Flying With a Toddler Doesn't Have to be a Federal Disaster

Many parents are wary about air travel with young children. How have you fared at 35,000 feet with a toddler?

“Are you crazy?”

That was the general response when I told my friends that my husband and I were planning a vacation to Hawaii in early March — with our 21-month-old.

Adding to their incredulity was that when I made our reservations last fall, I booked him as a lap child. It wasn’t that I was being frugal so much as that I didn’t think it would be an issue. My son had flown three other times, including to Hawaii a year earlier – but all of those trips came before he was walking.   

You know, before he developed a need for speed and went through a post-holidays growth spurt.

As our trip to Maui drew near, I began to panic about the idea of more than six hours with a squirmy, 30-something-pound child on our laps. Free is only fabulous when it doesn't give you a nervous breakdown. And driving home from Seattle can be iffy if he’s not in the mood to sit quietly and look out the window. There have been far too many recent occurrences of various Leapfrog toys being hurled across the backseat as we roll down Interstate 5.

With growing dread, I wondered just how far My Pal Scout could fly in the economy cabin of a Boeing 757 and whether a sippy cup lobbed over the seatback could give someone a concussion.

So imagine my surprise when my son was a total rockstar on our trip. Granted, I use that word very loosely – I don’t mean the Bon Jovi type, more like someone who won “American Idol” and charted a No. 1 hit after no one expected them to even sell more than 100 albums. Hey, a toddler is a toddler.

The key to this peaceful voyage was restraint.

And I don’t mean myself showing restraint by not “accidentally” rolling my carry-on over the foot of the woman who continually glared at us for having the audacity to bring a child onboard a plane.

I never thought we would be the type of parents who put their child on a leash (for lack of a better word), but we were really worried about our son running off in the airport. We wanted him to get out some energy during our layover in San Francisco so he would nap on the longer flight to Hawaii, but we also knew it would be near impossible to chase him while lugging carry-ons, a stroller, etc.

I bought a backpack bear child restraint at Target, and I will tell you, it was the best $10 I have spent in a long time. My son was able to walk around to his heart’s content in the airport and we didn’t have to worry about having to yank him off a jumbo jet bound for Shanghai.

In a time of increasing defiance against being in the stroller for long periods, we will definitely use it again in places such as the zoo or the fair.

Now, about that whole napping thing …

There are some advantages to traveling to Hawaii in the offseason, one being that none of our planes were full. We got lucky and were able to get our son a free empty seat on all four flights and therefore carry on his car seat, which we would have otherwise gate checked with the stroller. Not only was it safer for him to be buckled into his car seat in the event of turbulence, etc., but it also prevented him from jumping off our laps and into the path of an oncoming beverage cart.

He was much happier being able to sprawl out in his familiar car seat with a blanket from home, and we were more comfortable not having him on our laps. I was able to put down my tray table so he could watch DVDs on my laptop – an impossible feat with a lap child – and even read an entire magazine in peace, which very rarely happens at home.

Also beneficial was that I mixed in some new toys and books with his old favorites so he had something different and interesting to check out during the long flight. I stored them in his seat pocket and he could reach them on his own. That alone was big fun.

And while he didn’t nap for long on the way to Maui – everything was just too exciting – he fell asleep before we even took off on the flight home and was not awake until we arrived back on the mainland.

By the time he flies again, my son will be over two, so we will have to pay for a seat for him anyway, but when we have another child, I will just buy him or her a seat, too, even before age two. It’s just so much easier. I know that getting those empty seats was a rarity – and, I will admit, somewhat strategic on my part since I booked my husband and I in aisle and window seats knowing that the middle seats would be claimed last.

Some people would say it is not worth the hundreds of dollars to pay for a seat for a toddler, but I now can say that it would be worth every penny. Traveling with a toddler doesn’t have to mean less than an hour or two from home. Granted, every child is different, but it is possible to take a little kid on a long flight and have everyone get off the plane in one piece.

In fact, when you can say Aloha to your stress before you even take off, it’s pretty close to priceless.