We’ve done many long haul flights over the years, including several since we started traveling with kids. Flying with a baby in general is a whole new ballgame. When you combine that with a long overseas flight, you are definitely going to want to be prepared. Each time we have flown with the kids, we have learned new things about the experience, and hopefully some of our flight tips will help brace yourself for the adventure to come.
All those other flights – the ones before kids, the shorter domestic flights with and/or without kids… those were your hours in training. And NOW, a long haul flight with little kids, this is what you have trained for. It won’t be easy; I can’t sugar coat that. This is the highest difficulty level of traveling with kids. It is survival mode, and you need that survival mentality going in. But with the right preparation, it will be manageable, and you WILL make it. Perhaps even with a smile on your face and most of your sanity in tact.
Booking your Flight and Choosing Seats
Many of the same priorities that I talked about in our (Flying with a Baby) post still apply here: shortest travel day, direct flights when possible. Of course there might not be many flight options, so you will just have to work with what you have. If you are flying from the U.S. to Europe, you will probably be flying a red eye overnight flight. This is awesome! A sleeping child is the best way to survive your flight.
Flight options
We try to fly direct when possible but sometimes you can’t avoid a layover. To get from Houston to Iceland, there were no direct flight options for any airline, so we ended up with a brief layover in Newark. This was actually the kids’ first trip with a layover, so they were pretty excited about getting to ride TWO airplanes in one day. It made the travel a little longer and unfortunately meant less sleep on the plane, but we all made it.
Our travel back home from Iceland was more difficult. We stopped in Toronto this time, which split up the two flights pretty evenly (~4 and ~6 hours). The daytime flights combined with a few hour layover made for a very difficult travel day. I always find that coming home is more physically exhausting than heading to your destination, so if you see a way to make the return trip any easier than the outbound travel, take that option. It can be a nice peace of mind to know that your return trip will be somehow easier than what you already experienced.
Seating Arrangment
Once you have decided on a flight, you need to make your seat selection. In most situations you will want to book all of your seats together, so then you will need to decide how to arrange your family over the seat configuration of the plane, which can vary wildy. The last few long haul flights we have taken had 3-3 and 3-3-3 configurations. For our family of two adults and two small children, there isn’t really one great seating arrangement on these airplanes.
For red eye flights, we split up and booked each kid in a window seat and an adult in the adjacent middle seat. We picked this seating arrangement to give the kids the best chance of sleeping. For non-overnight flights, we typically put the kids next to each other, window and middle seats with one adult in their aisle seat and the other adult directly across the aisle. At least this way, both adults are available to help as needed, even though it definitely is more work on the adult sitting directly next to the kids.
Lap Children
If your family includes an infant, there is another perk that most airlines offer for small babies – bassinets! You will want to research according to your specific airline because the bassinet sizes (and therefore weight/length capacity) varies per airline. The bassinets get hooked into the bulkhead walls of the plane, usually one space available per cabin. These seats are normally located in the “Economy Plus” section of the plane, where you need to pay an additional fee for some extra legroom. Assuming your baby will fit into the bassinet, you can call the airline, and they will move you to one of these seats at no extra cost. However, only for one adult (the one with the lap child). If you want everyone in your group to sit together, you will need to pay for the seating upgrade for the others. Before you decide to do that, remember that the first one (the bulkhead row) has permanent arm rests, so you cannot move up the armrests when it is time to sleep.
The baby bassinet is a great perk, and in this climate where it feels like airlines are cutting costs everywhere, I am so happy that this option still exists. We were fortunate enough to use the bassinet once, on a flight from Houston to London. The kids were 2 years old and seven months old. Since J was still a young toddler (just barely two), we knew he would need to lean against one of us to get decent sleep. So this was an odd situation where we opted to split up our group so that he could sleep against Scott on the plane. Other than that downside, the bassinet was fantastic. Highly recommend! Take every opportunity to make your flight easier.
The bassinet is brought out and installed as soon as the seat belt light is turned off, though you might have to remind the flight attendants, and it is removed right before descent at the end of the flight. Our daughter did so well in the bassinet and slept almost the whole flight. The bassinet was just a plastic fabric tub, so I put a baby blanket down to make it more comfortable for A. She was only seven months at the time, so I checked on her a TON over the flight, but it was still a relief to have her own place to sleep besides in my arms. And when she was awake, she played with her toys in it like a mini-playpen. The extra floor space for the bulkhead seats was also useful for storing the diaper bag and could have been used as another play space if needed.
Forgoing the lap child benefit is certainly another reasonable option. Especially if your child is still lap child age but too big for a bassinet. We never did a long haul flight with a child between one year old and the two year cutoff, but it would also be entirely reasonable to purchase a seat for a larger lap child. I know the bigger and older they get, the harder it is to keep them happy in your lap. Maybe families purchase seats for their babies just because of the safety benefit of having the baby in their carseats.
One of the rare times we have ever purchased a seat for a child young enough to be a lap child was for a long haul flight, Houston to the UK. It was actually our first overseas trip with a child. J was 11 months old, and we were so worried that he wouldn’t sleep on the plane. We knew the best chance we had was with him in his carseat, and we had found such a good deal on airfare that we thought it would be worth it. Looking back, I think we could have handled it with J as a lap child – BUT – he did sleep the entire flight, so maybe it paid off. Just be ready for the responsibility of lugging a car seat through the airport and on your vacation. (For this trip, we stored our car seat in long term luggage storage in the Manchester airport).
Packing Your Carry On
The key to a successful long haul flight lies mainly in the contents of your carry on bags. So no pressure or anything, ha! This fact is probably why packing is so stressful for me – it is so important to get it right. Before I pack anything into our luggage, I always make sure to pack the carry ons first. The main categories you want to cover are necessities (diaper gear, extra clothing, etc), food and drinks, and entertainment.
Necessities
- Important items like your cell phones, wallets, boarding passes, passports
- Extra clothes. Make sure to pack an extra set of clothes for every family member (adults included). We also like to pack pajamas for the the kids to wear on flights where they need to sleep.
- Diapers and wipes. If your kids are still in diapers, make sure to pack enough for the entire travel day plus plenty of extras. You never know when your flight or travel day might get extended. This includes wipes, diaper cream, baggies for diaper disposal.
- Clean up items including tissues, saline wipes, antibacterial wipes.
- Emergency medicine. In the spirit of anything can happen, packing children Tylenol, Benedryl, bandaids, etc is always a good idea. These are items that you hope you will never need but if you do need them, you will be very happy that you packed them.
- Comfort. Favorite loveys, blankets, pacifiers for babies
Food and Drinks
As parents of young children, we all know that sometimes the key to a happy child is simple – SNACKS. I will happily play the snack fairy for an entire road trip or plane ride if it staves off a meltdown. Airplane meals are hit or miss with our kids, even when requesting the kid-friendly meal option, so we like to pack lots of supplemental options for plane rides. One nice thing about the kid meals though is that they get served first, so you might be able to stagger the kids’ meals and your own.
Our snacks include a mix of tried and true favorites and some new options that the kids will consider a fun treat.
- fruit/veggie pouches
- dry cereal (baggies of Cheerios are a staple, Fruit Loops are a plane ride treat)
- cereal bars and granola bars
- pretzels
- bananas and apple slices (usually purchased in the airport terminal)
- sometimes we will bring yogurt cups (purchased in the terminal) depending on the timing of the flight
For drinks, we always pack two empty sips cups per kid and refill with water, milk, juice as needed during the flight. Sippy cups are essential for us. Even though both kids can handle a regular cup, it is just not worth the risk and likely spills during a flight. As an adult, even I get nervous with my open cups during a bit of turbulence.
We will buy bottled water and milk (or sometimes juice) in the airport terminal just to make sure we have something on hand in case service takes longer on the flight
As another backup option, I also keep a few straws in our bag. If the sippy cups are not working out for whatever reason, it is handy to have straws on hand for drinking out of larger containers. This has typically been useful more on the peripheral travel around flights, like a cup of milk from a take out place in the airport or a water bottle bought on a train, but you never know when you will wish you had one and they take up almost no space.
Entertainment
Truly, anything and everything that you think would keep your kids happy on the flight. Here is a run down of our typical entertainment packing list:
- Tablet for movies and/or games (we use Amazon Fire tablets)
- Kid-sized headphones
- A stand to prop up the tablet for watching movies (seems a little unnecessary but our kids only watch movies on their tablets and these do help)
- Backup batteries
- Reuseable sticker books
- WOW water color books and magic marker coloring books
- Alphabet flash cards
- An assortment of small toys, a combination of favorites at home and new toys purchased specifically for this trip
- Small books
- Entertainment for yourself! The main goal is to keep the kids happy, but these are some seriously long flights. Hopefully you will have some downtime for yourself, and you will want the chance to relax. Bring your own tablet, books, whatever. And don’t forget your own earbuds.
Another tip for screen time on the airplane – download a few movies and TV shows to your tablets before you leave home. You don’t want to be dependent on the airplane’s wifi or entertainment. And charge all of your devices the day before you travel.
Airplane Sleep
Ah, sleep. Perhaps the best chance you have for true peace and quiet on the flight. Depending on your child, encouraging sleep on the plane could be quite a challenge. Even a normally great sleeper might have trouble in the new environment on a plane. All that you can do is give your child the best chance for decent sleep.
Regardless of age (babies, toddlers, and older), we try to provide as many subliminal sleep cues as possible. We change the kids into pajamas right before the flight. We pack familiar sleep items from home: favorite blankets and stuffed animals (if the sizes are within reason for a carry on). These are things we will probably want for a long vacation anyway so might as well start making use out of them on the plane.
For red eye flights, there is usually the same routine of boarding, take off, meal service, and then the cabin lights are dimmed to encourage sleep. Regardless of the actual time of day, even if it is past normal bedtime and the kids ate dinner earlier before the flight, we just follow this rhythm anyway. This gives the kids some time to settle into their seats and wind down from the excitement of the airport and going on a plane ride. Usually there is a lot going on during meal service anyway and would be difficult for our kids to sleep.
Some of these tips might need to be adjusted if you are traveling with an infant. You might not need to follow the same rhythm on the flight, especially for very young babies. If your baby is flying in its carseat or in a bassinet, you might be able to get longer stretches of sleep. When we have flown with a carseat or bassinet, we even draped over a swaddle blanket to reduce distractions and encourage longer sleep. If your baby will be strictly a lap child (with no bassinet), please bring a baby carrier to baby wear for the flight. Your poor arms will be so exhausted by the end if they don’t have a break. The baby will feel more secure and cozy if it is snug in a wrap or carrier, and you will have a better chance of getting sleep yourself.
Toddler aged and older children will have their own seat, so no need to worry about holding a sleeping child, but they will probably sleep better if they can lean against you or against a pillow propped under the window. Once again, your own comfort will probably be sacrificed somewhat to help the kids sleep. If they need to lean against you or use your own blanket and/or pillow along with their own, you might have to go along with it. Yes, if you don’t get to sleep much, it will make your arrival day even more exhausting, but that exhaustion will be even worse if both you and the kids are extra tired.
If you are truly concerned about sleep deprivation upon arrival, try to divide and conquer on the plane to give one adult a better chance at sleeping. When we flew to Iceland, we knew we had a three hour drive immediately from the airport, so we split up the kids so that Scott was sitting with our usual “better” sleeper. He was able to get a little bit more sleep than I was and handled the drive when we arrived. Thank goodness too because I definitely nodded off a couple times from the passenger seat.
Make an Effort to Keep Yourself Sane
Most of these tips have been targeted toward the comfort and needs of your kids because let’s face it, if they aren’t having a good time, nobody is having a good time. But (if you have the bandwidth!), don’t forget to take care of yourself. Splurge on a cocktail in the airport or a glass of wine with dinner service. Download a breezy fiction novel to wind down after you finally get the kids dozing on plane. If the kids are awake and the sun is up when you are approaching the airport, have fun looking out the window and talking about the exciting trip you are beginning. Getting through a long haul flight with young kids is an exercise in stamina and survival, but you don’t want to arrive at your destination already burnt out.
I know this might sound impossible with a long flight looming ahead of you, but for your own sanity, grasp any small measure of reprieve from the stress that you can find. Given the tense nature of travel with kids, this might not fall into your lap, so make sure you actively search for small pieces of enjoyment for yourself!
If all else fails, remember that once you are airborne, you will make it! Maybe it won’t be pretty, but things are in motion and you will get there. And any huge struggles you work through on the flight will eventually be a good story in the future. Honestly, the worse the situation, the more memorable and funnier it seems to become in retrospect. Hopefully you can lean into the humor and sometimes absurdity of flying with kids.
