NagoyaHammer.com

Ooooooookaaay. Here we go. Here it comes. I am girding myself. Girding myself most bracedly for Tuesday next week.

"What happens on Tuesday?" I hear you ask.

Tuesday, o gentlefolk of Naghammer, is when I and my ever-indomitable wife take our two kids (aged 3-and-a-half and almost-two) to Scotland, via Hel*.

Am I looking forward to this?

Like unto the removal of my wisdom teeth sans anaesthetic.


Anyway, Sean (ni-chan) will hopefully, mostly be pacified by prolonged exposure to the iPad. Noah (the Book Devouring Dribble Terror) is another matter entirely. Between us we have 3 seats, 2 in the bulkhead row and one immediately behind. Does anybody have any genius ideas for how to keep everybody alive and sane to journey's end? It's a bit off-topic for this forum, I know, but there's a few of you out there with kids and I figure y'all probably travel more than the average punter. Believe me when I say I am open to aaaaany ideas. (except drugging the kids. And even that is looking more and more appealing as the fateful day draws nearer...)

Many thanks!

-Dave

*sinki...

In my (limited - we took a 12-hour flight to the US with our then-three-year-old last summer, but that's about it as far as long distance travel with a toddler) experience, I'd say the most important, life-saving thing you can do is bring a set of headphones that each kid an wear, so you can hook them up for at least part of the trip to the seat-back TV and its endless supply of Disney and nature movies. They only give you crappy ear buds on the plane, and kids have trouble with those. Also the usual coloring books and snacks and drinks, but the headphones were the one thing we wished we'd brought in retrospect.

Since you have ruled out drugging the kids, have you thought about drugging yourself?
I guess the simplest answer would be to do as much as you can to get the kids tired before the flight so they sleep a lot once you get them on the plane.

As I don't have kids, there's not a lot of advice I can give you, but I did read one article in the Daily Mail (right wing, tory rag. yes, I know), about a family travelling with a small baby who provided ear plugs for the people sitting around them. It won't make your life any easier, but it seemed like a nice gesture.

Having done this more than a few times with kids of various ages, you'd think I would have some better advice.

I can only second the fully loaded ipad, coloring books etc. I would also hit up the 100yen store for a handful of toys/cards/games that you can play with. Dole them out periodically through out the trip. They only cost 100yen a pop so it doesn't matter if they get lost etc.

With your wee one, you'll probably have to do a few hundred victory laps of the cabin while you on your plane. As you know sitting still is just not their forte. As long as you don't do it during meal/drink service the crew don't mind. Remember too that an airplane cabin is actually bloody noisy anyway so don't be too hard on your boys if they're making noise. Save the juice for bouts of hard core whingeing and crying, rather than meal times.

Work as a tag team as much as possible. Your older boy shouldn't be too hard to distract, but c.two is the hardest age to fly with IMHO. One parent can run distraction for a couple of hours,the other can chillax and get a movie in/sleep. Don't hesitate to call on the cabin crew to help with extra blankets, juice etc. they'll probably give you a kiddy activity pack when you get on the plane too.

Keep a couple of hard candies, a pacifier and/or a sippy cup with a teat on hand to help ease the discomfort of the air pressure change during the landing. If you have a strict-ish routine/rules at home, be prepared to relax them a bit while you're away. Trying to enforce bed times, bath times and snack quotas will only increase your already elevated stress levels. Anyways, some of the best memories I had as a kid traveling overseas include staying up late with cuzzies and being allowed to eat way more snacks/sweets than usual.

Finally, you never know if a child is going to be prone to airsickness until the big day arrives. Make sure you know where the airsickness bags are at all times, keep a change of clothes (just a thin pair of shorts and a t-shirt) in a plastic shopping bag) in your carry on bag, wrap them up in the blanket they gave you before final descent removing all iPads etc and replacing them with those 100yen store toys I mentioned.

Good luck!

Mike the Pike wrote:Having done this more than a few times with kids of various ages, you'd think I would have some better advice.

I can only second the fully loaded ipad, coloring books etc. I would also hit up the 100yen store for a handful of toys/cards/games that you can play with. Dole them out periodically through out the trip. They only cost 100yen a pop so it doesn't matter if they get lost etc.

With your wee one, you'll probably have to do a few hundred victory laps of the cabin while you on your plane. As you know sitting still is just not their forte. As long as you don't do it during meal/drink service the crew don't mind. Remember too that an airplane cabin is actually bloody noisy anyway so don't be too hard on your boys if they're making noise. Save the juice for bouts of hard core whingeing and crying, rather than meal times.

Work as a tag team as much as possible. Your older boy shouldn't be too hard to distract, but c.two is the hardest age to fly with IMHO. One parent can run distraction for a couple of hours,the other can chillax and get a movie in/sleep. Don't hesitate to call on the cabin crew to help with extra blankets, juice etc. they'll probably give you a kiddy activity pack when you get on the plane too.

Keep a couple of hard candies, a pacifier and/or a sippy cup with a teat on hand to help ease the discomfort of the air pressure change during the landing. If you have a strict-ish routine/rules at home, be prepared to relax them a bit while you're away. Trying to enforce bed times, bath times and snack quotas will only increase your already elevated stress levels. Anyways, some of the best memories I had as a kid traveling overseas include staying up late with cuzzies and being allowed to eat way more snacks/sweets than usual.

Finally, you never know if a child is going to be prone to airsickness until the big day arrives. Make sure you know where the airsickness bags are at all times, keep a change of clothes (just a thin pair of shorts and a t-shirt) in a plastic shopping bag) in your carry on bag, wrap them up in the blanket they gave you before final descent removing all iPads etc and replacing them with those 100yen store toys I mentioned.

Good luck!

All of the above is spot on.

Prepare for every eventuality, and be prepared to do what they want, when they want to. If you are in the middle of particularly good movie, but Noah wants to do one of the victory laps Pikey mentioned, guess which one you aw doing

@ MtP: nicely done. I'm taking notes. This post should be stickied for further reference.

I can't say much for kids at this time, but do bring some nice headphones. Great for listening to movies or music and blocking out the sound of engines and people. Also one of those neck pillows make a world of difference for sleep. Daiso carried some cheap ones that work fine. Finally, eye covers are great also to get any bit of quality sleep in my opinion. Not that you'll be getting much with 2 kids I suspect.

Girdle those nerves and please post any advice. My wife and I plan to do similar hell next year with one little one.

Put one of them in the overhead locker.

If that doesn't work, put yourself in the locker.

ta all for helpful advice. Will write proper thank you when I'm not feeling like crap.

but thank you all, really. Good advice