Guest Post: Traveling with a Toddler

Meet Stephanie Potter-Davey, mommy of Gabriel and their dog Abe, and amazing wife to the very busy Jordan. They are from the East Coast of Canada, but travel the world for work, so they are experts when it comes to keeping a toddler entertained on the road. She is quite the writer and photographer so I am thrilled that she was willing to share her latest trip with us. Enjoy!

As a roving family, we tend to travel a lot.  At 15 months, our son has been in four different countries, five different provinces and nine states. So I think we may have picked a tip or two about traveling with a baby.  But before we flew across the continent, we consulted with friends.  Do you have any tips on traveling with a toddler?  Because now that our son is walking, it’s a whole different ball game and the thought of being trapped in a sardine can for six hours or more with our not so little bundle of energy was a bit overwhelming, sort of like trying to hold a live flapping 24 lb. salmon in search of water in your lap.

Because we know this about our son and because we also know that he happens, (oh joy of joys!) to still sleep in his car seat, we decided to purchase a seat for our son and take a car seat along for our flight.  To our delight, the car seat did allow him to sleep a couple of hours and gave us just that much more space.  We survived the trip without scratches, bruises, and with all of our hair intact and we may have each had an opportunity to nap.

We did, however, pick up a few more tips from this trip.  Here are a few do/do-nots from our trip across the continent:

1)    DO bring your stroller to check at the gate.  It may seem like one more thing to take with you, but it comes in handy when you need to pin your wandering and/or frantically tired toddler to one place—before, after and during your layover.  It can also double as a trolley for your all those carry-ons that start to get pretty heavy.  Also, for little boys in particular, it serves as a big “truck” they can push around the airport so that they get good and worn out before the flight. But DON’T forget to empty the bottom BEFORE heading to the airport, unless you want to tote around the mosquito net and rain cover in your carry-on.

2)    DO bring a front carrier.  Sometimes, although we haven’t personally experienced it, airlines do not always unload your stroller at the gate between layovers. This can leave a mother/father carrying not only their carry-ons but also a toddler as they dash to the other end of the airport to catch a flight.  A carrier makes this possible.  Also helps with waiting to get on and off the plane if you have a wiggly toddler who just wants down.

3)    DO bring a hefty supply of food for the plane.  If your flight is five hours, plan for three more just in case.  DON’T count on the fact that your 45-minute layover will be enough time to get food.  It likely won’t.  We always bring quite a variety. And don’t forget to take care of yourself too.  A cranky parent and a cranky child are not a good combo.


*Great snacks for kids on the plane: yogurt, fruit cups, cheerios, cheddar bunnies, bagels, chunks of cheese.  The fruit packages are great for planes too but we found our son goes through them too fast and when you are on the plane, you want the activity to take some time.  Regardless, I am sure my son ate at least four on this past trip.

4)    DO know your limits.  If your child is getting too big and is very active and it’s a long flight, consider booking a seat for them if you can afford it.  But if your child is happy to sit in your lap and walk the aisles, then don’t bother.

5)    DO be your own advocate.  Go to the counter at the gate and tell them that you have a child and would like to board first. Be insistent and tell them that it will actually take you the entire loading time (especially if you have a carseat).  And DON’T forget to ask for help getting your stuff on the plane if you have a lot.

6)    DO bring a variety of things to do on the plane that you are sure your child will love.  My son loves to read books, so we brought plenty.  We also brought a laptop with downloads of a couple seasons of “Shaun the Sheep.”  But we only brought it when we had exhausted snacking, book reading, crayons and cars since we wanted to preserve the battery life.

7)    DO book a daytime flight.  A nighttime flight in our family means that we all miss a night’s sleep, because NO ONE sleeps on the plane well.  We’d rather get on a 6:00 am full day flight.  Maybe that’s just us.

8)    DON’T bring too much stuff.  Bring the essentials.  Items for entertaining baby, diapers, food, food, food and an extra set of clothing.  But try not to bring four laptops.  Check anything extraneous so that you are freed up to carry what you need. Think of the plane as a desert island.  What do you NEED on the plane?  If your luggage is lost, you can always buy most stuff later, should you need to.

Traveling with a toddler can have it’s moments of stress, particularly when you are trying to carry a 30 lb. car-seat, a 25 lb. carry-on and laptop bag down the aisle of a plane and the car-seat won’t fit down the aisle and you finally arrive at your seat sweating like you’ve run a marathon.  But mostly, despite our stressing out, toddlers adapt.  They play, they flirt with passengers, they snack and watch movies.   The toughest thing really is just letting go of your expectations.

For our latest adventure traveling across the continent and into Canada, you can read it here on our, Magnolia Coasts.

- Stephanie

If you are interested in sharing an activity, tips or just the love of being a mom on The Busy Bodies, please let me know. Email me at darien.carroll@gmail.com. I hope this blog is a place where we can learn from each other, I love learning from moms like Stephanie and all of you!