We have always loved to travel. We had "getting through an airport" down to a perfect art! Quick and efficient! Travelling with children, however, is a totally different game! We missed the baby stage of travelling with our little boy due to a certain pandemic, but since international travel opened up, we have endeavoured to make up for lost time, and our 3 year old has been lucky to go abroad 3 times. A few people have asked me for my top tips when travelling with toddlers so I have put together some advice to try and make travelling with little ones a bit easier!
Security
As I have mentioned, we have mastered security, and always manage to zoom through. Here are my top tips. Firstly, remove any watches, belts and phones from your pockets and put them in your bag before even getting to security, so you know they are tucked in there safely. You are also required to remove any coats, boots and hats, so if you have any of these make sure you remove them in readiness - don't be the one who doesn't and holds everyone up! When packing your hand luggage at home, put all laptops, tablets, and electricals, as well as your bag of liquids all together at the top of one bag. This way you can send all your other hand luggage on its way through the scanners without even opening them. Just open the one bag and take everything out that needs to be scanned separately. Once you are through security you can always pop the correct tablets in the correct bags, but this makes it so much easier and quicker at security.
Liquids - Essentials in my liquids bag when travelling with children - individual Calpol sachets, lip balm, squeezy squash, fruit baby food pouches, a small sun cream to be able to use as soon as we get on holiday, as sometimes there is some waiting around or walking in the sun before getting to your accommodation and opening your case.
Snacks
All the snacks! We usually have almost a full hand luggage bag full of snacks. Many people don't realise that whilst you can't take liquids through security at the airport, there is no limit on food you take to consume in the airport and on the plane. Take your little one's favourite things. A tube of Pringles is an essential in our hand luggage, they seem to keep going for longer than a normal bag of crisps, and the cardboard tube stops them getting crushed in your bag.
We always have Bounty chocolate bars (controversial I know, but that coconut taste makes me feel like I'm already on holiday!), sweets (nothing individually wrapped, nothing too sticky), small individual chocolate bars like the little Kinder ones (as I can keep them handy and then don't feel bad plying my 3 year old with several over the space of the journey!), Cheese strings,- Babybel cheeses and Barney bears. This summer I bought a craft box, the sort used to store buttons or similar, and filled it with all sorts of little snacks! This kept him happy for quite a while!
There really is no restriction to what you can take, so long as it doesn't class as liquid - so no yogurt etc. I have taken baby food pouches; my son likes the fruity ones with pureed apples in - these do count as liquid but they are under 100ml so you can pop a few in your liquids bag. I think the rules are different when taking baby food and milk through for infants but we never travelled when he was an infant so I'm not sure what the rules are. I always take water bottles through with us (empty of course) to fill up at the water fountains once through security, as well as the little squeezy squash. It is also worth noting that you can't take meat and dairy into a foreign country so if you are taking sandwiches and snacks, they need to be consumed at the airport or on the plane and any leftovers disposed of before you get off.
Toys
I always take new things on holiday; it's something my mum did for me and I've always remembered the excitement of opening your bag and seeing all these new things. I don't go crazy but I tend to buy a new toy, colouring book, crayons, stickers, story book, and of course some sweets. The novelty of new things seems to extend the length of time kids are interested for! 0
Tablet
Judge me all you like, but I would not travel without my son's Amazon Kids Tablet, with loads of games, films and programmes downloaded. This keeps him entertained for at least half the flight and is invaluable. I bought some kids headphones the first time we travelled but they have a noise limit and were nowhere near loud enough to hear over the noise of the plane so I ended up buying some more adult's wireless headphones and can't recommend them enough!3
Window Seat
I always book a window seat for my son, he absolutely loves looking out the window especially on take-off. It also keeps him contained so he can't run around the cabin!
.Airplane toilets
We've all been there, it's an experience in itself. But taking a child to change his nappy, or even once toilet trained is a different experience altogether! If your child is in nappies, I would recommend taking pull-ups where you can, as there really is nowhere to lie them down to put a normal nappy on. Make sure they put their shoes on before going to the toilet, I'm pretty sure that wet floor isn't water... if you do have a later flight, I also really recommend taking pyjamas and changing them at the airport so they are ready to go straight to bed when you get to the hotel/get home.
Flight times
I am really careful about the flight times I book. Late night flights are now an absolute no no for us - and I say that from experience. On our first holiday as a family, we flew back from Greece at around 11pm. My son fell asleep in his buggy in the airport. I thought this would be all fine and that I could just carry him onto the plane and let him continue sleeping. This is not what happened. He woke up as I carried him onto the plane, and then of course the cabin crew insisted he sat in his own seat with his seat belt on, when all he wanted to do was sit on my knee and snuggle. The lights were bright, the engines were off, and he screamed the entire plane down. It was horrendous. He was so tired and agitated and just cried and cried, like any 2 year old who has just been woken up would. After what felt like an eternity we taxied and he did go back to sleep, but since that flight I swore we would never fly that late again. The other side of it meant he slept the whole 4-hour plane journey, and then the whole 2-hour car journey home, as well as having had a few hours in the airport, so when we got home at about 4am, desperately ready for our beds, he was wide awake and ready for the day! I would now pay extra for a better flight time, and for our next holiday we flew home at a time which meant we arrived home for our beds at 10pm! Much better and well worth the money!
Safety
Something I will just touch on as I know a lot of people are nervous about keeping little ones safe at the airport and the worry of taking them somewhere so busy. There are a few things I do to put my mind at ease a little. Firstly, I recommend taking a full length picture of your children (usually they will have a nice new travel outfit on anyway so this is a good excuse to get a picture of them looking lovely before they spill their lunch down it!) This could be so useful if your children do go missing at the airport, as you can show the picture around and everyone knows exactly who they are looking for. I also ordered a personalised ID bracelet with my phone number on which my son wears whenever we go anywhere busy - he likes to wear it as he knows it means we are going somewhere fun! He also knows that if he gets lost or separated from us, he can show his bracelet to someone and they can call us to collect him. The one we have is from a company called Easy2Name. It is just printed with "Call my mum" and my phone number.
So those are my top tips for travelling with toddlers, and believe me I am still learning. I would love to hear any more top tips you can add, please add yours in the comments.
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