How to keep your toddler entertained on a flight

With a little intention and planning, it is possible to keep your toddler entertained on a flight. Don’t just wing it (pardon the pun), and hope for the best. That is, unless you are one of the lucky few whose toddler is able to sit still for a while.

I am the best person to be dishing out advice on this topic, because whilst Nina was always a good baby, she wouldn’t stay still for longer than 5 minutes max. And that’s a rarity.

So when Nina’s first airplane ride was still months away, I began thinking up simple yet creative ways to keep this child of mine busy.

This is what I did.

1. I bought foam stickers

We had a ball sticking them all over the airplane seats and windows. They’re colourful, easy to stick, and easy to remove. I made up stories for Nina while we stuck them on in different places and acted out sweet little stories.
Removing them was part of the fun too!

2. I printed colouring sheets.

Printing your own colouring sheets is so much better than lugging around large colouring books. Besides, what little child wouldn’t love having printouts of all his favourite characters? You can pick and choose anything you like, chuck as many as you wish into the bag of your choice for the flight, and you can discard immediately after use.
It was also fun to create a collage using the foam stickers, the colouring sheets and colours.

3. I also bought some blu tac.

Here’s why. I used the blu tac to make sure that the colouring sheets do not fall off the tray. We also hung our creations onto the window and seats.
I made little animals out of blu tac for Nina, and we played a simple game of animal sounds.

4. I packed her travel easel

I got this off Amazon (I bought a few for our friends’ kids too as it’s SO handy!)
All it is is a little travel easel that’s closed up like a little box. The child can doodle with the provided markers or chalk depending on if the blackboard or the whiteboard is facing you. The cool thing is that a nice selection of magnetic pieces in the form of animals, flowers or other cute bits are included and can be affixed to the whiteboard side of the kit. This makes it also fun for kids who cannot hold a pen on their own yet.
See it here.

5. We put on a few videos

Nina’s favourite nursery rhymes and YouTube videos were loaded onto the tablet. It was great to be able to use it when Nina got tired of playing games. Of course, the volume was very low, but Nina was happy to watch the bright images whilst cuddled up on mama.

6. We fed her

Nina loves food! I packed a mixture of foods that are treats, reserved especially for flights, along with foods that require a lot of time to eat, such as raisins, little crackers, grapes, small cheese cubes and so on.

The above pretty much had us covered for a 2.5 hour flight.

Besides thinking about entertainment, we also made sure that Nina was comfortable and happy throughout the flight. I’ll be sharing my tips on this topic next week, so make sure you subscribe to tune in and not miss out!

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