Keeping a toddler occupied on an aeroplane

It can be such a daunting task to pack for young children when you are going on holiday, regardless of whether it's for a few weeks or just a couple of days. Babies and toddlers seem to need so much stuff and it's difficult to get the balance right between packing too much or too little. When packing for a holiday, we tend to pack in order of importance; we start with absolute necessities and work from there and leave things we will probably be able to buy when we reach our destination (like nappies, wipes etc.) until last. Clothes are an obvious must and to minimise the amount we need to take, we tend to pack items that will mix and match. I also try to plan the children's outfits as much as possible, so that I pack only what we will need rather than just shoving a load of their clothes into a suitcase.

Then there's the issue of keeping your child occupied during the journey to the holiday destination. We're travelling to Disneyland on Tuesday (YAY!), so we'll have 2hr car journey, followed by a long wait at the airport, followed by a flight and then a transfer to our hotel. There's always 'I spy' but if your car journeys are anything like ours, you'll find that it keeps your children occupied for all of 5 minutes and then they'll be the usual "Are we there yet?" and "How much further is it?" 1000 times over.

This will be Tommy (and Isla's) first trip on an aeroplane and so we're not sure how they'll feel about being in the air. Luckily, we're breaking them in gently with a short flight (approximately 1 and 1/2 hours I think), so if they don't like it, it won't be like they'll have to endure it for a long time and hopefully we'll have enough tricks up our sleeves to keep them entertained. It's a tricky task with Tommy at the moment because he currently has an attention span equivalent to that of a gnat!

I am currently working on ways of occupying Tommy on the car journey that don't involve reading/ writing (a precautionary measure for avoiding potential travel sickness) so I may write a related post on that if I get round to it (this is probably not very likely, considering all the preparation and packing I need to do, but you never know...) We've got both flights pretty much sussed though, so I thought I'd share with you our ideas for keeping Tommy busy.

With it being Tommy's first flight, I thought we try and make it as exciting as possible for him. Despite me being quite a nervous flyer, I don't want Tommy to pick up on this and become this way himself. I want him to thoroughly enjoy the experience. In order to help with this, I've bought him a new backpack for all of his in-flight goodies and entertainment.

We've thought very carefully about what to put in his backpack for the flight. Anything you intend to take onboard a flight, either for a child or yourself needs to be lightweight and portable, so we took this into account when packing.

The obvious choice for us was a small collection of busy bags. If you don't know what a busy bag is, it's a small bag with a little activity inside for your child to complete, either independently or with support from an adult. We use busy bags regularly when we're out and about, when I know we're going somewhere where there'll be a lot of waiting around, when we're going on a journey or when we're away on holiday. I keep a couple handy in my bag at all times.

The list of possibilities for busy bags is endless - just run a search on Pinterest and an overwhelming amount of ideas will come up. Here are the busy bags we chose to include in Tommy's flight bag:

Bendy straws and felt squares with holes for a bit of fine-motor practise

 

A felt Mr/Mrs Potato Head with two boards for sticking them onto

 

Foam lacing cards and coloured laces

 

Numbered lego blocks for building/number counting/ordering/addition and subtraction

 

Fine-motor pattern copying cards - just laminated cards that can be written on, wiped clean and reused

 

Foam noughts and crosses set, sliding puzzles and marble mazes (found on eBay/Amazon)

 

A set of dry-wipe letter formation practise cards (Early Learning Centre)

 

As well as these, we've put in some pocket books - we're enjoying Jane Hissey books at the moment.

 

 

 Also in Tommy's flight bag, we've put a pack of cards and then a cardholder for little hands.

 

 

We love nothing better in our house than to sit doing a jigsaw, but jigsaws are usually big, bulky items that aren't really suitable for taking on holiday. So we've placed two of Tommy's jigsaws in sealable clear plastic bags. I chose these two in particular because they have lots of small pieces, so they should keep him busy for a while!

 

 

 

 And that's the lot, minus a few snacks! We'll put half of these in Tommy's bag for the flight there and the other half will be put in on the way home. That way, he'll have something new to do for each journey. I'm hoping they'll be enough to keep Tommy entertained/distracted if he doesn't like flying. Failing that, we can always resort to the TV. I'll let you know how successful it is. In the meantime, I'd love to hear how you keep your children entertained during long car/aeroplane journeys. Do you have any tips as to how/what you pack?