have kids, will travel

Originally posted by Naomi at Barnikle

We’ve spent quite a lot of time this year in planes, in cars, trains, on bikes just getting around and going places. Late last year, before we left Australia, I couldn’t even get my head around the idea of living away for a year because I was totally focused on getting through the first, awful 24 hours on the plane. As it happens, that flight wasn’t so bad all things considered (’all things’ being that Sophie had approximately 5 hours of sleep in the 36 hour period before we landed at LHR, including the hour long nap she’d had at home before we got on the plane). We learnt a few tricks – mostly involving lollies, biscuits and inflight entertainment about keeping the kids happy on the plane.

Since then we’ve taken a lot of short flights of up to 3 hours and a couple of longer flights around six hours, most with varying success at not being *THOSE* people with *THAT* child – with one vivid exception on the flight from Spain to England. Sophie had recently turned two, which meant she had to have her own seat (and sit in it for take off and landing) for the first time, which meant between us we needed four seats on a plane that was configured with 3seats on either side of the aisle. It made sense to split up 2 and 2 across an aisle and hope that the flight wasn’t so full that we didn’t have people in the third seat. As it happened, I did get someone else in my row, owing to the proximity of some old bloke who apparently sang in Spandau Ballet or something, and the girl who sat near me said she didn’t mind sitting next to a child (she was just desperate to get the old bloke’s autograph). Ha ha. I bet she was less happy by the time we landed. Sophie was VERY unhappy about having to sit in her own seat for take off and landing and screamed for a good 30 minutes (it felt more like hours) from the time the seatbelt sign flicked on until we had taxied into the terminal. It was probably my second-worst-case flying scenario (the first involves copious amounts of bodily fluids in addition to the previous situation – thankfully, we’ve never experienced that) and in spite of the trauma at the time, it wasn’t really that big a deal in the end. Also thankfully, we haven’t had a repeat of that level of distress on a plane again either.

Funnily enough, since all the traveling we did over summer, the children often play the ‘aeroplane’ game, where they pack a little bag of colouring in and assorted toys, then sit in seats next to each other and play, and eat snacks from a tray. They spend hours playing it, good practice for our flight home in a few months.

There are a lot of websites that list helpful tips for traveling with children, and I’ve always been one to run with the herd, so here are mine:

• Try to pack as light as possible. Even with taxis or airport-to-hotel transfers, it is still a pain in the neck to lug baggage, pushchairs, children and husbands around the place. To that end, if you use a travel cot beg, borrow or steal an ultra-light, folds-up-tiny one. We use a Phil&Teds T2 and it’s well worth the outlay for the convenience of not having a huge amount of extra luggage.
• Don’t take a thousand and one different activities in your hand luggage to entertain children on flights. I know lots of people say to pack little wrapped gifts to make the flight fun and blah blah blah but honestly, it was really just a hassle to rummage through a packed-to-the-gills backpack to find a pencil or a DVD. In the end, a few crayons and a pad of paper, plus a DVD on a laptop covered most of our flights easily. Anything more just ended up getting in the way, not getting used, falling on the floor … However, one exception to the pack lightly rule – take (at least) a spare tshirt for EVERYONE. Me, Sophie, vomit, JFK airport before boarding a long haul flight – that’s all I have to say about that.
• If in doubt, take a pushchair. Especially if you’ll be doing a lot of walking. On most flights we’ve been allowed to take our small umbrella strollers right to the gate, and often right onto the plane. And they always come in handy to hang bags on the handles and shove extraneous purchases in the basket when you’re out and about.
• Jet-lag … On the plane we take sleep whenever we can get it. Trying to control when the children sleep is pointless and doesn’t really seem to work so we just let them sleep as much as possible during the actual flight. Most of our long haul flights have had us arriving at our destination early in the morning. Once we arrive we aim to limit day time sleeps to no more than a couple of hours and to be awake by early afternoon, get outside as much as possible the first couple of days, try to get to bed as close to the usual time and so far this has worked quite well for us. We make the kids stay in bed until a reasonable time in the morning, and resettle them back to sleep for any overnight wake-ups rather than letting them get up and play, eat or whatever.

We’re now only 3 and a half months away from heading back home, and I’ve discovered that the best way to approach traveling with children is to just relax and take each day as it comes. Routines have to be adjusted and compromises made but it’s really just for a short time and things DO get back to normal. It’s worth it!

Filed Under: Family