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We have a family holiday coming up in September; my 2 year old daughter, my missis & I along with my mum & dad.
Flights are about 9 hours each way.
We have flown down to Portugal with the spawn last year when she would have been about 9 months old and she was generally OK - but only 3 or 4 hours.
What advice does the hive mind have about long haul flights with small people?
We have a well stocked tablet with her favourite shows (who knew Hey Duggee was so good!?!) & we have been buying little cheap toys that we'll wrap up to provide some novelty. Valium didn't go down well as a legitimate suggestion.
I await your crafty ideas...
Over to you
Book the sex trophy onto a flight with your mum & dad and book a different flight for you and the misses.
Do you have a dog create? I believe the hold is both pressurised and heated.
Phenergen
Noise cancelling headphones and a decent wine list usually helps.
😉
Nintendo DS
iPad, charger and double espresso for the kid. Sleeping tablets and alcohol for the adults. Give the kid the window seat and lock them in with the car seat.
Kennels.
Attach them to the plane by a kite with a long piece of string.
Long haul flights have TV's with computer games. They'll be fine.
We travelled about six hours with our two year old a few years back. He was OK amazingly. Ipad etc. I'd already resigned myself to the fact that if he did go full cocoa bananas mid-flight, there's not a great deal I could do about it stuck inside a metal tube at 35,000ft anyway. He wouldn't be the first kid to annoy people on a flight and he wouldn't be the last!
I think most people really enjoy being on a long haul flight with a screaming 2 year old, I know I've always really appreciated it.
It sounds like you have got it covered quite well. I would recommend something for them to snack on when taking off and coming into land. The change of altitude can be painful on little ears and chewing alleviates it. Good luck.
We're been to Oman and Seychelles both when ours was under 2 (heading to Cuba in a month, he's 3 now but his little bro is only 3 months old)
You can get inflatable bags that fill the footwell, turn the seat into basically a bed. Look on amazon. Well worth it. Take lots of healthy snacks (not too much sugar), some new water pen colouring books.
These kits are good or just get the things listed in them. https://www.keepemquiet.com/
Assume that (even with an overnight flight) the won't sleep. I'd load longer shows onto the tablet too, Thomas movies and the gruffalo/stick man were good for ours. Take volume-limiting over the ear headphones (I think jvc do em)
Leave the sprog with friends or family and return the favour one day yourselves. Unless it's a private plane in which case hand the sprog over to the help.
Remember that once the tablet knows it is outside the UK, iPlayer stops working. Make sure you keep it in flight mode the whole trip.
IPlayer via fine along as you download before you go ,
Netflix is more challenging ...
IPlayer downloads work fine when you're abroad, you just can't download more or stream new
Phenergen.....this stuff. I just wish someone had told us about it before we embarked on a 6 hour flight.... All the other kids were sleeping like babies but not ours..oh no.
Tell her there’s a screaming competition up the front of the plane. Test out Flashy’s QC35s...
A bottle of water, filled 50:50 vodka and water...
Take a max hand luggage size hard wheeled case containing a pillow and blanket. Give the two year old the window seat. When it’s sleep time, make a bed with the case in the footwell. Mine’s older now but we used this a lot with the annual Aus-Europe trips.
What advice does the hive mind have about long haul flights with small people?
I would double check that every holiday destination in Europe had somehow vanished.
Poor folk letting the kids stay up all night eating hulla hoops and watching paw patrol. ****less and irresponsible.
Middle class folk wedging a child into a plane footwell, drugged, to watch pawpatrol for 12 hours while eating haribo. Aspirational. It's madness that somehow flies under the radar.
I don't think you should take kids that age on long haul, as you say if they scream for ten hours there is nothing you can do. Call me selfish....
A guy at my work did this with two very small kids was dead proud of their system. They booked two blocks of two seats at either end of economy class so that "if one kid kicks off we can take turns and one of us gets sleep". Thanks, thanks so much.
We are flying Sydney - Gatwick on Wednesday next week with a 3 year old and a 7 month old.... I'll let you know how we get on.
The 3 year old has flown quite a bit - this is the first time he has her own seat. I've bought her some headphones, loaded an old iPad up with Hey Duggee/peppa pig/paw patrol, and we've also bought one of those inflatable blocks to put in the footwear so she can lie flat ("plane pal" or something). She has slept pretty well on the journey previously - not crying or screaming, so we're hopeful.
Etch-a-sketch worked well too, as do re-stickable sticker books.
The 7 month old will be in the basinet
I genuinely can not see why you would put a 2 yr old, yourself or passengers through the torture of a long haul flight just for the sake of the annual holiday.
Plenty of nice parts of the world within 2hrs on an aeroplane
If you go phenergen, do a test run first, apparently it can make some kids hyper rather than sleepy. We carried it on a flight to australia along time ago when we had two under 2's so they would at least sleep some of the time but didn't end up using it.
Perhaps that's because you lack sufficient imagination/empathy?
We are travelling back to the UK to visit family, and so our parents can see their grandchildren.
apparently it can make some kids hyper rather than sleepy
Yeah, thats what we heard too - not that we were completely comfortable using it anyway
guy at my work did this with two very small kids was dead proud of their system. They booked two blocks of two seats at either end of economy class so that “if one kid kicks off we can take turns and one of us gets sleep”. Thanks, thanks so much.
If you don't like sitting with society as a whole. There is always the front of the plane.
Once the noise cancellers are on I can't hear the baby anyway.
-many of the children I've experianced on flights have been better behaved than some of the adults anyhoo.
Thanks for all the replies - some hilarious, some really useful and then the rest.
I'm not justifying our family's holiday destination choice - if I wanted advice about holiday destinations I'd have asked about that!
There's plenty of food for thought & some of you have really made me laugh. Others I just roll my eyes at!
Cheers, Paul
I have an overabundance of empathy, for the 100 other people being kept awake by screaming. If the kid is too young to keep quiet, how will he be old enough to know or care or remember meeting the grandparents a year earlier? No fun for the kids, no fun for the parents, no fun for the rest of the plane. How about some empathy for them?
Climate crisis? What climate crisis? Maybe your 2 year old will thank you when all grown up for the family holiday they can't even remember. They'll think the complete lack of natural world was well worth it.
#selfishbastards
My eye rolling continues. As you were, hand wringers!
If you don’t like sitting with society as a whole...
Don’t use public transport?