In the next few months I am going to be travelling from New Zealand over to the UK with my husband and my toddler son. He will be around 20 months of age when we are travelling.
We will be on a flight for 24 hours (with a short stopover each way for a couple of hours) and then will be doing a far bit of long distance driving when we are in the UK.
I am so looking forward to finally introducing my son to his extended family and our friends from the UK. His grandmothers are also each desperate to get their hands back on him too :-)
But I have to be honest and say that with the excitement comes a dose of nervousness as well. My son is usually reasonably behaved in public but stuck on a plane for 24 hours? Is he going to turn into a screaming, unhappy boy? I really hope not and this is where I hope YOU can help me...
I'm really keen to pick up tips and hints from parents who have been there so if you have any wisdom to share on travelling with kids (generically and also specifically toddlers) please get in touch :-) You can leave me a comment here or email me at katie(at)mummy-adventures(dot)com
Ideally what I'd like to do is collate these tips (with links back to you if you have a blog/web space) as well as adding my own (once I've been there and done that) into a blog post here at Mummy Adventures later on so let me know if you'd be keen for that too :-)
And I'll select one of the contributors to get a wee something from the UK (perhaps some Scottish Tablet or English seaside rock or something similar!)
And now I am hoping to sit back and watch the advice flooding in....please help me :-)....
thats a long flight for a young kid. try to tire him out before the flight, so he sleeps at least a bit on it, no way he would sleep the whole time. if he likes to colour, bring lots of crayons and colouring books to help distract him, also any picture books he likes to look at.
ReplyDeleteon one flight i was on, a parent brought one of those small portable dvd players and the kids favourite movies to distract them. not sure of the battery life on them tho.
the take off and landing will probably hurt his ears :( what works for older people, sucking on candy, chewing gum, is not usually a good thing for a toddler to do, so you could teach him to hold his nose and blow like he is blowing his nose, will help pop his ears, i have seen people get their kids to do this, but not 100% sure you could get a toddler to.
if you make the flight a game and something that is fun, he shouldn't freak out too much. he might just be so tired from all the travelling you wont have to worry about him crying a lot
Oooo...Simone did a big thing on this...let me tap her (I should search her blog, but I'm SURE she would pop over)...
ReplyDelete