This post is not meant to share any advice that we have gained from our airplane travels with our little buddy (because I’m not quite sure we have any). But, instead to share some of the wild and ridiculous airplane moments we have experienced with Milo thus far. Hopefully from these anecdotes we and maybe even others can learn from some of our blunders while taking away that in spite of these CRAZY moments….our travels and adventures have been 1000% worth it.
· Using water diapers instead of regular diapers on a 4 hour flight. Little did Adam and I know, water diapers don’t do the best job of keeping water in the diaper instead they express the liquid so that the diapers don’t get loaded down while a child swims. Thus amidst our water diaper flight-there was pee everywhere, me, the seat, the 8 water diaper, diaper changes went through, and the blankets we used to attempt to protect the airplane seat.
· Bringing fancy toddler airplane mattress, awkwardly inflating it one-handedly on the plane, and finally after it was pridefully set up with one happy Milo lounging away, being informed that these mattresses are not allowed on the plane. When going on a long haul flight with a toddler, there are many contraptions that seem like a good idea to cut down on stress and increase your child’s comfort throughout the flight. I would take caution when buying one because our air mattress wound up being a bit more trouble than help on our endeavors.
· Forbidden blanket forts. In preparing for travelling overnight with Milo… I tried to think of as many ways as possible to recreate his home sleeping environment. One idea I had to do this was to build a makeshift fort out of airplane blankets to block out the plane lights and some of the background noise. This worked until I was told to dissemble my fort (twice) waking Milo up both times.
· Inability to watch T.V. without becoming disinterested in 2 minutes. Our boy likes one show: Cocomelon that he watches at home for limited lengths of time. But one thing I didn’t anticipate were my limitations backfiring hard when he wasn’t interested in any of the plane’s shows or movies on our first flight around the world. Since then, I have tried introducing Disney movies to prepare for our follow up flights to Bahrain which has worked a little bit! He still can only get through about 20 minutes at a time but this was SO much better than our first flight!
· Flying toys. One of Milo’s favorite past times is playing fetch with his best buddy (our dog, Sebastian). They will play fetch with all sorts of objects for hours at home. However sometimes Milo wants to play fetch/catch/throw the object within different settings…. Like a plane. Oh boy you can only imagine the amount of flying toys during our flights.
· Broken Masks. In theory I would love if everyone wore masks for the duration of flights as I still feel a bit nervous with Milo being in such close contact with so many people. In actuality, it is really challenging to do so. Milo is not used to me or his favorite people wearing masks for such prolonged stretches of time. Through peek a boo gone too far or simply just trying to see Mom’s face, Milo breaks about 5-7 masks that I’m wearing on average during a lengthy flight.
· Moments of upset. At least for our journeys these moments have come no matter what preparations have been made. These moments of upset have come in all shapes and sizes and have been in response to all different flight related moments. All I have been able to do thus far, is help Milo make it through these moments so we could make it to our destination where we have always had a blast.
Flights are (obviously ^) HARD for little ones and their parents and I’m proud of our little guy for dealing with these lengthy trips to get to the moments like the one below!
Tiny Treks 