Family Travel Archives - Page 3 of 12

May 02 2018

Our first flight as a family of five: lessons learned

We took our first roundtrip flight as a family of five a couple of weeks ago, and I’m happy to report that it went off without a hitch. Now that we’ve officially checked off flying with three children, I thought it’d be interesting to take a look at how our process has evolved with each successive kid. Each new baby has changed how we fly just a little.

Whether it be our planning process, how to survive the flight, or how we deal with luggage, things have definitely changed (just like my views on points and miles have changed now that I have a family). And while theorycrafting travel as a family as five was one, nothing tops the real thing. So, let’s have some fun. How have things changed? Here’s a short summary.

After flying with three children, we've learned a lot about how to fly with kids. Here are some lessons learned to help you as you prepare to fly with your children. — You can’t see her, but the baby is there!

Choice and date of first flight

First child

We chose a short flight around when our daughter was 11 weeks old. Since we had to be in Washington, D.C. for a wedding, we figured it’d be a simple first flight. Only being parents for 11 weeks, we had a lot of hopes and fears about the flight, which are kind of silly to look back on.

Second child

Our son’s first flight was a solo trip with mom to Chicago, around when I took our daughter on our first solo trip together. Again, he went around three months, to Charlotte, so a slightly longer flight. But at that age he was pretty manageable, or so my wife told me.

Third child

Our third kid’s first flight didn’t come until much later – almost six months old! That’s not a function of the baby (she’s the easiest one yet), it just took that long for us to mobilize everyone!

Best age to take a first flight?

I’d go with anytime after three months. 3-6 months is a bit of a sweet spot, since the child mostly just sleeps and eats still at that point. Anything earlier is a bit too stressful for me (though probably quite doable). After 6 months you need to start worrying about stuff like bringing solids, but really, any age before 18 months is fairly manageable in my opinion.

Amount of preparation and planning

First child

For our first child, I probably spent a week or two going over plans in my mind. I worried enough that I got an entire post’s worth of material out of it. With your first child, you sort of have no idea what to expect on the ground so I planned for things to go wrong in the air. But M taught us that it’s more stressful for parents than kids, and the kids feed off our energy.

Second child

For our second child, we had flown enough with the first baby that we sort of knew what to expect. I’d say we thought about what to bring for him maybe two days in advance, but we mostly just made sure to remember our travel boppy.

Third child

We packed extra diapers and a second set of clothes in our carry on and called it a day.

Amount of luggage

Like I’ve mentioned in the past, we like to pack light. Here’s how our amount of luggage grew as the family grew.

First child

With only one kid, we still managed to stick with two carry ons and no checked bags. We’d gate check the stroller but still avoid having to check actual bags. As our daughter grew we started needing to check a car seat, but we packed diapers and extra clothes in there.

Second child

The biggest issue with the second kid was needing two strollers. We’d still gate check both, but at this point we had too much stuff to fit only in carry on. The other issue was we couldn’t carry on two bags anymore because we didn’t have enough hands.

Third child

I think we actually cut down the amount we packed with a third child. At this point, if possible we buy diapers and stuff wherever we are traveling. It’s too stressful to handle a lot of luggage at the airport, so it’s more important to pack light. We’re also much more liberal at this point about doing laundry on the road.

In flight seating

First child

Choosing seats for the first child was fairly straightforward: choose aisle and row for parents, hope the middle seat doesn’t fill, if it does, just switch with the stranger. We never bought a seat for the infant, lap child only.

Second child

While we did buy a seat for our second one time (when my wife traveled alone with him), again, we mostly kept him as a lap infant. Seating for a family of four with a baby is pretty straightforward: go for a row of three!

Third child

Right now our third is a lap infant so our choices are interesting. Get one row of three plus one separate seat? That was my initial thought, but if you go with that configuration then one parent has to deal with all three kids on a regular basis, only the baby can be passed. What we found worked well was having two seats per row in rows back to back – meaning we could pass the baby over the seats. This also helped because our son can get kicky and we could put him behind one of us. I think that will be our preferred configuration overall.

In flight entertainment

We are fairly strict about screen time at home, but we do use screens and TV quite a bit to keep our kids entertained on the road. However, that’s definitely evolved as our family has grown. Here’s how.

First child

Our first child, as usually is the case, is the most disciplined about screen time. She watched the least television before she was 2 and has the least stamina for watching screens (correlation IS causation perhaps?). We had a great routine with her when she was 18 months – 4 years old. She would color in her books until takeoff, watch two episodes of something after take off, eat, and then take a nap. Beautiful clockwork for about 5-6 straight flights. It was lovely.

Second child

We got much more liberal at home and on the road with our second child, so we have to distract him with food in pill boxes to get him to stop watching sometimes. He’s okay about it but he definitely wants to consume much more media on the plane.

Third child

Just planning to hook the TV straight into her retinas!

Overall stress level and Final Thoughts

Interestingly enough, our overall stress level has decreased with each successive child. Yes, things definitely get more difficult the more kids you have, but when we had our second we sort of knew what to expect. Though he’s pretty different from our first, we still were in the same general ballpark. And honestly? With the third, we were just too tired to stress out too much. There are a million things that can go wrong and we’ve learned it does us no good to stress too much about them. So, we prepare what we can but just play it where it lies.

How have your habits changed as your family has grown? I’d also love to hear how things change as the kids get older! Let me know in the comments.

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Apr 02 2018

Choosing which point option to use for a domestic flight

So I’ve been working on clearing out earned miles and points (my shame list). I’ve got points lying around in all sorts of programs that I’ve decided to prioritize getting rid of. That creates an interesting scenario when you have multiple trips coming up. Do you burn the points you want to get rid of, or do you redeem points for best value? In my case, that question turned what should have been a ten minute booking into a two hour internal debate. Mo Points, Mo Problems as Diddy said.

I thought it might be useful to go through my thought process as I debated which points to use (like I’ve done before). I’ll keep this post focused on only one of the flights I booked, Newark to Charlotte. The other flights I’m booking factored into my decision making but not enough to blab about all of those. I also learned a few things along the way which I’ll share as well. Let’s dive in.

Flight Parameters and Non-negotiables

Before I started looking for airfare, I had to figure out my flight parameters. Since this will be our first flight as a family of five, I wanted:

Nonstop flights
Morning flight times
Everyone on the same itinerary

Also, since I’m trying to ditch miles and points in all the various programs I’ve earned, I had one more parameter: Use up some of these random miles, even if it might not be the best value.

Various Options and Prices

So I had various options to try:

AA award flights via British Airways Avios
UA award flights (out of Newark)
Cash flights booked with Ultimate Rewards
Cash flights booked with Flexperks
Cash flights booked with Merrill Lynch points
Cash flights booked with BofA Premium Rewards points

Here’s what I found and what I felt to be the pros and cons of each.

AA award flights using Avios

As always, I found Avios to not be as useful as advertised (in my personal situation, relax everyone). While there was bountiful award space on AA in economy, at 15,000 Avios round trip per person I didn’t find the redemption to be a great value vs. the $177 cash price. Now, if I had a ton of Avios, I probably would have pulled the trigger since it would have fulfilled my “use random miles” parameter. However, I would have had to transfer from Chase or AMEX – I could do better by either using the 35% rebate on my Business Platinum (AMEX) or booking for 1.5 cents per point (Chase). So, no Avios for me.

The goal should always be to redeem points for your flights. But sometimes, it can be difficult to decide which points to use, so how do we go about doing that? — It did not feel worth it to transfer points over when the cash flight is so cheap

UA award flights out of Newark

The next thing I checked was UA award flights. Saver flights were only available at inopportune times (6 in the morning or 8 at night), so I quickly moved on.

Cash flights booked with Ultimate Rewards

Since I have the Chase Sapphire Reserve, I knew I could get 1.5 cents per point if I booked through Ultimate Rewards. Since the cash flight cost around $177, that came out to a favorable number (especially compared to transferring to Avios). The whole itinerary priced out at around 47,000 Ultimate Rewards points, as opposed to 60,000 Avios + $44.80. I put a pin in this one to think about later.

Cash flights booked with Flexperks

Since Flexperks offer the same 1.5 cents per point rate, I knew that it would cost the same number of points as Ultimate Rewards. Pinned this option as well. However, at this point I had been farting around for so long that space had dropped from 4 seats in the fare bucket I needed to 3, so the new cost (in either UR or FP) was around ~50,000. Analysis paralysis! (If I didn’t have the all people on same itinerary parameter, I could have booked two separate itineraries. But 3K points are worth avoiding the hassle for me).

Cash flights booked with Merrill Lynch

The next thing I did was see if I could book business class with Merrill Lynch. The best way to maximize Merrill Lynch is to book flights that cost almost $500, you can get those for 25K Merrill Lynch points. I was trying to see if I could get a couple of one ways in business, but as you can imagine with such a specific parameter, it was too difficult to make the numbers work. Each leg cost around $300 in business, too cheap to book a one way and too expensive to bother booking a round trip. Doing this also would have violated my one itinerary parameter so it ended up being a non starter. Curse you Merrill Lynch points I must be rid of you!

Cash flights booked with BofA Premium Rewards points

At this point I wanted to look at BofA Premium Rewards, one of those cards that I just got for the sign up bonus because of the hype. Guess what I learned that I probably should have already known? Points can be redeemed for 1 cent per point for travel (no uplift) or for straight cash, homey. Since my goal was to get rid of miscellaneous points if possible, I immediately redeemed my Premium Rewards points for cash and kicked myself for not doing it three months ago.

Choosing what miles and points to redeem

In the end, I decided to go with Flexperks. I figure Chase Ultimate Rewards points are more flexible (I can even use them to buy Disney tickets), and Flexperks offered the best combination of value and “random points I want to get rid of” status. Better yet, I was able to charge the ticket to my US Bank Altitude and test out mobile rewards redemption. It’s pretty nice to just redeem points with a text! Which gave me an idea for a #veryshortblogpost which you’ll see if you follow me on Twitter.

Final Thoughts

I find it useful to go through various miles and points options when booking tickets. Honestly, it’s a little annoying to have so many options but I guess that’s #firstworldproblems. Make sure you go through all your options to find the best value for yourself and your situation, and redeem according to your parameters! In the end I was happy to be rid of a bunch of Flexperks and to save my Ultimate Rewards. Now to get rid of those Merrill Lynch points…

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Mar 17 2018

6 potty training tips for traveling with young kids

One monkey wrench that often gets thrown into traveling with young kids is potty training. Some families, even ones that love to travel like ours, might take a break from traveling around potty training time. An accident at home can be very annoying, an accident on the road can be all that and more. We’re in the middle of potty training my son and considering he literally just lost his underwear (I searched the house, no idea where it went), I’ve got concerns about traveling with this kid while potty training. (Note: This is what happens when you put dad in charge :D). But sometimes as a family you have to travel while potty training, or maybe you just want to. So here are some of my best potty training travel tips, and I’d love to hear yours in the comments! Note, the portable toilet seat I recommend below is an Amazon affiliate link and may pay me a small commission.

1. Know your child’s personality

This first tip is both common sense parenting and a caveat. No two kids are the same, so take everything this website (and others) says with a grain of salt. Only you know what works best for your child when it comes to amount of praise, rewards, need for scheduling, and degree of sarcasm necessary. (Joking.) But make sure you tailor your potty training strategy, whether at home or on the road, to what makes your child tick. This obviously becomes much easier when you’re potty training a second or third child, but you can still bear this in mind with the first.

For example, different children need different amounts of reminding and scheduling. Every kid probably needs to reminded to go to the bathroom when you start potty training, but children learn to tell you they need to go themselves at different rates. That’s just one of a million examples of how a child’s unique personality will require a unique strategy. So make sure when you’re employing any travel strategy to bear in mind your child’s personality.

2. Start early (both age-wise and before you travel)

I delayed potty training my then three year old daughter because we had a big trip to Disney World coming up. My reasoning, which I still think was fairly sound, was changing diapers would be easier than worrying about timing toilets. That delay proved unnecessary for two reasons. First, Disney World has incredible bathroom facilities for kids. In retrospect, this should have been obvious to me. Secondly, I’ve heard recently that people say that 20-30 months is the ideal potty training time. The reasoning goes, “the kid can’t hold it yet, so if you have them go regularly, they get used to it, and they figure it out.” Or some mess like that, IDK. So I could have potty trained my daughter long before the trip.

We’re trying that with my 2.5 year old son and aside from the aforementioned disappearing underpants, potty training is going very well. We’re also at least a month out from any large trips, so he should be potty trained in time for wherever we end up traveling in April. If you just started potty training but need to make an emergency trip, I’d recommend just reverting to diapers for a little while to prevent stress. If it’s an emergency trip you probably have bigger things to worry about anyway.

3. Use diapers for long stretches and to prevent bad accidents

I’m sort of over pull-ups as a concept, at least at home. I think children, especially young ones, understand more viscerally what is happening when they wet their underwear. However, I think diapers, pull-ups or otherwise, should still be part of your potty training travel strategy. A couple of examples to illustrate why:

When the seat belt sign is on, you just don’t have any idea when you can get to the bathroom. A diaper prevents you from having to try to navigate an airplane toilet in bumpy air.
In foreign countries, you may not always be able to reliably find a bathroom.
On road trips you don’t have to stress about waking someone up from a nap.

Obviously, when potty training you will be bringing an extra set of clothes (preferably two) in your go bag, but diapers will minimize your stress since you have a backup. Things like jet lag and overall exhaustion are tough for adults to handle, so I like to take the stress off a child in the middle of potty training.

Do pack a ton of plastic zip lock bags, though.

Potty training young children can be stressful, even moreso if you're traveling or on vacation. Here are six potty training travel tips to help you and your family make the most out of your trip. — Naps are great, you don’t want to interrupt them

4. Use timers to keep on track

One thing about travel is that it can be stressful. (Related: Family Travel Conflicts). There can be so much going on that parents might not even have the mental bandwidth to remember a potty break. I find timers to be super useful both at home and on the road. Technology is great and frankly I need the assist to keep everything straight in my head, especially on the road. A bonus, in my experience, is that kids love timers. You can download the fun apps or just let them pick the ringtones or whatever.

Either way, timers help keep you on a schedule which helps prevent accidents. Obviously this may not work as well on a plane when there is drink service, lines, turbulence, etc., but that’s why you combine this with the diapers.

5. Try to keep your home routines as much as possible

Another thing the timer can help you with? Maintaining home routines. We try to keep home routines the same as much as possible when traveling, since traveling introduces so many new variables. Potty training is no exception. Routines help kids feel comfortable. They prevent potty issues as well as behavior issues.

When you’re on the plane, if your child goes potty once an hour, try to get them to go once an hour. At your hotel, same thing. And when you’re out and about town, try to do whatever you do when out and about your hometown. Routines don’t prevent disaster, but they help.

That also means if you use a portable toilet or toilet seat at home, bring it on the road too. Public bathrooms can understandably be strange and daunting to young kids, so bring what they’re familiar with from home to make them comfortable. (Looking for a portable toilet seat? Try this one!)

6. Don’t stress the small stuff

I’m a big offender, but it’s really not worth stressing about the small stuff, especially when traveling. Kids feed off their parents energy and if you constantly stress about anything, especially potty training, they will just feed off that negative energy. Go into your trip expecting a few accidents: they’ll likely happen. That’s okay! Just make sure you keep doing what you were doing at home and supporting your child positively. (Again, I need to remind myself of this often).

Remember, potty training is about winning the war, not any individual battles. Prepare yourself accordingly before you travel.

Final Thoughts

Like I said at the top, I totally understand not wanting to potty training while traveling. I definitely have avoided it when possible, but sometimes it’s not possible. Overall, just like at home, patience and firm guidance should win the day. If you have any tips for potty training while traveling, I’d love to hear them in the comments.

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Feb 25 2018

Flying Alone with Preschoolers – Tips and tricks for a successful trip

In my last post, I detailed my (mostly) successful experience flying alone with my two young children, which went much better than my first attempt. If you’re flying alone with preschoolers or toddlers, let me share a few ideas about how to best set your family up for success.

Like I said in the last post, meltdowns on a flight often have a lot to do with luck. Still, I feel it’s good to prepare and set yourself for the lowest probability of meltdown. Here are seven suggestions I’d make to help making flying alone with preschoolers more manageable. As always, would love to hear your thoughts in the comments! If you hear echoes of the experience I shared in my last post, it’s because I’m not only a spokesperson for these ideas, I’m also a customer.

Flying alone with preschoolers or toddlers may sound scary, but with preparation (and a little bit of luck) you can have a successful and stress free trip! Here's some tips and tricks to help you achieve that goal. — Happy to be airborne

If you’d like to support the blog, I’ve indicated when I’ve added my Amazon affiliate link for certain products in the post (well, just one), would appreciate it if you used it. You can always find other travel products I recommend on my family travel gear page.

Seven ideas to make flying alone with preschoolers or toddlers more manageable

Pick a time to fly that works for your child
Pack light
Make life easy on the ground
Don’t stress out about the nap
Make sure your kids are fed
Break your flight down into twenty minute segments
Practice, practice, practice at home

1. Pick a time to fly that works for your child

First and foremost, I’d say pick a flight time that best sets yourself up for success. Yes, you’ll save a ton of money flying at 6 AM or 9 PM, but is that worth potential disaster? This rings especially true if your travel puts you alone with multiple young children, like my latest trip.

Like I said above, I enjoy traveling mid-morning. I can wake the kids up normal time, and we can either have lunch on the plane or when we land. Others know their kids will nap fine on the plane (either through experience or because they get consistent naps in car seats). If that’s the case, you can travel after lunch and have your kids nap on the plane. This worked like gangbusters for my oldest daughter, but my son doesn’t nap well on planes so I’ve adjusted.

Know your child and know when they will be at their best. To me, it’s super worth the premium to pay extra to fly accordingly.

Corollary my family and I use: Avoid connections if you can. Every layover just presents another opportunity for things to go wrong.

2. Pack light

Like most parents, I tend to worry about everything. This leads to a tendency to overpack – extra jackets, twice the amount of clothes needed, sunscreen, medicine for every disease known to child, etc. I can be guilty of this, but I work very hard to pack light, it just makes the airplane part of travel so much easier.

That means I only brought the essentials to Florida plus:

1 extra set of clothes
Medicine
Ponchos (it’s Florida and they’re light)
Swimwear
Diapers (I ended up having extra room)
Entertainment for the kids (coloring books, tablet which I forgot, etc.)

So in the end, I ended up with one carry-on sized suitcase (which I checked, more on that later), one adult backpack, one kids backpack, one stroller, and one shoulder bag (like a tote) for food.

That meant except for the short distance from the car to the check in desk, I could always have one hand on the stroller and one hand on my older child. That not only provided convenience, but I also didn’t have to worry about losing anyone in the crowded airport.

3. Make life easy on the ground

So why did I check in my bag? Because of Disney’s Magical Express, which delivers your luggage straight to your room. In general, I’m a believer in making life easy for yourself on the ground at your destination at the least, at both departure and destination if possible. I didn’t have to worry about my suitcase and I just got my kids on the bus and was at Coronado Springs in an hour (though again, we definitely got very lucky this time around, it can take up to two hours).

Becky Pokora of sightDOING.net expressed a similar idea on Episode 75 of the Saverocity Observation Deck podcast. Towards the end of the podcast she mentioned she almost always hires a car at her destination just so she can mostly guarantee she’ll get to her lodging with as little stress as possible. When you save a lot of money on travel via hacking, you can afford to splurge a little to make life easier on the ground. In my mind, this goes double when you’re flying alone with preschoolers or toddlers.

4. Don’t stress out about the nap

Yes, most toddlers and preschoolers need a nap. They also need to assert themselves and their independence. In my opinion, fighting with your toddler about napping on a plane isn’t worth it and may even have the opposite effect. I’m sure you have fought with your child about napping at home, imagine doing it in a very public, very confined cylindrical tube 30,000 feet in the air.

Some kids will be self aware enough and decide they want to sleep themselves (my daughter). Others will just never sleep and end up overtired the next day (my son). Some kids will eventually get so overtired they flip out for a time until they eventually pass out in your arms inside the lavatory (both my kids).

I liken this to calling the bank when you get “pending” for your credit card, which I no longer do. If you start insisting your child take a nap on the plane, you’re inviting them to throw a tantrum early. Yes, they may eventually throw a tantrum if you don’t make them take a nap, but your insisting gives them two opportunities to do that instead of just one.

I’m sure many people disagree with me, and that’s fine. I’ve just found stressing about the nap not to be worth it. On both flights, I calmly asked my son if he wanted to take a nap, he said no. I replied by trying to reason with a two year old about the importance of rest, he said no again, and I just let it go. Luckily he didn’t tantrum and we survived.

Obviously, this strategy needs to be adjusted for longer flights, but we managed for five and a half hours including the delay, and you can too.

5. Make sure your kids are fed

Do I love bringing macaroni and cheese (with broccoli mixed in) onto a plane? I most decidedly do not. But I knew Jetblue wouldn’t even have “real” food for sale on my flight, so I needed some sort of substantial sustenance for the kids. If I hadn’t woken up so late I would have added ham.

The two most consistent reasons my kids, and I think most kids, get cranky are still lack of sleep and hunger. While I’ve established I try not to stress out too much about the former, I definitely prepare for the latter. I reserved an entire carry on bag for snacks, the macaroni and cheese, milk, etc. I even bought easy mac for the ride home. Spend that extra time and use up that extra space to make sure your kids won’t be hungry on the plane, and ideally, not just loading up on chips and pretzels. Trail mixes are great for protein if your kids will eat them.

I brought treats for my son (aforementioned Reese’s Pieces), and doled them out over time. Another very effective technique for toddlers is putting tiny snacks into a pill box (Amazon affiliate link) – it really drags out the whole process!

6. Break your flight down into twenty minute segments

I got this idea from a fellow writer at Traveling Dad, Jeff Bogle (from the fun parenting/travel blog Out with the Kids). I recommend checking out this post about breaking your flight into twenty minute segments (despite him disagreeing with me about the nap time thing!).

The basic premise: bring activities, food, entertainment, etc. that can be doled out to your toddler in 20 minute segments (minimum). Whether it be coloring books, a TV show, or a snack in a pillbox, prepare to have a variety of activities for your child.

The idea sounds simple and it is! I’m not a very organized person but I still managed to get on that plane (with very little luggage) with over ten twenty minute activities. My activities included the aforementioned pill box, a coloring book, a sticker book, the mac and cheese, multiple TV shows, and more.

Mixing things up will prevent the kids from getting bored, and planning in this fashion will prepare you to entertain them on the trip even if you’re a bad planner (me). Bring some candy for yourself, too.

7. Practice, practice, practice at home

If you can’t handle your young kids at home, you’re certainly going to struggle up in the air. So if you don’t get put in 1 v multiple situations at home, put yourself in them. This goes double for whichever parent spends less time taking care of the kids.

Taking care of the kids alone at home obviously gives you a practical advantage. You get used to being outnumbered and the tightwire act that ensues. You also get the experience of not having a safety net to back you up. I guess you have the kindness of strangers but you potentially have that on the plane too.

But probably the best reason to take care of the kids alone, aside from making your partner happy and more relaxed, is you get to know how you parent the kids. To state the obvious, this knowledge will be invaluable when you’re in a solo situation with the kids. Especially one that has the potential to be high stress.

Also, hanging out with the kids alone is fun. Practice!

Final Thoughts

There’s no surefire way to ensure flying alone with preschoolers or toddlers will be smooth, but there’s lots of ways to reduce stress. These are tips that have worked for me. But every family and every child is different, as you no doubt know if you are a parent.

So, I’d love to hear it: what works for you and your kids when you’re traveling alone with no backup? Or if you haven’t tried it yet, what scares you the most about traveling alone with your little kids? Let me know in the comments!

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Feb 24 2018

Flying Alone with Preschoolers – my latest experience

About a year ago, I told myself my attempt at flying alone with preschoolers or toddlers probably sufficiently broke me to the point of avoiding traveling alone with the kids. I jest. But here we are, a year later, and I decided to have another go, this time taking an entire vacation with my older two children (5 and 2.5). I thought I’d just share a bit of my experience and some rudimentary tips for trying to survive being alone with small children in a small cylindrical tube.

A couple quick notes before I get into it. First, I chose Disney as a location because I thought it would be easier. A Disney hotel reservation offers a lot of benefits that make life easier when you get on the ground. I figured with stuff like Magical Express, I wouldn’t have to worry about hauling luggage or a rental car on the ground. Plus, at a rate of $145/night at Coronado Springs, a moderate hotel (that I could pay for with points too) it seemed like a no brainer. Also, I scheduled the trip to coincide with when my parents were visiting friends in Florida, which obviously helped a ton. They agreed to stay at Coronado as well and spent some time with us in the parks.

Flying alone with preschoolers can be tough, but it's definitely doable. Here's my latest experience taking my five and two year old down to Florida. — Staying at an on site Disney hotel made life a lot easier

Finally, props to anyone who has done this, especially those who have to sometimes. A friend of mine took her two under four year olds all the way from Thailand back to the States. My mom likes to remind me she did the same with my sister and me to Hong Kong. If you want to fly alone with young kids or are in a situation where you have to – know that people have tread that path before and excelled at it. Or at least survived it.

My experience flying alone with two preschoolers

Woke up late, oops

I booked an 8:30 AM flight outbound and a 10:30 AM return because I’ve decided that for short domestic flights (< 3 hours) it’s best for my kids to avoid naptime. Like anti-clockwork, my alarm didn’t go off at 6:00 AM so my wife woke me up in a panic at 7:00 AM. My wife and I tag teammed to make some mac and cheese and we made it out the door by 7:15.

We got to the airport by around 7:40, even with rush hour traffic, and dropped our bags off at check in. Since I had two kids and only two hands, I didn’t want to deal with rolling a carry-on through the airport. (Alas, I think that will be par for the course now until all three are old enough to carry their own stuff).

We found a cute little play area in Terminal C where we hung out before heading to the gate. After arrival at the gate we of course had to return to the play area where we left one of our dolls. I like to board late when I’m alone with the kids because they’ll be on the plane long enough, so we hung around the terminal and were some of the last people to board.

A bonus two hours on the plane

Again, like anti-clockwork, when we boarded the plane in Boston, we happened to be in the middle of a mild snow and in freezing temperatures. Jetblue in Boston taxis to a de-icing pad instead of de-icing at the gate. That combined with a bunch of other delays that I can’t even really remember meant we did not have wheels up until 11:00 AM.

2.5 hours on the plane while the flight was still on the ground! To be perfectly honest, I worried a lot about whether my kids (well, mostly the two year old) would lose it at any minute. Oh, and in my rush out the door I forgot our tablet. So how did we survive?

Well, for starters, free TV on Jetblue helped a lot. Between that and my phone (and multiple portable chargers), the kids mostly stayed entertained. I also came equipped with a bunch of coloring books, snacks, and the aforementioned mac and cheese.

We spent a lot of those two hours talking about planes, why they get delayed, the whole deicing situation, watching TV, coloring a little, watching TV, eating candy, watching TV, etc. I refused to bust out the mac and cheese because I knew I had to pace us. Finally, we were on the runway and taking off, and I did a little cartwheel in my head.

A bag lunch and surviving the rest of the flight

I had originally intended the mac and cheese to be lunch for the kids at the time of our descent (which should have been around 12:30 PM). But after they survived the long delay and we took off, I decided that we’d eat lunch right then and there, at 11:15. The kids mostly held it together the whole way.

Obviously, avoiding meltdowns has a ton to do with luck. My son had been quite difficult the week before we left so I was pretty nervous, having read a bunch of stories about how all the kids who get kicked off the plane are in terrible twos or threes. Yikes. If I could point to one thing besides luck that saved my bacon, it was a decision early on in the delay to dole out ONE Reese’s Piece to my son every twenty minutes. He bought into it and I managed to get through the whole flight giving him only a little bit more than a Halloween sized pack.

A stress free transfer

When we finally landed, having that Disney hotel reservation really paid off. We just waited for our stroller, squad goals-ed our way through the airport to the Magical Express, got onto the bus (more TV) and went straight to the hotel. An hour later we were in our hotel room, two and a half hours later we were in Pandora at Animal Kingdom. Disney transportation doesn’t always work smoothly, but when it does it is straight up spectacular.

Final Thoughts

Did part of me root for a meltdown to happen so I’d have something more interesting to write about? I’ll never tell! But hopefully this post reassures anyone out there flying alone with preschoolers that even when things go wrong, you can have a great flight! In my next post, I’ll write about my best ideas for minimizing the risk of having a bad flight experience with your little kids. Until then!

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