After holidaying with a toddler for the first time this year, I could write a book on it, never mind a blog. But I thought that I would get straight to the point with my top tips. Months make a big difference in the toddler world, so for reference our daughter was 20 months when holidaying!
The Flight Time
It’s good to consider flight times when booking, especially if you have a rigid nap schedule and routine like us! We somehow managed to get a flight just before lunch on the way there and bang on lunch time on the way back, so our daughter slept the entire way there and back, a complete fluke and one that I will be forever grateful for!
We did have to get up at 5am for our outbound flight, so kept our daughter in her PJ’s in the car and attempted to keep her sleepy, hoping that she might stay asleep, she didn’t, but this just meant she slept on the plane!
The Plane Seat
Under 2’s don’t require a seat, but once your baby can walk and is bigger than a ‘baby’, it’s a nightmare to have them on your knee for hours, depending on how long the flight is, I would recommend booking a seat if the price is worth the time of peace! We booked our seats on the back row of the plane and purposely left a gap in-between us, hoping that no one would want to choose that middle back seat on their own, and ended up with a free seat on both flights, another fluke I know!
Time Difference
Heading to Menorca, the time difference was only 1 hour, so we just kept the same routine, but a lot less rigid, one hour later than usual and it worked really well with our holiday plans. But it’s something to consider if your time difference is bigger than a couple of hours.
Plane Activities – If we had not been lucky enough to get a sleeping toddler on the flight, here are the bits I did have in our bag;
- Sticker Book
- Window Stickers
- Crayola Color Wonder Colouring Pack (Pens that only work on the paper in the pack – completely mess free!)
- Snacks, and a lot of them.
- Toy Car
- Toy Animals
- Kindle or iPad and headphones
- Blow up Airplane footrest or seat extender (more like a hammock) – we didn’t have either of these, but I have been recommended both! Changing your toddlers’ seat into somewhere they can lay or nap more comfortably.
Useful Bits – to take and consider depending on destination.
- Car window sunshades.
- Small buggy – ease is everything!
- Mosquito stickers – There really worked for us, everyone had bites apart from our daughter, so we all ended up wearing them, they are worth the money!
- Mosquito spray liquid
- Talc for sand at the beach – a top tip for removing the sand and stopping sensitive skin from getting sore!
- Bed/Cot Set Up – take the bed sheets, pillow and teddys from home, making the new sleeping environment smell and look as similar as possible for a goods night sleep! (fingers crossed)
- A range of Pyjamas depending on whether there is air con or not.
- Take a make-up brush to apply sun cream – especially for the face, this is much nicer and bound to decrease the amount of tantrums or ‘no no no’s’ when covering the babes in cream every 2 hours!
- The beach that was local to us on holiday was within an alcove, this meant that the sea stayed shallow quite far out and our daughter could run in and out without it getting too deep, something to consider when looking at different beaches!
I hope you found some of these tips useful!
