Ideas to keep 2.5 year old occupied on a plane

[kelebek]

just subbing cause we are flying from sydney to brisbane in Nov and needs some ideas too

[AndiE]

I can tell you that thinking about flying with a toddler is worse than actually doing it - I flew in April on my own with a 25 month old and a four month old. The bub was easy (a few BFs and constant holding!) and for DS1 I got a few new books and a couple of small toys. Plus I took some food and his water bottle. But what kept him quieter than anything was chomping away on pringles chips. He wouldn't normally get them, but I figured it would be a good diversion. It was. The boys were terrific and the flight time, um, flew by, fairly quickly.
DS1 needed a little reassurance right on take-off and landing - I don't think he knew what to make of it - so we had a few cuddles (with DS2 squished on my lap) and I just talked to him about what was happening and tried to make a real adventure out of it. He was totally fine otherwise.
Good luck!

[ladybird11]

At the moment DD loves her Magnadoodle - I draw on it for her too and get her to pick out what the picture is, or she can draw on it.

[Campari]

We flew to Europe with a 2.5 year old and a 3 month old! 24 hours on a plane... The thinking and planning was a lot worse than the actual flight, both our kids were so so good. For DD we took lots of little "presents" which she could open every hour or so: mostly stickers, drawing stuff, little toys. We tried to avoid sugar as we didn't want her to get hypo. Try snacks like popcorn.
I had also bought our DD a cool book called "Amazing Aeroplanes" which we read all the time before we flew, and she loved that. Once we were on the plane she was so excited to be given food, and to hear the captain speaking etc.
We had deliberately not fully toilet trained her before then, so she was still happy to wear a nappy. Otherwise waiting for the toilet would have been the worst part.
You'll be fine!

[jackrose]

I just made up a fun pack for a friend who was travelling to Sweden with a 4 year old, 2 year old and 8 month old... by herself

I put lots of things in it like

• pipe cleaners for making models
• lacing cards (picked up from officeworks)
• fuzzy felt (also from officeworks)
• colouring paged downloaded from crayola
• coloured bluetac (from officeworks again!) to use as playdough/plasticine but without the mess
• a roll of aluminium foil, again for model making (picked this idea up from website "momsminivan")
• a fishing game, with fish images printed onto cards, staples placed in them, rods made out of chopsticks with magnets on the end.
• a magnetic whiteboard in A5 size to use with dry erase markers and to play magnetic games with
  the magnetic games I made were
• dress up dolls printed onto magnetic paper (available at officeworks again!!!) download the doll image from "wee wonderful paper dolls"
• printed photos of family members in duplicate to play a game of match (or any other images would work)
• printed images of train tracks (found on google images) to make a train game from

[Nettie]

Some great ideas here... I'm subbing so I can make notes!

Depends what engages your boy... A Wiggles DVD on the iPod would work wonders with mine (as would food ) and us playing with him would work too... Sorry I'm not much help!

[AliBaby]

Can I ask all of those who have been on a plane with a toddler...did you let them walk around the plane with you? My biggest concern is keeping DD on my lap for 4hrs (18mths when we travel). She wont have her own seat and I find it extremely difficult to keep her in the one place if she is not strapped in somewhere.

Jaycee- Sorry to hijack, just thought it might relate to your thread

[BrightSparkles]

Who are people flying with?

Ali - We took Jorja for walks up and down the isle They HAVE to be strapped to you for take off and landing but you can unstrap them at other times. We've been to NZ with Jorja a few times. Depending on the airline the host/ess were fantastic and really helpful too!

xx

[Nettie]

I would absolutely not let DS wander on the plane.. but that's just me.