Tips for Taking Long Haul Flights with Kids (From A Mom of 4)

Taking long haul flights with kids can be intimidating to even veteran parents. The prospect of being trapped on a plane while trying to get young children to sleep in uncomfortable seats might even prevent families from traveling to far away destinations.

As a mom of 4 and a family travel blogger, I’ve dealt with my fair share of long flights with kids and lived to tell the tale. There can certainly be tough moments even for experienced travel families. With a little preparation and the right attitude, though, you might even grow to enjoy these long plane rides with kids!

In this blog post you’ll find my best tips for taking long-haul flights with kids, including how to prepare for your travel day, what to pack, navigating the airport, and surviving the flight itself.

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Prepping for A Long Flight with Kids

Setting yourself up for success on a long haul flight with kids begins with planning and preparation a few weeks or even days before the flight.

As someone who prides herself in packing light, I don’t believe that you need all of the latest gadgets to have a great flight with kids, so don’t stress about purchasing things like airplane beds. I’m sure they can come in handy, but in my opinion, it’s just another thing to carry, and you may or may not even be able to use it depending on the airline’s policy.

What I mean by preparation is making sure you are stocked up on your kids’ favorite snacks, making sure you have games, shows, and movies downloaded on a tablet for each kid, bringing charging cords and portable chargers, and making sure you have a refillable water bottle.

Comfort

If your long haul flight is overnight, the airline will usually provide a small pillow and blanket for your comfort. However, if your child has a beloved stuffed animal, pillow, or blanket that helps them sleep, it may be worth bringing! Just be prepared to replace this item in case you forget it on the plane or lose it!

We’ll talk more about this in the “On the Flight” section, but dress your kids in comfy clothes or bring pajamas for them to change into right before the flight. Make sure you have socks, too! Kids will likely not want to sleep with their shoes on, but bare feet on the airplane is…pretty gross.

Food + Drink

Most airlines (with the exception of budget airlines) will provide meals, snacks, and drinks on the flight.

However, I always recommend bringing your own snacks and drinks for a few reasons. Sometimes food and beverage services are suspended for turbulence and bad weather. Sometimes your kids won’t like the meal they are served. And sometimes they’re still hungry even after eating the meal! It’s best to bring food you know your child will eat. Whether it’s a specific brand of granola bar, a favorite cracker, or even a bag of dry cereal, having a backup plan for food is always a good idea, and one of the best ways to avoid meltdowns on a plane!

As for beverages, make sure you fill up a reusable water bottle or purchase a water bottle before getting on the plane. Again, if food and beverage service is suspended, or if you get stuck on the tarmac for a long period of time, it’s so important to make sure you have water to keep the kids hydrated!

We always let each kid pick out their own bag of candy for the flight. It makes the flight itself feel special instead of just a means to an end. We also bring gum and lollipops for takeoff and landing, and mints to suck on in case someone starts to feel a little nauseated.

Just remember, if you’re flying to a different country, you cannot bring fruits or vegetables with you. It’s ok to bring some to eat in the airport before your flight, but you can’t bring it with you into the new country you’re visiting.

If you have babies and toddlers, bringing fruit pouches, cereal or Puffs, and yogurt melts in a “snackle box” or any snack container with multiple compartments can help keep kids busy while also sating their hunger.

Finally, check to see if your airline has the option to choose a kid’s meal! Virgin Atlantic, Air France, and KLM are 3 airlines we’ve flown that allow you to choose a kids meal. They receive their meal before the rest of the passengers on the flight, and they come with kid-friendly food like chicken nuggets or macaroni and cheese, a candy bar, bread, juice, and crackers or cookies.

Entertainment

Less is more when it comes to entertainment. The more you bring for your kids to do, the more you (or they) have to carry. And I always find that if they have too many options to choose from, they end up not wanting to do anything!

When it comes to electronics, we have an Amazon Kids Fire Tablet for each child, but they are ONLY allowed to use these tablets when we travel. We never use them at home. Thanks to this rule, the kids get so excited to use their tablets on a long haul flight that the time seems to pass very quickly for them.

A day or two before the trip, we get out the tablets to charge them and download games that don’t require an internet connection, movies, and tv shows so they have lots of options for entertainment!

Most airlines will have seatback entertainment on a long haul flight, so be sure to bring headphones for the kids. They usually hand out headphones or earbuds on the flight, but they’re not always super comfortable. Bring a pair of headphones you know the kids will use. We like these headband headphones for toddlers, and pretty much any over-the-ear kid headphones for the older kids.

Make sure to have chargers accessible in your personal item. Most airplanes will have a charging station at your seat, typically with a USB-style charger. I always bring a USB charger, a USB-C charger, and a wall plug charger so we are prepared for whatever the plane has to offer.

In addition, I always bring portable chargers in case the seatback chargers don’t work.

Other than electronics, you may want your kids to spend some time doing screen free activities. We let each kid bring a workbook, activity book, sticker book, or coloring book on the trip. The older kids bring a paperback book, and sometimes a notebook. These are all lightweight and thin options that are easy to add to their carry-on or personal item.

For older kids, consider a Kindle Paperwhite! I got one for Christmas this year, and ever since I got it I’ve been reading a lot more. You can borrow digital copies of library books on your Kindle, or subscribe to Kindle Unlimited for a library of books you can download included with a monthly fee of $11.99. We’re thinking of getting a Kindle Paperwhite for my oldest daughter for Christmas next year since she’s a big reader and we’re sick of lugging giant books on our trips!

Packing

We typically pack light, and sometimes we pack only one backpack each for the entirety of the trip. These rolling backpacks are perfect for kids because you can fit one large packing cube with all of their clothes in the main compartment, along with one pair of shoes. In the front pocket we put their toiletries, an activity book, their tablet, headphones, and snacks.

The rolling backpacks fit under the seat of most airline backpacks if you pack strategically so that the front pocket is flat and not bulging out. However, on an overnight flight I know especially my older kids will want some legroom. So what we’ve started doing is packing a tote bag or mini backpack so they can put the rolling backpack in the overhead bin, and putting their in-flight essentials in the smaller personal item. Then they can use the smaller personal item bag during the trip as their day bag for walking around a city or going on outings or tours.

Something that helps me stay organized on travel days are small zipper pouches and cord organizers.

We always bring a first aid kit, but we also make sure we have a smaller version that’s accessible and handy at a moment’s notice on the plane. We bring sleep aids like melatonin (but please consult your pediatrician before using this). We bring pain relievers in case of headaches or sudden fevers. We also bring motion sickness medication and empty gallon-size plastic bags.

The plastic bags are useful for (heaven forbid) someone throwing up on the flight, or even to use as a wet bag in case of spills or accidents. Along those same lines, make sure everyone has a change of clothes in their carry on, especially if you’re checking luggage with your clothes. You want to have clean dry clothes available just in case!

Navigating the Airport

We don’t typically check bags if we can help it, so we are always dragging ALL of our luggage through the airport. We still bring a stroller, too (this is our favorite travel stroller!), so that’s an extra thing to push. This is why the rolling backpacks have really come in handy! All of the kids can manage their own bag through the airport, leaving my husband and I with free hands for the stroller and our own items.

My husband and I often pack backpack-only, too, but sometimes we’ll bring one small carry-on roller bag for overflow items from everyone’s bags.

Another thing I do to make travel days easier is to put small colored stickers on the back of our passports with our first initial on each one. That way we can quickly see whose passport is whose when we’re going through security or immigration or boarding the plane.

Before boarding the plane, have everyone use the restroom, and if it’s an overnight flight, now is the time to change young children into their pajamas. Usually there’s a family restroom with room for stroller and luggage.

Talk to the gate agent if you have a stroller or car seat you need to gate check. They will print out a gate check ticket for you, and let you know where to pick up your stroller or car seat when you land. And be sure to ask or listen for any announcements about family boarding! Sometimes you’ll be able to board the plane early with young children so you have extra time to get everyone buckled and settled in.

Finally, we make our travel day feel like an adventure! We talk it up beforehand, we let them bring their special treats, and if it’s an early morning flight we’ll even let the older kids get refresher drinks from Starbucks.

If it’s your first time (or your first time in a long time) taking a flight with kids, consider getting library books about airports and airplanes in the weeks leading up to the trip. That way you can talk through what the process looks like so kids know what to expect.

Setting expectations for behavior is so important, too. We talk about how they need to pay attention and stay close to Mom and Dad while walking through the airport because people are moving quickly and it can get pretty crowded.

We let kids who have learned to read help us navigate if possible (though not at the expense of getting in other people’s way). We’ll ask them to help us find our gate, or see if they can find a sign that says where Baggage Claim or the Exit is.

We talk about not kicking the seats, taking our headphones off when the flight attendant is speaking to us, saying please and thank you when they hand out drinks and snacks, and keeping our seat clean.

On the Flight

Once you’re settled in on the flight, it’s finally time to sit back and relax after all of the preparation you’ve done!

Make sure everything you will want or need on the flight is in your personal item that goes under the seat in front of you. Get headphones, tablets, snacks, and water ready to go.

Typically meal service will start about an hour or two after take off. We usually wait until after that to try to get the kids to sleep. After meal service they often dim the cabin lights so it’s easier to get the kids to sleep.

We also use disposable toothbrushes on the plane since it can be tough to get the kids to the bathroom on the plane to brush their teeth. We tell them when it’s time to stop using screens, but they can listen to music to fall asleep or use a Yoto Mini to listen to a bedtime story or music.

I always let the younger kids lay on my lap and I’ll scratch their back while they fall asleep.

Adjusting to A New Time Zone

When we arrive, we try to adjust to the new time zone as quickly as possible. After dropping off our bags at the hotel, we typically get out in the fresh air to explore a little bit.

If you’re in a new city, a bus or trolley tour would be the perfect way to spend the day. You can rest a bit while getting an idea for the layout of the city. Bonus points if it’s a hop-on hop-off tour where you can disembark and see some of the sights right away.

We try to keep the kids awake until at least 7 p.m. in the new time zone. Other than that, we don’t do anything special to deal with jet lag.

If the kids happen to wake up in the middle of the night, we may let them read or watch a movie on their tablet until they fall asleep again. We also make sure to have snacks like bread, apples, and crackers in the room in case they wake up hungry.