Traveling with a Toddler | traveling with toddlers

Feb 25, 2019 by Molly

I can’t tell you how often I hear it: “How do you do it so happily?” “How do you travel by plane with a toddler?”

The long and the short is, I love to travel. I love airports. I love flying. I love that feeling you get when you get off the plane in your destination and realize you no longer need your winter coat. I love airport wine bars and their excellent people watching. I love hopping on and off the people moving conveyor belts. I even love the exhilaration of racing to your gate to not miss your flight. I like talking to the TSA agents. (You know most people don’t even say hello to them?)  

I just love to travel and I want my kids to love to travel too. Traveling with a toddler doesn’t have to be a headache if you have the right mindset and maybe more importantly, the right tools.

How to travel with a toddler

Have a good attitude.

Seriously, you’re about to travel with a tiny tornado. (Or in our case TWO tiny tornados) There are bound to be mishaps, likely a poop explosion (hopefully the baby’s and not your own), some hanger episodes, and a meltdown or two. That’s ok. They’re children. Not only do your fellow passengers expect and understand it, but its likely they will offer some help too. I have never, ever, been in an airport or on a plane with those jerks you see in the headlines. No one has ever commented on my child’s behavior. More often than not, people offer to help. I’ve had strangers fold up my stroller for me, so that I don’t have to juggle 20 things and grandmotherly types on the airplane play peek-a-boo with my kid for an hour long flight. I believe most people are good. I know, I say that a bunch on this blog. But, it’s true. Most people are happy to see your kid. Now, as long as you have a good attitude about the situation, things will go as smoothly as can be expected.

Give yourself plenty of time.

Really. Like way more time than you think you’ll need. TSA with the kids is a hassle. (No matter what kind of good attitude you have about it.)

You are allowed to take breast milk, formula, juice, water, milk, snacks, baby food, baby food pouches, fruit, etc. for your kids in excess of the TSA liquid rule. You can also take those frozen freezer packs to keep your things cool but they must be COMPLETELY frozen when you go through security, not a little slushy. This is all awesome. But, expect that you will have to undergo extra screening to do so. Sometimes they will need to swab your things, other times they may go through your entire carry-on. Make sure you are prepared for either event. If they take everything out of your bag, you will have to repack it, shoeless and beltless with your pants falling down, while holding a child. Be prepared and be proactive. I always pack in these mesh bags inside my carry on. That way, everything has it’s place and I can easily stuff it all back in my bag later.

We’ve talked before about my awesome back-pack diaper bag. I love that it has stroller clips so that I don’t have to carry it through the airport. Also, its big enough that many of these mesh bags will fit inside it. Find yourself a great diaper backpack. I would 100% say you need this one that we have, and you can buy it here. I’m obsessed with it.

Check the car seat.

I know. I know. I know. People worry that the carseat will get damaged when it’s tossed about with the luggage. People say that the impacts it receives are just like it being in a car accident. If you think this, then by all means bring it with you and buy your kid a seat on the plane to put the car seat in. (If you’re headed over seas you should buy your kid their own seat anyway because the flight is so long you will want the extra room for sure). However, for short, domestic flights I cannot stomach the idea of paying for a seat for my kids who are under 2. They fly for free folks. Take advantage of the cheap travel while you can.

You can check your car seat (and your stroller if you wanted to) for free when you check your luggage. Get yourself a sturdy, car seat protector and send that sucker on its way. We have this one, and have had zero issues when we travel. Also, we are able to buckle a package of diapers into the car seat which offers some support for the straps and also saves us space in our luggage. (We’ve also been known to tuck our kid’s jackets, blankets and teddy bears into their car seat as well before we check it. I hear this is totally against the rules, but no one has mentioned it to us at the check in counter yet soooooo….)

Airlines have loaner car seats if yours happens to get lost. (They are gross so bring your Lysol wipes, but they are free and yours will turn up sooner or later).

Don’t check your stroller.

Buy a gate check bag for it and then take the stroller with you through the airport. It gives you so many more options of what to do with your kid if you have a long layover. (On direct flights I have checked my stroller too and worn my baby in a baby carrier, but when I have a layover it is nice to have. Especially true now that we have two kids.) You can push your luggage around in the stroller when your toddler needs to walk and burn off energy and if gives you a place to securely store your kid so you can eat, or pee, or whatever. If you’ve ever tried to pee while wearing your kid in a baby carrier you can see the necessity of bringing the stroller with you to the bathroom. The baby-carrier-pee is totally doable when your baby is just a little nugget, but when your toddler is in the baby carrier and flailing around like a fish on the riverbank, trying to pee becomes more like attempting a complicated yoga pose, on a surfboard, in a hurricane.

Anyway, when you get to your gate, simply fold up the stroller and stuff it in the bag. Then, they will store it under the plane for you and it will be waiting outside the plane’s door when you get off in your next destination. Easy, peasy.

Keep your sanity while traveling with a toddler with snacks.

So many snacks. We have these snack cups and these snack cup leashes that we bring whenever we travel. They are so helpful to keep snacks off grimy airplane floors and stop the problem where your kid’s cup rolls all the way to the front of the airplane. I also bring a weekly medicine dispenser filled with tiny snacks because it serves two purposes: food, of course, and entertainment. There is nothing my toddler likes more than opening and closing things over and over and over and…. These little doors snap open and closed nicely. She can grab a goldfish and then snap the door shut. Rinse. Repeat.

We have these tiny, toy bags which I fill with a 10 minute activity. We then rotate through them throughout the flight. Some things my littles really enjoy:

• pulling post-it notes off the stack and sticking them to the window or to the seat tray
• taking things out of one container and putting them into another container
• coloring with these magic color markers (they only color on the provided paper and not the seat tray!)
• Things with buttons
• These quiet time books (my mother in law made us one, but there are beautiful ones available on ETSY. Ive been trying to convince my MIL to sell them too….someday perhaps).
• Books with flaps.

When all else fails

…we download a few shows from Netflix onto our phones. We bought these really cool head phones for our kiddos. They Velcro on so they fit tiny heads, and they have a volume limit so that they don’t hurt little ears.

And…order the wine.

An inflight beverage makes everything better. We like to fly delta comfort because for a few more dollars the extra leg room and free adult beverages make it totally worth it.

Good luck on your trip. Traveling with kids is definitely a challenge, but so rewarding too. The more they travel the better they will become at it. Frequent flyers are less frequent criers, I think.

Happy trails friends.

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