I was wondering if anyone has experiences with flying long haul flights with young kids (toddlers). I might be going to the middle east from amreeka soon and I have never flown more than 5 hours with my infant. Was wondering how the experiences have been ? Plus, any advice for a long journey ? Any tips, hints etc.
Thanks in advance…
Re: Long haul flights and travel with toddlers
Diva.....i just came back from pak , 2 weeks ago i think....
i have 3 kids ...6, 4 n 1
with train, flights , transit ...all in all it was 24 hrs journey.....
but i'm lucky as my kids tend to sleep alot during flights.....the most difficult time is when any of us need to go to wash room ....eldest is independent ...but the other two won't leave me ....
khayr take some coloring material/toys with you.....hopefully that will keep them busy!!
Re: Long haul flights and travel with toddlers
Diva, how old are your little ones?
Re: Long haul flights and travel with toddlers
my daughter is 2 yrs old.
Re: Long haul flights and travel with toddlers
Diva, mine is about 16 months and you cannot get her interested in the TV or the toys. So, one person has to constantly work entertain her. She wants to be left alone so she can run through the aisles.
So, what we try to do is get red eye flights and do not let her go to sleep before the flight and once we have boarded and all strapped in we give her extra milk so she falls asleep. That way we can easily kill 3-4 hours. For the rest of the flight we try to keep her busy with food, grapes and pomegranate seeds are a good way to slow the process down and so we give her these one by one and keep her distracted from wanting to run in the aisles. 
She also loves to play with empty coke cans but the passengers around do not like that part at all.
Next time we would want to take the car seat with us, because at least we can strap her down and give her a pacifier which will kill another 2-3 hours for sure.
Another idea would be to buy those little DVD players and get Teletubbies going for a few hours. The only problem with mine would be the head phones … she will never keep 'em on.
Re: Long haul flights and travel with toddlers
Three words...........
Don't Do It.
Re: Long haul flights and travel with toddlers
Diva, I don't have children and have not traveled with kids but every child is different. My aunt recently traveled to Pakistan from Canada, so you can imagine how long the flight was! Anyway, her daughter is 3 and her son is 1 year old. She was expecting her daughter to be the problem but was pleasantly surprised when she was relatively quiet, did not really make a fuss, and did not cry much either. They just made sure she slept a lot. Their son, she says, was a nightmare though and would not stop crying and screaming!
So yeah, I am sure it depends on the child's temperament as well.
Re: Long haul flights and travel with toddlers
I wish it was that easy !