacks was the favorite thing of all, our 3 year old still talks about it lol. They had fruit snacks for the first time and those were a huge hit.

Load up kindles with as many movies as you can, remember you may not have wifi so you need to own whatever you want them to watch. Practice with earphones ahead of time (our 3 year old loved them, our little guy refused them). I would not fly with a lap child again unless the child was immobile (under 1). Containing T this last flight was horrible.

The other thing is - I know it's best to have a car seat on the plane but our 3 year old freaked out so we removed and gate checked it before we took off. I was not dealing with him screaming because of the car seat. He used the lap belt and sat relatively nicely.

Make sure you have enough drinks too...and did I mention lots of snacks

[summer]

Thank you to all of you ladies - this has been immensely helpful! pinkie, our DD is 21 months. I know she is going to be tough. But she is really getting into having us read to her now so I am going to download a bunch of ebooks on their Nook tablet. expatmama, I like the idea of rotating through activities regularly. I will definitely be trying that. I'm going to try to head to the Dollar Tree sometime this week and find as many little toys as I can.

[pinkie]

Yes I forgot toys . I got the following things:

- coloring books with stickers - lots and lots of dollar store stickers (didn't take out crayons, had them just in case
- lacing cards
- this Melissa and Doug art book where you fill the pen with water and use it on the notepad
- flash cards
- travel manga doodle - this was a HUGE hit with both kids. It broke by the end of the trip but we got our money worth. The kids fought over it so if we needed one again I would buy 2.

[expatmama]

I will add that 18-36 months was the toughest. Those Melissa & Doug water books are great, but I found the crap my 1-2 year old liked was so incredibly random. One got given a free deck of cards by the flight crew and spent three hours moving cards individually from the seat, to a bag and back again. It was amazing and weird, but I would have never thought of those two items. The other one took his brother's 'Plus plus' (like random puzzle pieces you can put together in patterns) and spent hours putting them together in different ways. But he was not interested in his toys.

So if you feel helpless, try random things and you may solve the problem in a weird way too.

[Meghanfelldown]

We had 12 hours of flying each way to my sister's wedding, we left on Nicky's 2nd birthday (it was divided into 3 flights). One flight attendant was so sweet - in the galley she made bubble solution with hand soap and a bubble wand using a twist tie. It was genius!

Anyways, I totally agree with PPs. Lot of snacks and little random dollar store gifts. To make them even more exciting, wrap each one individually. That being said, I know of a toddler who spent hours putting sugar packets in and out of a paper cups on a plane. So you never know what your kids will be into.

If all else fails, keep in mind that you'll remember these flights, but none of the other passengers will.