Long Haul Airplane Travel With Young Kids, Part 2: What to Bring

This photo is of La Jolla Girl standing at the edge of her reclined seat watching Handy Manny on the airplane TV. She did this for hours and was 17 months old.  To start from the beginning of this series, please see part 1.

Cleaning: The first thing I do when I get to our seats is take an antibacterial wet wipe type thing and wipe off everything that La Jolla Girl or I could possibly touch in our zone.  I think the key word here is “antibacterial”.  Burts Bees make a hand sanitizer spray that I sometimes use or Wet Ones has antibacterial wipes.  Sometimes I use both together.  The ONE time I forgot to do this before she had touched a bunch of stuff, she came down with a flu that almost landed us in the hospital.  Might be coincidence, but it doesn’t hurt to be a clean freak.  You will get odd looks from other passengers, however, when you’re doing this! If you’re fast, this takes about a minute or two at the most. So bring whatever antibacterial you like.

Snacks:  Asian airlines tend to be a little bit more relaxed regarding the “strap your kid in the seat” type rules on takeoff and landing.  La Jolla Girl is not cooperative, typically, because she lacks patience.  Sometimes, I just have to hold her or do whatever it takes to keep her quiet, which the flight attendants on these airlines are nice enough to understand.  What usually worked when she was little, was stuffing her full of snacks while praying there was no turbulence right after take off so I could quickly release her to do whatever.   Now she’s interested in the actual airplane taxing and taking off so that’s enough along with a packet of Goldfish.  Do pack a motherload of snacks, even the kind you swear you’d never let them eat in abundance.  If they want to eat it, and it won’t make them sick, then really just lighten up and allow it.  We once went through three tubes of Puffs on one 9 hour flight.  She didn’t cry once the entire flight.  That’s a lot of puffs for a baby, but it was worth it.

DVD player w/external batteries:  This brings me to another point.  You might disagree, but I personally think that you must do whatever it takes for you and your fellow passengers to survive this long, long flight together.  If you don’t let your kid watch TV at home, on the airplane is not the time to keep reinforcing that rule.  If it keeps little traveler in the seat, you really should do it for the sake of everyone involved.  In fact, we started bringing a DVD player with all sorts of DVDs as soon as she was interested in that kind of thing.  I also bought extra external batteries so that we never, ever have a time that the DVD runs out of steam.  In business class now, there are plugs  (at least on Cathay) so you don’t have to worry about this sort of thing.  The DVD player saves my life because she and I know the DVDs I bring are going to be of interest.  I thought that the Disney channel on one airline once was “good enough” but she’d never seen the shows before and it just didn’t hold her attention.  Lesson learned.  Also if you are flying business or first class, the TV might be too far away (like on Japan Airlines) for a young child.  Also, remember that batteries never last as long as they say.  My external battery is supposed to last 8 hours and it’s usually 5 (which is still a long time for an external battery).   Big difference.  Be over prepared.

***In Case of Meltdown***: The best trick I can give you is the following:  take about 5-6 very light weight, cheap presents on the plane.  When La Jolla girl starts to fuss, I bust one out.  This works because just the process of opening a gift resets her mood.  That’s what these gifts are, actually, a giant reset button.  Any human being will be prone to some fussiness on a long haul flight so expect your little traveler to at some point, express his or her “are we there yet” or “I’m SO tired” thoughts.  These presents are usually stuff like new stickers, pop up book, toy, or something like that.  You could even wrap them in multiple layers of wrapping paper to “drag” out the process.  Kids love presents, right?  Once I even wrapped a few toys that she already had and it yielded the same effect!  I probably am really paranoid about stopping crying immediately on these flights because of the large number of people trying to sleep, and how important sleep on these flight was to me when I was flying sans kids.

The one thing that makes me crazy, is when parents don’t have control over their kids on the airplane.  Under no circumstances should you allow your kid to kick the back of the seat, period.  I can’t believe how many parents let this happen.  Also, you really should keep your kid from invading someone else’s personal space on the plane unless he or she is invited to.  This bugs me too.  I don’t have sympathy for this kind of stuff anymore, because I’ve flown with my kid so much.  I watched a little boy bug the heck out of a business man trying to use his laptop on one flight and his parents did nothing to stop it.

Meals: What one baby/kid eats in one country may not be what your little traveller eats.   This is another reason to bring a motherload of snacks.  La Jolla Girl has had some very bizarre airplane kids meals.  The one that really cracked me up is her dinner once was potato salad, tiramisu, a little bit of fruit, oreos, chocolate, gummy bears,chocolate milk and some other stuff like that.   She was barely 1 year old at the time.  I sent this crazy meal back (well not really, I ate the oreos,etc) and then just re ordered her some noodles.   If you’re in business or first class, you can request whatever you want whenever you want, however,  there will be times when even the flight attendants have to sit down and service is stopped.  So still have plenty of snacks within reach.  You probably should bring your own jarred baby food.  Even though some airlines provide this (in my experience) it’s not the time for baby to try new food if they don’t happen to stock something you’re used to.  Imagine an allergic reaction 33,000 feet in the air.  I remember asking specifically what kinds of jarred food they have and I was not able to receive a clear answer.  It’s nice that they do that though and La Jolla Girl did eat provided jarred food that she was already familiar with.

Change of Clothes/Diapers:  In addition to what I’ve already mentioned, I also pack a change of clothes for myself and several changes of clothes for La Jolla Girl.  I have needed the clothing changes.  I had a baby with acid reflux.  I remember one time she vomited during landing.  I was holding her in a Maya Wrap sling so that my arms could be relatively free.  The sling caught all of the vomit, but I just had to sit there until the plane reached the gate.  Luckily it was milk, it didn’t stink, and no one saw.

I usually survive without looking like a complete vagabond, if I’m wearing black or dark colors.  Black hides all sorts of sins.   It was SO MESSY flying when she first started eating solid food.  I also once made the mistake of wearing drawstring pants.   Not a good idea to try to tie your pants in an airplane bathroom while juggling a baby/toddler.  I couldn’t do it so I sort of held them up while trying to get back to my seat and I’m pretty sure someone got a show.  Go with elastic.

I pack more diapers than I’ll ever need.  Reason being I have a fear of being on one of those flights stuck on the tarmac for hours and hours and running out.  This happened to someone I know.  Once I was supposed to get a diaper pack on the plane and they ran out.  Or if La Jolla Girl were to eat something bizarre or pick up some quick bug that would have her going through diaper after diaper while on the plane, I want to be prepared.  I pack toys, DVDS, crayons, paper, and all sorts of stuff I think she might “need”.  I usually have 2 enormous carry on bags, in case you’re wondering.  I always managed just fine and remember, I was almost always sans husband.

Medications: I’ll get to this and other drug store items  in the next post since it’s important and slightly controversial.

Last but not least, I suggest you enjoy the free wine.  Let it flow.

Next up in Part 3: travel gear and getting your little traveller to sleep on the airplane.  I’ll write up a more organized packing list for the last post as there are more items I’ll talk about next time! What do you bring on the plane?  Please leave a comment.

Here are links to the rest of the series:
Long Haul Airplane Travel With Young Kids, Part 1: Planning Your Flight and Jet Lag.
Long Haul Travel With Young Kids, Part 3: Getting Little Traveler to Sleep on the Plane and Gear
Long Haul Airplane Travel With Young Kids, Part 4: The Packing List and Last Thoughts

Tagged as: Airplane, Baby, Kids, Long Haul Travel With Kids, Travel