While we gear up for our summer vacation and travel plans, there’s one thing that we can all definitely agree on, whether we have children or not, is that nothing is more of a headache for all parties involved than a restless child on an airplane mid-flight.
Even if it’s a quick 45 minute flight, it can feel endless and days long if we don’t strategize on how to entertain and comfort our little ones beforehand. It’s not the best way to begin your vacation by spending all night packing, rushing to the airport and then once you finally made it on board only to find that you’re now in a pricey prison with your child. Nobody wants that so let’s put the effort into prior to and we’ll all be happier for it. Trust, it’s worth it. So, we’ve done the heavy lifting on this one and gathered some of our very favorite ten ways to keep your child occupied during a flight.
They can often find themselves with a wide range of emotions including boredom, nervousness, physical pain and discomfort – so we must attempt to circumvent all of these, so here we go!
1. Embrace all levels of comfort. Despite the fact that we might be doing an international runway down the airport aisles, we all know that it’s simply best to dress as comfortably as possible to maximize our ability to deal with those small, enclosed seats on the plane. This should be embraced by your child’s wardrobe as well. Keep them cozy with loose fitting clothes and this will get us all off to a good start.
2. Take that level of comfort one step further and make it a priority to have space and a hand to carry a small pillow, blanket and perhaps even their favorite stuffed animal alongside them. If you can encourage sleep, that might just be your best bet to try first.
3. Handle the ear popping situation however your pediatrician suggests is best. Consider having a test run or two at home so that your child knows what to expect and how to handle it. Try to break down what will happen xo that they aren’t completely surprised and caught off guard.
4. We all get bored on planes, even when we have access to every movie, tv show and piece of music, after the 4th, 5th, 6th hour – it can just get too real and even us adults find ourselves itching for the flight to be over, constantly checking the clock. So, following this thought, we suggest saving those iPads as the very last resort, that way they’re still special when introduced when you really need it, like halfway through the flight when screaming can pop-up out of nowhere simply due to restlessness. Instead of embracing all the entertainment that the internet has to offer (don’t forget to download shows beforehand unless you don’t mind paying for that in-flight wifi) instead you should first begin with some quiet creativity, such as bringing along lots of paper, markers, tape, kid-safe scissors, photos, magazines – anything that can potentially occupy them for as long as possible
5. So, what to do if they are wide awake and over the creativity for this particular ride in the sky? This is when you can use your saving grace – visual entertainment. If you know your little one really loves a particular show, be sure to keep that in your back pocket as your last resort. They may have shown interest in another movie or show and this could be a special treat for them to be able to watch.
6. Now, we know that this next idea can create a whole lot of eye-rolling, because nothing is worse than attempting to use too much logic and too many rules on a child, but sometimes it can come in handy. This is another idea that works best when you’ve already done a few trial runs and it doesn’t hurt to use in your regular life either – breathing and meditation techniques. We’d all sometimes be surprised how, even as adults, once our breathing patterns go awry, our emotions usually follow suit. If you practice breathing exercises before, this could be the perfect little insert into your other activities on the plane. Remember, you don’t have to wait until everyone is in full panic mode – you can incorporate breathing exercises into you and your family’s lives in small ways, such as a simple deep breath check-in where you ask them to pause and take three deep breaths. It can do wonders to reset us all.
7. You know best if and when your child resonates best with listening to music. Perhaps you leave this for last or you know that is as an absolute go-to. However works best for you, consider making a playlist for your child ahead of time and bring those kid-safe headphones along too.
8. One quite easy method of preoccupying your child is none other than eating. This is one of the tasks that you truly should attempt to plan ahead with. Be sure to bring their favorite snacks, with a few different meal options, as we all know that airplane food isn’t typically the most child friendly, so this is one element of travel that the parental traveler cannot really improvise on.
9. If you have multiple children or are traveling with multiple children, be sure to have duplicates of the most popular items, be it food or entertainment. If there’s only one ipad or set of headphones for four children to fight over, we know this is not going to go well. The investment will be worth it on this one, just trust us. You’ll likely use many of these tools over and over again.
10. Last but not least, consider purchasing a child’s eye mask for sleeping. Eye masks, which are designed to block out all light, can help to calm and minimize distractions for your child. You can treat this as a special and fun spa experience for your child and fingers crossed for us all that they will embrace this likely uncommon sleeping experience for them.
Let us not forget that your child can pick up on your emotions and often react directly to them, so if you get a good night’s sleep, plan ahead of time and attempt to remain calm and in control, then they will often pick up on your energy and react accordingly. If everything goes left and nothing works, just remember that we’ve all been there and if we haven’t, we likely will. With every flight, “this too shall pass” but preparation will likely save you a whole lot of sanity!
