Air travel and kids

As you may have read in my last post, we just got back from a trip to Arizona. As if air travel isn't stressful enough, we added our 3 kids under the age of 5 to the mix. I thought I would share with you some of the ways we made our trip a little smoother.

I think one of the best things I did in preparing to fly with kids, was to make a trip to the Dollar Store in the weeks leading up to our departure. I wanted to pack a bag full of new things the kids had never played with to keep them busy at the airport and on the plane and I wanted to do this without breaking the budget. By going to the Dollar Store I was able to spend $8.00 and get all of this which was easily carried by one of the boys in a small backpack:

2 Kung Fu Panda coloring books, 3 3D books that included glasses, 1 sheet of airplane stickers and 2 Wooly Willy Magnetic Cards

 I did have to make a slight adjustment when it came to the magnetic board. The wand it came with was free floating and I knew that would be an easy thing to lose so I attached it to the card by hot gluing one end of a string into the hollow part of the wand and then tying the other end of the string onto the card itself.

I put a dozen or so crayons into a Ziploc bag to go with the coloring books. I was worried about them losing the crayons on the plane so we just got the coloring books out at the airport. They could find a space on the floor and color away which worked out perfectly. I think it also gave a good first impression to our fellow travelers who may have otherwise been concerned about flying with all of these small kids. Another thing the coloring books were good for were mornings at Grandma's house. There aren't a lot of toys for them to play with so they could get up and entertain themselves by coloring while waiting for the days activities to start.

The airplane stickers are great for making a picture after you've arrived at your destination. The kids can tell a story about their experience on the plane and have stickers to decorate it with. My kids used the stickers to add to the handmade birthday cards they had already made for Grandma:)

Another important part of traveling with kids is keeping them fed. I know that our crazy flight schedules did not allow us to feed the kids at our regular meal times so I packed snack bags to tide them over. I prepared a Ziploc bag full of goodies for each kid for each leg of the trip. It had their name on it so they knew it was theirs and it was up to them to make the food last throughout that days traveling. The suckers were specifically for take off to help ease the plugged ears that you sometimes experience and that really worked wonders. I took the advice of my sister-in-law and gave the sucker to our 13 month old as well. It kept him busy for sometime and he didn't fuss at all during take-off.

These are just a few of the ways I was able to make air travel with my little ones a bit more bearable. What are your top tips for traveling with the kids?