Flying with a 3 year old

[sean-1966]

Does anybody have any ideas for keeping a playful 3 year old busy on a plane for 2.5 hours? We're flying pretty early so I'm hoping she'll sleep through the flight down but what about the flight back?

 

[surfer_ed]

Portable DVD player. Well worth the extra cash. Just flew with our 2.5 year old and it worked like a dream going down, had technical issues coming back and although she is very well behaved it was a LONG flight.

 

[BitsnBearsMom]

New crayons or even better mini crayola twistables and a new colouring book and stickers, new books to read, new smallish toys that can be played with sitting (my little pony, polly pocket if putting it in her mouth isn't a concern) Portable DvD player with a new movie, MP3 with some of her music on it, lots of snacks, eye spy, duct tape??

I'm sure the flight will go by very fast - my guys are always too interested looking around to get bored but they are older at 7yo and 13yo. Leapster might be something to consider also - it's a great educational game system that keeps them occupied for ages.

 

[nelljay1973]

I consider myself an expert on flying with kids...try flying 24+ hrs to Australia with no stopovers!

Portable DVD players work great, as do leap pads, crayons, magna doodle, and what surprised me last time was that I bought loads of junk from the dollar store and DS thought it was the best..because as you know kids love presents!

You will need to occupy them while taxiing on the runway, my DS has a problem with keeping his seatbelt on so we constantly had to play games with him to keep him occupied until you are permitted to use electronic devices.

 

[F4disneyfan]

Does anybody have any ideas for keeping a playful 3 year old busy on a plane for 2.5 hours? We're flying pretty early so I'm hoping she'll sleep through the flight down but what about the flight back?

When my oldest flew down at 3 she just slept across the seats the plane wasn't full so they just layed her on teh seats and she slept the whole time.

 

[drag n' fly]

We used a portable dvd player for our 5 hour flight from Calgary to Orlando and back in February. Our youngest and last just turned 4 in December. We also went to the dollar store and bought some neat stuff. I wrapped each one individually and allowed him to unwrap them one at a time when needed. New fav coloring book, disney sticker book and fav finger foods.

 

[tribus121]

we allso bought a bag full of stuff at the dollar store so that when our dd got bored with something on our flight south we could dig out something new we allso had a bunch of single serving sized treats

 

[OntFamily]

We found the vibration of the engines always lull our son to sleep. It's rare he'll stay awake an entire flight (one exception -- leaving Orlando last year on a flight with roughly 25% of the passengers under 8 -- a very loud flight).

 

[snickerboo]

Window Clings. You know just the cheap static thing that you can stick on the window. When we went my ds spent the entire time pulling the window shade up and down, up and down, up and down....you get the picture. LOL People at disboards had suggested wndow clings and after our trip I could see why! My ds did not sleep at all.

If you are going non-stop on a large jet you probably don't need this but if you're going on a smaller regional jet at all, get suckers or something for your little one to suck on. The big jets go up fast and come down fast so the ear popping is minimal. On our way back, we were on a little Comair jet and my ds was miserable for most of the flight. This time I'll be taking suckers for sure.

 

[pl'smama]

Okay, don't think badly of me, but we gave our DD who was three and a half, a dose of children's gravol. Not only did it prevent any type of air sickness but it put her out for an hour, at least, both on the flight there and back. She even nodded off of the take off during our return home!!!

I would also try to explain how a plane trip works, show her the seat take off position by sitting her in a chair and then lifting it gently backward ( you know what I mean). We did this with our DD and she was excited to be going on a "ride". I would also talk about the importance of the keeping her seat belt on and being relatively quiet. I did not do such a good job explaining this to our DD, I never really thought of it. She did not want to keep her seat belt on on our way down and she got a bit loud. She even kicked at the seat in front of us. I was mortified. It got worse though. When she would not keep her belt on the stewardess came over and gave her and us royal he!! It was embarrasing and so frustrating. After we got to the hotel and had all relaxed a bit DD was able to tell us that she got scared of the loud noise and just wanted to look around. I can totally understand her curiosity and her fear and next time I will be better prepared. On the way home she was much better. No fuss over the seat belt or anything.

Oh, if you have a game boy you could take that. Much easier to tote around and some of the kids games are fun for a small child to mess with. I do not normally give my DD the game boy (it is her dad's) but for this trip I made the exception and it really helped to keep her distracted.

We gave our DD the fruit chews to eat to help with any ear popping. She was fine there and back, but it was good to have them. Oh, with the size limits on what you can bring on the plane there is little choice for drinks. But, I was able to take three or four juice junior drink boxes. They are about two thirds the size of a regular drink box and they come with the straw. You can get them at A & P. I was allowed to take these on the plane in my carry on and this was just last December.

Oh, another idea is to take some nail polish ( you can get kid's kind in small containers) and the paint her nails, toes and all!!! This will kill a few minutes and she will love it!!!

Have a super time!!!

 

[hannah03]

This is good to know. We have non-stop flights both ways and it's about 2.5 hours too, thanks