What would Jen do? Taking your 14-month-old on an international flight

Stickers. Stickers. Stickers! They're small and time consuming for a toddler to peel off. We like the teacher packs with hundreds of small cheap stickers. The wax things are called wikki stix and are also lots of fun. I'll admit we've resorted to a video Ipod and Pringles when we need serious cooperation from our 2 year old, but these ideas are much more reponsible. Good Luck!

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I took my son, at 13 (adjusted) months to the US... A 10 hour international flight, together with two shorter domestic flights. The total time we spent in the air or in the airport was around 18 hours.
We didn`t have a seat for him, but he was still physically small enough to use the plane bassinet.

My personal suggestions - things that actually worked for us.
Small and NEW toys. Tiny things that you would never normally let him touch. A clicky pen with no more ink, a calculator that makes a tiny beep everytime you press a button, a cheapy folding plastic comb, spoons in plastic bags... Those were things that occupied my son for hours and hours.
I really do not think that pipe cleaners are a good idea at all. I know my son now, at two, still never fails to poke himself everytime he gets a hold of one. At 14 months I think they would be seriously dangerous.

I also highly recommend reserving a window seat in advance just to be sure. My son loved opening and closing the window and playing at my feet against the wall. My son was at the stage where just standing and walking around was a wonderful treat. The one of us nearest the aisle would block his escape route and just let him walk around in our corner. I could even sleep for a bit with him playing down there by making a sort of nest with my coat and carry-ons. If he tried to squeeze past my legs, I`d wake up.

At other times we would sit him on the bassinet, and talk to him, play with him, etc.

I don`t know how far along in development Jen`s son is, but my son was still too babyish to do almost any of the suggestions. They might work now, but at 13/14 months, my son was still picking trash of the floor and putting it into his mouth... Certainly not at the stage to answer questions about animals I drew! The bank type idea does sound nice, if you can keep him from dropping (or throwing!) the chips every 3 seconds.

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I wouldn't be surprised if play-doh or modeling clay wouldn't be allowed in the cabin these days. Although how anyone could mistake the smell of play-doh and confuse it with plastic explosives, I don't know.

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I noticed you said your 14 month old son will be sitting on "our" laps. Maybe you are travelling with your husband. That's great! You already outnumber him and there are two laps to pass between! I travelled 24 hours, 2 layovers from california to Edinburgh with 10 month old twins. We had 3 adults to pass the twins to.

Things that helped:

Checking in early. We asked for bulk head seating. These seats are typically reserved empty until the morning of the flight and given to passengers with small children or special needs the morning of the flight on a first come first serve basis. This gives a few more inches of leg room and more floor room for crawling. It's the first row of seats behind first class (or business class). It also might come equipped with a basinette. You have to ask for the bassinette, but I believe it holds up to 20lbs, maybe even 25lbs. If your baby falls asleep, you might be able to place him in the bassinette and you'll have your hands free.

We didn't always get bulk head seating on all our legs, so we asked to have two adults seated with the middle seat open. Chances are, on an empty flight that will be the last seat someone might take. Now you have a seat for baby!

Or, as soon as all the passengers were on board we asked the flight attendant if there were any empty rows (this happened to be in the back) As soon as the seat belt light came off we rushed to the back to stretch out on 3 seats (one adult, one baby there) Great for naps!

We used children's benadryl at the maximum dosage every interval (is it 6 hours?) we could. It helped to have drowsy babies. But they seemed to nap "on schedule" anyway. If they weren't tired already, they just didn't sleep.

One thing I couldn't pack enough of were baby wipes. They are fantastic for freshening up baby and myself from all the stickiness that goes along from feeding a toddler in your lap all day.

As far as entertainment goes, we brought a small carry on with stuffed toys. There was one they really enjoyed. It was a small soft cube and there were 5 small stuffed animals inside. They loved taking those in and out. It was squishable for packing and quiet for sanity! We didn't let our kids watch TV at all until age 2 (just last week!) so that option was out for us. Occassionally they looked at the screen, but without sound I imagine it wasn't very interesting. They did like music on the headphones though! Surprisingly even at 10 months this was a huge hit!

I wish I had more entertainment suggestions. Small cheap toys that you don't mind losing. Make sure your baby doesn't see them until the plane ride. Introducing a new toy every hour seems to pique interest as well. Food is always a good distractor. The airline will probably have plenty of pretzels or crackers on hand. I've heard of people checking their car seat at the gate. Because if there is room for baby to have his/her own seat, you can tote the car seat along even though you didn't pay for that seat. If there's an empty seat you can use it! Hope some of this helps. Enjoy!

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A couple of extra comments. We've done this *many* times -- our families are in San Diego and Surrey, and our son was born in Gloucester, so there has been much flying.

1. Your diaper bag is an allowed carry on item IN ADDITION TO your hand luggage. You each get an item of hand luggage *and* you may also bring the diaper bag.

2. Don't even think about bringing the usual books and adult entertainment items for this flight. There is no point. If the baby naps, you nap -- you'll need your energy! And, hey, the Sky Mall can occupy you for hours. Fill those carry on bags with NEW toys. Brand new. Small, interesting, fun things. Make sure that he has not seen the items pre-flight. Don't give in while waiting in the airport.

3. Check in early if possible. On our first international flight, there was only one bulkhead bassinet seat left when we reached the counter and another family with baby were checking it at the same time. We literally "drew straws" for it -- and lost. Had we been five minutes earlier, we would have had a much more comofortable flight. A bit of room for baby to move is worth an extra hour cruising the airport.

4. Have fun. Make it an adventure. Fill your lives with books and activities about airplanes and flying right now so that he's excited and ready for the big trip. People do this every day. Realise that the absolute worst that can happen is that he screams, he screams and screams -- and after all is said and done, you'll land in New York and everybody will have survived it, screaming and all.

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We traveled from Ethiopia to the US with my 15 month old son a few days after we met him, and he did great! Our plane left at night, so he slept most of the way. The red-eye flights can work to your advantage. He was the only one of us who was well-rested when we got home.

We also got three seats, including one for him, which meant we had the full middle row. This was great, as it meant my husband and I both had aisle seats, and my son could sprawl on in between us to sleep.

I guess you couldn't do this in the US as you'd have to bring a car seat. But if you ever travel to and from Ethiopia, I recommend it!

Another tip: go to the bathroom before meal time ends or you'll have to wait in a LONG line. If you're in need of a diaper change, this can feel desperate. The disposable changing pads were also helpful.

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If you will be hanging out in the airport inbetween flight, bring bubbles.

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We have travelled extensively with both children (now 4 and 16 months), and have had some excellent flights and some the were nightmarish (particularly when we tried a red eye... that one backfired on us big time!). Anyway, here are my comments on some of the suggestions and a few of my own:

1. re: Pipe cleaners -- they did not work for us. I had read this tip elsewhere and thought it sounded like a good idea (this was probably when my son was 1-2 years old) so I bought a pack of them. Not only were they somewhat dangerous (ouch! I poked myself mostly!), but my son couldn't have been more disinterested. I got fun, bright colors, so that wasn't the issue. I made little spirals out of them by wrapping them around my/his fingers, and he checked it out for maybe a minute and that was it. Maybe if I were talented enough to shape them into animals or any other recognizable shape/creature that would have worked, so I would suggest practicing that ahead of time if you want to give this idea a try!

2. re: sock puppets -- Cute idea, but what we did (and what may be appealing if you're short on carry on space), is create puppets using the provided air sickness bags. All you need is a pen or marker or something to draw with and you can create any kind of creature. Our kids have enjoyed that. Come to think of it, one time we just grabbed the plain bag without drawing anything on it, stuck our hand in it and it was still pretty entertaining for DS

3. re: seat pocket items -- In addition to the air sickness bag, I second the idea of letting your child look at the flight magazine and especially the "safety instruction card" (the one with lots of airplane pictures). To this day our son always loves to grab the safety card and "read it"/follow along as the flight attendant or video does the safety demonstration. Along those same lines, another source for you to raid on the airplane itself besides the seat pocket is the food cart. On a recent flight, or daughter was quite entertained with a couple of empty plastic cups.

4. re: matchbook cars and other small toys -- These are a must, and better yet, wrap them in tissue or wrapping paper before you go. I read about this tip early on with our son and it worked like a charm. It doesn't add any more space in your carry on and it just adds another element of fun/time killing to the item. They're like little presents/surprises that way, and half the time the process of "opening" the toy ended up being more fun for my son than the actual item itself. In addition to little cars/trucks, I also wrapped mini slinkies, little tubs of play doh, little dinosaurs, etc (whatever your child is interested in). Wrap it several times around (using different colors of paper if you want to get fancy) so it takes more time to unwrap. One time I grabbed some blue, yellow, & red crepe streamers (leftover from a birthday party) and used those to wrap the little toys and they worked really well (fun to unravel around and around and around).

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