What do you guys use to occupy your kids on long airplane rides?

[jacobsmommy]

Great ideas! I bought two packs of Disney princess stickers for dd this afternoon and just bought a Tigger and Pooh aquadoodle mini mat on Ebay! Thanks for the wonderful ideas!

 

[haydeecm]

giant sticker/activity books, I swear my son will play with stickers for hours. Also my 4-year old likes playing Uno playing cards. And of course the DVD player, but for us that is the heavy artillery that I bring out last because of the battery issue.

 

[carolinamama]

Thanks for this post! We're veteran travelers, but we've never quite encountered long flights like this. Our 2 flights plus layover on the way out is going to be 9 hours, and on the way back, it's 10+. Thanks for some new ideas!

 

[joeysmommy]

I get a bag of goodies just for the trip.new crayons, activity book etc.
Post-its and a pencil would keep my little occupied for the longest!

Now that they are 6 and 8 the Nintendo Ds does the trick.

When all else fails try Benadryl

 

[Huff]

Looks like you're flying 1h45m to Houston then 3h00m to Orange County or LAX etc. Ya, thats a lot of flying but you do get a short break between flights.

I've had no problems with coloring books. I put all the colored markers in a small zip bag.

As others have said, a DS works great but some kids get bored doing any one thing for more than an hour or so.

The 2nd leg offers a snack box so that will keep kids busy. May have a movie but not sure.

 

[jacobsmommy]

Actually our flight goes through Dallas and our layover is pretty much one hour. I hope they give us snacks and a movie! If you don't mind me asking, where did you find the info about the snack boxes?

 

[Just2DisneyKids]

Great ideas! I bought two packs of Disney princess stickers for dd this afternoon and just bought a Tigger and Pooh aquadoodle mini mat on Ebay! Thanks for the wonderful ideas!

So glad you found the aquadoodle mini mat! I hope they keep your little one busy!
Also, many people have mentioned snacks and I wanted to add that I have never had any problems bringing drink boxes on the plane. I would put 2 juice boxes and 2 Horizon milk boxes in 1 gallon size zip-top bag and present it at security.

Have fun, I'm sure the kids will do great!!!

 

[jacobsmommy]

So, even though the juice boxes are filled with more liquid than allowed, I could put a couple in a ziploc and they would be okay? That's definately good to know....

 

[NMMickeymom]

A second on the dry erase boards. You can find "mini" dry erase markers that have loops in the lids so you can put them on a keychain to keep track of them. I'm considering putting a small board in our backpack for line entertainment as well as trip entertainment.

 

[94bruin]

For your younger child, you might want to consider Color Wonder products. That way, you won't have to worry about him or her coloring the wrong things.

Aside from tape, you can also try dental floss. At that age, DD1 loved nothing more than to pull out floss from the container. Other ideas are post-its and band-aids. If you get stickers, get reusable ones. I bought a book with reusable stickers and DD stuck them all over the window of the plane. Nearly gave the flight attendant a heart attack until I showed her that they came off easily. Also, a pack of pipe cleaners (although I think they are called something else these days - those fuzz-covered wires that are bendable.)

A game you could play with your older child is 20 questions. Someone thought of a Disney character and everyone else would ask yes or no questions until someone guessed the character. We didn't actually stick to 20 questions with our DD, though. DD1 loved playing this during our car trip in May.

 

[pixarmom]

We now have three boys. With our oldest, we started with the box of art supplies (crayons, colored pencils, colored pipe cleaners, stickers, clay, etc.) That lasted a very long time for him, and he was great on flights! Our younger two boys are not so much into the projects, so we started looking for new ideas. I make a trip binder with information about the trip that they like to review and a "storybook" about the trip with pictures of things we will see/do for our pre-schooler. I've also done the surprise bags for particularly long flights - each of our boys gets on surprise bag each hour. (I bring along paper bags with their names on them, and put in a new surprise each hour - it's anything from a new movie to an activity book to food or gum.)

Now that our two older boys are pre-teens, they read, play DS or watch movies on their ipods. It's really tough for our pre-schooler because he's very active and doesn't do all the pipe cleaner animals, coloring books, etc. that our oldest used to enjoy. So he does watch some movies with the portable DVD player and we read to him. Otherwise, as previous poster mentioned, snacks are helpful!

 

[atmail35]

I also was going to say "JetBlue" love love love that airline!

These Crayola Mini Coloring Pages are great....6 markers and 80 pages...it goes along way. DD(5) made one for everyone she knows... even the flight attendant. ETA: The little box holds the markers fairly well, which helped with the dropping factor.

They have Cars, Princesses, Toy Story and others. I found them at AC Moore at buy one get one free - $5.99 a pack or you could use a 40% off coupon there. Also great at restaurants, in the car etc. AC Moore has Crayola deals often.

http://www.crayolastore.com/product_detail.asp?T1=CRA+04-5056&

We brought the Leapster with games, but she preferred this as it was a surprise.

 

[atmail35]

A second on the dry erase boards. You can find "mini" dry erase markers that have loops in the lids so you can put them on a keychain to keep track of them. I'm considering putting a small board in our backpack for line entertainment as well as trip entertainment.

Oh I found these crayola dry erase crayons with a board on clearance at Walgreens for $5....I haven't tried it yet but they seem better than markers (less messy) if you have small children.

http://www.crayolastore.com/product_detail.asp?T1=CRA+98-5200

PS I DON'T work for Crayola...I swear!

 

[davidsprincess]

We found putting DD4 on the aisle seat to be the best. That alone worked because as says, "That's where the real action is!" She finds the window seat uninteresting and the middle seat just too boring, so as long as she keeps her arms/hands/legs in, she can sit in the aisle seat.

Now if there was only a way for me to not be saying an hour into the flight," What do you mean we are not there yet?!"