11 Tips for Flying Cross-Country with 3 Kids: Ages 3, 7, & 9

Hello, Orlando Airport!

Flying with kids is about managing the chaos and chances for things to derail (for me, that’s everywhere I look). We live in Portland. Half of our family lives in Tampa. Flying is necessary because we love being with our people. At this point, I have some sky under my belt and a lot of opinions. Here’s my advice based on our national and international family flying experiences. (Additional travel tips from me and guest writers can be found on my Travel with Kids page.)

Use this post to think about what works for you, and leave your own tips in the comments. (You might be like, “I would NEVER fly carry-on only. And that’s 100% awesome if it works for you.) Our last cross-country flight was with our 3, 7, and 9-year-olds — this list is based on those ages.

1. Avoid an extra flight however you can.

• Is nonstop an option? Take it. With connecting flights, there’s so much room for delayed flights, storms, mechanical failures, or other chaos to derail your trip. I think of the catastrophic family implosion (adults included) that would occur as we tried to find an airport hotel in Minneapolis because of snow or a missed connection. In that moment, I would surely have paid extra to fly direct.
• Get creative. To get to Tampa, we fly direct to Orlando, rent a car, and drive the rest of the way – about 90 minutes. (There are no direct flights to Tampa from Portland.) It’s great to have the second leg of our trip in a private, sound-contained vehicle where we can have our meltdowns in peace.

2. Baggage: Travel carry-on. Make sure every bag has wheels.

• At the end of your flight, find food, bathrooms, and get out of there as quickly as possible. When we arrive at our final destination, we’re exhausted, emotionally disregulated, and also elated in that jittery way. We’re soaked in travel kerosene and any spark will send it up. Searching out the baggage claim and having one adult watch the kids while the other plays whack-a-mole with bags on a conveyor belt for an extra 30-45 minutes is my idea of hell. I can’t risk lost baggage. I’ve had bags lost, and so have friends. Dealing with the logistics of three young kids traveling is enough without managing calls from the airlines and missing clothes.
• Every bag we have has wheels, except the parent backpacks and preschooler backpack.

 

3. Car seats: add wheels and use bungee cords

• We splurged on one of those attachable roller things for car seats. It’s been amazing. Basically turns our giant car seat into a stroller.
• We then use bungee cords and other ties to keep all the car seats and baggage together so everything rolls. Did I mention carabiners? I love them.

Car seat as stroller. Also functions as a luxury preschooler seat on the monorail to terminals. Note the Ergo baby-carrier I’m wearing. We had this in case of a preschooler meltdown, so we could pack her up and carry her.

4. Stop right away in the destination airport to eat and go to the bathroom.

• When we arrive, we eat and do potty breaks right away. There’s a McDonald’s in Orlando. Everyone gets Happy Meals. This is not the time to think about the words “sustainable” or “obesity epidemic” or other boujee earth-saving vocabulary. While the herd grazes, one adult can ferry people to the bathroom and refill water bottles for the car.

5. Speaking of food, pack tons of snacks, and split them up into each person’s bag so they’re within reach.

6. Use as much screen time as you need at any moment and pre-load the devices you travel with with games that work without wi-fi.

• Every couple years when we upgrade phones, we keep the old ones. Over the past 10 years, that’s given us a nice little pile. You may have iPads or Kindles…whatever you have, load them with things that don’t need wi-fi. We found that the inflight entertainment can be limited and not your kids’ favorite. My kids don’t love Disney movies because they’re kind of traumatic—the parents are always dying. Alaska doesn’t have a great selection of in-flight entertainment, anyhow, and wi-fi on the flight costs over $20 per device.

7. Let your kids choose a small number of books and small toys or art supplies to pack in their own carry-ons. Our kids often want too many things, but other than that they are good about choosing the things they’ll most enjoy. Pokémon cards, stuffies, etc.

8. Organize your under-seat carry-ons efficiently.

• I buy gallon-size Ziploc bags before we go. It really helps to keep things somewhat compartmentalized because all the stuff goes everywhere once we’re onboard and people are passing things back and forth. We have:
  1. A technology bag that includes lots of chargers, headphone adapters, headphone splitters, and adult earbuds. (Kids carry their own headphones in their carry-ons.)
  2. A bag with an extra change of clothes for the three-year-old, plus wipes, and a diaper. She’s potty-trained, but has many accidents. Often, we’ll have her wear a diaper for the trip. It’s just easier to change in case she has to pee during take off or landing.
• Pack a ton of extra plastic bags that you can use for trash bags, soiled clothes, or whatever comes up.

Wipes are at-the-ready, a plastic trash bag is attached via carabiner (so many random little trash items magically appear in-flight), food and art supplies are handy. We also have extra plastic bags and a change of clothes for everyone in case someone throws up… we’ve been there before.

9. Pack a meal for the flight or buy it the airport – don’t rely on inflight service.

• If we haven’t packed a meal (which is cheapest, but hard to have the space for), once we’re past security, we grab food. After security, you don’t have to worry about the issue of space.
• Sometimes they run out of inflight food by the time they get to us, so I like to be sure we have a meal and we can eat it whenever we want.

10. Use Benadryl, melatonin, Dramamine, or whatever works for you and your kids to help them nap.

• I’ve flown with babies a lot. At the end of most flights, people will say, “Your baby was soooo good!” That’s because I use a combo of all the sleep-inducing tools I have. I am not a doctor, so do what you need, but don’t go too crazy. Give your chosen sleep-aid(s) right before you board or right after you sit down. I usually take something for me, too, because traveling with kids can make me very jittery.

11. Choose your seats wisely. We sit three in one row, and two directly behind.

• After non-stop flights, and sleep-inducing chewables, this is the most important thing. We place our Preschool Queen of Seat-back Kicking right behind another member of our family. One time I had a real a**hole swear at us and practically start an in-flight Lucha Libre session after sitting in front of our then-18-months-old appendage-flailing champion. We do everything we can to make sure our kids don’t jostle other passengers, but under age 5, we’re not going to win that battle. Sitting for 3-6 hours in a confined space without moving is not developmentally appropriate. Arms and legs gonna fly.

Preschool Queen of Seat-back Kicking placed strategically behind someone she’s related to

Good Parents Have Bad Kids on Airplanes

Before kids, on an airplane, you think things like this:

• If I have kids, I won’t travel until they are old enough to be respectful.
• Airlines should have flights just for families so I don’t have to deal with this shrieking-effing-chaos.
• If I travel with my kids I’ll damn well make sure they don’t kick the  seat in front of them for three hours straight.
• Why doesn’t anyone in this whole f*&king world know how to parent a child??!!??

Well I say, Amen! Preach it! Can I get a Hallelujah?!

If my current self time-traveled back to have appletinis with my former self and her single friends, I would be the one pounding the vodka, and saying, “B*tches! You are soooooo right! And you know what’s worse than sitting in front of the kid kicking you and screaming? Being the owner of that kid.”

I mean, on a plane these gremlins take annoying to a new level of hell.

But here’s the thing, sometimes you have to travel with your sweet gremlins.

I am an over-planner. The kids are always ready. The drug cocktail is always prepped, along with dozens of activities and snacks. Still, things don’t always go your way.

Like today.

And here’s what I was thinking,

• Where are those damn family flights?
• Will I actually ever get off of this plane, or will we just fly around in screaming-toddler purgatory for the rest of our lives?
• Why can’t I be like those parents who pack cute bags of candy for everyone around them and buy a round of drinks?

It wouldn’t have been quite as bad, except that we got viciously chewed out by Mr. Seat21A, who told us we just needed to get control of our kids.

But here’s the thing, Mr. A-Hole-Pants, I do not need to try sitting in front of my children on a plane for three hours to see what it’s like, as you suggest.

Because sitting next to them, trying to provide 250 different types of entertainment and 7 courses of snacks, just to have Baby Woww wake up possessed by a demon… this is actually worse than you getting kicked for three hours. (If only I had packed my excorcism kit! I always forget something!)

And yes, I did take a picture of you so that Beelzebub will have a shot when he comes looking.

(He’s watching The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a strange choice for a very insensitive guy.)

Yet, there are heroes.

Jessie, in seat 23D, I love you for the rest of my days.

Jessie defended us. She is a grandmother with a fabulous Nashville drawl, and when Mr. A-Hole-Pants told her, “This is none of your business.” She said, “When children or the elderly are bullied, I make it my business.”

I will always, always love you. And I hope I grow up to be you. Because as I’ve talked about before, parenting is not about getting praise for your awesomeness, but finding support in your lowest moments.

Can I get an Amen?!

Favorite Preschool iPhone Apps for Travel

It’s mid-December, so it’s probably time for you to get on a plane with the kids. You would rather wait in line at the DMV for six hours with no coffee.

Thank goodness for modern technology!

Here are the apps that saved us on a 4-flight journey (round trip) to see our family in Florida. The Momsicle Facebook community helped me improve my selection of iPhone apps for the kids (ages 3 and 1). Please leave a comment to let us know what your own favorites are!

Momsicle’s Favorite Preschool iPhone Apps

Trucks by Duck Duck Moose

K-Pants–the three year old–could choose to drag a car through the mud and then wash it; collect trash and recycling; load and move dirt with construction equipment; direct traffic with a traffic light; or fix flat tires at the mechanic.

Finger tapping is incredibly simple in all options except the trash and recycling game (but still not too hard there). Since we couldn’t pack our Tonka trucks in our carry-on luggage, Trucks by Duck Duck Moose was the next best thing.

Toca Train by Toca Boca

This game feels like being on the Island of Sodor. If your child is a Thomas fan, we highly recommend it.

Kids can drive the train around, blow the whistle, pick up passengers, and carry and drop-off freight. It helps to have an adult practice with the preschooler for at least the first time or two, because they might miss stations or have trouble with the speed lever. But once or twice was all it took for K-Pants to be independent.

Monster at the End of This Book by Sesame Street

It’s a classic and Sesame did a great job bringing the book to life in this app. K-Pants thought Grover was so funny.

K-Pants’s favorite parts were the interactive pages: snapping the ropes and breaking down the brick wall (above). It helps to show your preschooler how to switch to a favorite page. The down side to this app is that it can take a while to load from page to page, and preschoolers don’t have much patience.

Toca Kitchen Monsters by Toca Boca

Kids choose a monster and then decide what to feed it from the fridge. They can choose how to cook the food (chop, steam, sauté, blend).

K-Pants really loves to blend things because the blender makes the phone vibrate. He ground up a lot of sausage and raw meat. Luckily his monster preferred them that way…

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A HUGE thank you to the Momsicle Facebook community for suggesting so many apps. We were saved because of it! We downloaded lots more that we really liked. These were the standouts. 

Note: All of these games are more like toys: you can play with them in various ways. Which is great for preschoolers (it can be stressful to try to “win” a game, especially when it’s hard enough to master the controls of each game). Also, I was not in any way sponsored by any of the developers of these games.

14 Tips for Flying with Young Kids

The quickest advice: Don’t do it. Now go have a glass of wine.

Everyone hates to see a family with young kids get on the plane. And you know who hates it most of all? The parents. I would rather be getting an enema, washing my hair with hot tree sap, or eating a can of spray cheese topped with Lucky Charms and mayonnaise. If you know me, that’s about as low as it can get.

But we just got back from Tampa and we survived four flights with a three year old and a one year old. Everyone is remarkably intact. K-Pants threw up on the first flight during the bumpy descent, so that was awesome; but because I was prepared with a full extra change of clothes for him and Baby Woww (whom he also sprayed), things were alright.

How to Survive Flying with Young Children

1. The short answer: drugs.

I packed liquid melatonin, children’s Dramamine, adult Dramamine (don’t forget to take care of mama!), Ibuprofen, and nighttime Orajel (Baby Woww was teething). We’ve used Benadryl in the past, but I forgot to buy it in a small enough container to pass through security. I am NOT a doctor, so don’t consider this medical advice. But I will say that I experimented with each thing before taking it on the plane, to make sure nothing had the opposite effect on the kids. And I follow dosage instructions. If you’re going to give the kids something, make sure you do it 20-30 minutes before you want it to take effect.

2. Pack in advance. I’m admittedly neurotic, but I feel like packing one week before the trip is crucial. That way you can assess what you need to go to the store to get. I knew to go find the Orajel that was missing from the liquids/drugs bag, and I had time to search out extra headphones and phone chargers. It’s the worst feeling to realize at midnight the night before the trip that you need something critical. Plus, the night before your trip, you NEED to sleep.

3. Use technology to your advantage. We have an iPhone and a tablet that–thanks to you, readers!–were filled with kid-friendly games. We bought the Fisher Price iPhone Apptivity case, and it worked great for the kids to hold, and–bonus!–it made it easier for me to find my phone in the seat pocket or travel bags (it’s hard to lose a phone when it’s being hugged by a colorful baby rattle). If you have a toddler who doesn’t constantly press the home button on your phone, then don’t worry about a special case. The one year old always pushes the home button, and the case has a feature that makes it so the child can’t do it.

4. If you can separate the kids, do it. This was unexpected. I feel like when we travel together I can only survive if my husband is next to me as another enforcer and source of moral support. However, the biggest problems we had were generally due to the baby wanting something the preschooler had, or vice versa. So they mainly fought over things, and there’s no good place for time-out on a plane (although for something egregious, the back area near the restrooms will work). On our return trip my husband got upgraded to first class with the baby, and it was much less stressful for each of us. And I have to give my husband credit here, he let me choose where I wanted to sit and I chose coach with the three year old, because flying with kids aged 9-months to just under three years is the WORST.

5. Pack lots of snacks.

This is a no-brainer. Try to make them a real mix of savory and sugary, so that you don’t have sugar highs and sugar lows. Things wrapped in shiny wrappers always work well for us, so we had Luna bars and fiber fruit bars. K-Pants is obsessed with cough drops, so we brought a bunch of those. We also got popcorn and apple crunchy straws from Trader Joe’s. TJ’s is perfect for these kinds of snacks. I recommend trying out any new snacks on the kids before the flight so that you know what they’ll really go crazy for.

6. Pack little toys and games.

This is mainly for the preschool set. Though my friend Emily had finger puppets for her one year old, and felt cut-outs entertained both kids when I stuck them on the seat backs.

7. Bring books, especially audio books. We stopped at the library before the trip and got some paperback books about K-Pants’s favorite things (trucks, boats, trains). It was nice that the books were new. We also looked for audio books that I then downloaded onto an iPod, so that the toddler could listen during the flight. NOTE: we haven’t had any success with either of our babies wearing headphones. But now that K-Pants is three, he wears them fine. We practiced with the headphones the week before.

8. Label things. One of the hardest things when traveling is that everything is packed so neatly in bags that I don’t often use, so it takes me way longer than necessary to locate the medicine or the headphones. Meanwhile, someone is having a meltdown. I went overboard and labeled the zippers on my backpack with “Liquids” and “Technology” and it was awesome.

9. Bring lots of extra plastic bags.

You can never have enough. You’ll need a couple for trash as the kids eat snacks. You’ll need some for soiled clothes or diapers. I also packed all snacks and toys in bags that we could then reuse later. Just throw ’em in and I guarantee you’ll use ’em.

10. Bring your big stroller. We could have gotten by easily with a single stroller in Tampa, but the double allowed us to strap two tired kids in at the airport, or have one child in the stroller with a suitcase in the other side. Options are endless, and you can gate check that bad boy for free.

11. Don’t be afraid to buy media and food on board the flight. I was frazzled and exhausted on our second flight to Tampa. I’d been thrown up on the flight before, and my airport burrito had canned corn in it. I was in a MOOD. Eight dollars for a little tapas box on the plane was definitely overpriced, but it was just the gourmet pick-me-up I needed. And paying for DirectTV came in handy for kids movies, and sports and adult entertainment (not that kind!) when the kids were napping. Just put out of your mind how overpriced everything is: Your in-flight sanity is priceless.

12. Park at a long-term lot that drives you directly from your car to your terminal. You know flying is going to be nerve-wracking, so why start it out with a frustrating trip from the outer banks of economy parking, where you have to wheel all your gear to a bus stop and wait. We used Air Park at the Portland airport, and they come to your car and drop you off at the terminal for a little less than $10 per day. Worth it if you have to leave your car.

13. Practice before getting on the flight.

The kids don’t usually play games on the iPhone or tablet, and I didn’t want the plane to be the first time, because there’s always a little frustration in learning something new. So we talked about how exciting the flight would be, and practiced with the games and the headphones beforehand. We also practiced with wearing the carry-on backpack.

14. Pack a full set of extra clothes for each child. Comes in handy in soooo many ways: accidents, throw-up, spilling ginger ale…

Please add your tips so that others (including me!) can benefit.

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Want more family travel advice and ideas? The Travel With Kids page has links to useful travel posts by other parent bloggers.