21 Oct 2013

How To RemoveThe Fear Of Flying With Children. Part 2

Your carry-on luggage survival kit:
  1. Your survival kit for toddlers or children should include boiled sweets, vitamin tablets or something to suck for takeoff and landing to avoid earache. For babies I used to have water or milk in a bottle for them to suck on. It can also include activity bags for the children, fruit and nuts to cover for disorientated meal times.

18 Oct 2013

How To Remove The Fear Of Flying With Children. Part 1

As Christmas approaches some of you will be thinking of making a trip back to your homeland. If you have
children or babies to take with you, this may seem daunting. You can probably already hear the groans of passengers as you and your offspring approach a seat near them.
I heard one young man say, “My flight is going to be terrible now.”  I felt for the mother and hoped that she didn’t hear the comment, though I thought I saw her clench her jaw. I empathised with the young man just a teeny bit. A constantly screaming baby is hard to be near but so is a drunken young man, which he had the potential to be.
Since immigrating to New Zealand from England, I have flown long-haul flights with all ages and stages of babies, toddlers, children and teenagers. The journey is two twelve-hour flights with a variety of hours in transit in between. As my youngest is now a teenager, most of the travelling with children was before those marvellous individual screens for in-flight entertainment.
Individual screens or not, the journey can be hard. The prospect of it can be overwhelming. The journey is worth it though, and the more you are prepared the easier it is. Here are a few tips for travelling with children that worked for me, particularly on long journeys.