Flying Tips for Traveling with Toddlers

Originally posted in 2021 and updated 2025 for TWO toddlers!

To say I was nervous flying with a newly mobile and fiercely independent toddler as an anxiety-having mom is perhaps an understatement.

Thankfully, we were only flying from Denver to Phoenix, a 90ish minute flight, and my husband was coming with me. (To the mamas I saw on their own with three kids, KUDOS to you! You are killing it.) Even if everything melted down and she screamed the whole time, we could do that for 90 minutes. (maybe?)

I researched and read a number of pins, and as with everything, took some and left some knowing my daughter. Because more of them were about the toys to bring than actual tips from lived experience, here’s my tips in hopes that it can help another anxious parent.

Tips on flying with a toddler:

Make sure the kiddo gets at least one good nap prior to travel. No one is their best self while sleep deprived, and toddlers even less so. Avoid flying during naptime or after bedtime if at all possible. Our first flight left around 4, so it gave us a few hours of her morning nap before we had to leave. Our returning flight was at 8:45PM and got delayed to 9:30ish…perhaps one of my worst ideas ever. I thought that maybe since she’d be tired she’d just sleep all through everything…nope…she whined and screamed and took a nap long enough for me to watch the first 45 minutes of Yellowstone on the plane. Maybe leaving at bedtime works for road trips and not plane trips?
If you can, get them their own seat. Once your kids can walk, they don’t want to sit still. The easiest way to keep them still and more accepting of the ride is to treat it like the car and buckle them into their carseats – you can ask the gate staff if the flight is full and if not, they may give you an extra seat to put your carseat in (maybe only on Southwest?). This is the easiest way by far – but when the kids are under two and free as lap kids it’s so hard to say “sure, let’s buy an extra seat!” Now that the girls are older, I think Rae will do fine buckled in as she is (now 4), but Ember (2) would probably do better in a carseat.
Pick a window seat. For the flight down there, Rae was more entertained by what was going on outside than pretty much anything else we brought for her to do. It also prevented her from realizing that walking around was an option she had.

Talk them through what you are doing before and during. While we have discovered that “gentle parenting” is not for us, one of the things that has stuck with us is to talk them through what’s happening so that they have context for the sounds, movement, and other things they’ve never been exposed to. Kiddos can understand way more than we think they do, and we found that telling her “okay, the plane is going to start moving fast and then we’re going to go up in the air! It might be loud or scary but we are here with you and you are safe. You will have to sit for awhile and you might not like that, we brought some toys and a show for you!” kept her more engaged and she wasn’t taken by surprise.
TSA Precheck: Hands down one of the best thing we discovered when prepping to travel with kids is that TSA precheck is $85 for five years and covers your kids if they’re under 12. This worked awesomely for our flight out of DIA! It was less to pull out (we both had laptops, phones, ipads, and I had my camera) and we had to do carry-on bags so this simplified life. Unfortunately, we learned the hard way that even with the precheck option, you should still pack as if you will have to take everything out…it was closed on our trip back home.
Snacks: Bring a variety of things that you know they like and dole out as needed. Make sure they don’t get too ~~hangry~~ hungry. Snackle boxes are great for this!
Put Airtags in your luggage and keep the essentials with you – either in the diaper bag or in a carry-on. You do not want to arrive and have their special stuffy in lost luggage! For diapers, keep roughly 1 diaper for each hour you’ll be traveling and make sure you have an extra set of clothes for your child AND for you.
Ask your destination if they have a pack-n-play and bring a crib sheet with you.
If the flight doesn’t have assigned seats, have one parent board during family boarding to get seats and the other parent can let the kids run for as long as possible. Change diapers or go potty 5-10 minutes before boarding begins. If your kid is only mostly potty trained, it may be worth it to put them in a pull-up.

So now you’re wondering…toys?

We overpacked on the toys — mostly because I forgot that with a toddler, anything can be a toy! Rae had way more fun pointing to everything out the window, pulling the shade up and down, waving to the passengers behind us, grabbing ice from the beverage cup, and then wearing said cup on her head than with the toys we got.

Fidget Toys for Young Kids on the Plane

Magnet People: These are flexible and stick both together and to other metal surfaces. They’re still great toys to keep in the diaper bag!
Drawing Tablet: If your toddler/child likes to draw, this eraseable drawing pad will be a hit!
Magnet board set: When Rae was 1.5, she enjoyed punching the magnets out of and playing with these as it was Eric Carle and she recognized the illustrations.
Water Wow: Both of my kids LOVE these – they get to “paint” pictures again and again with water!

Now with two kiddos, I got a number of simple fidget toys that can be used in a variety of different ways to go with the tablets.

The tablet may save your sanity

Once the novelty of watching other passengers and saying “hiiiiiii” to everyone on board wears off, start giving your kiddo the toys (one at a time) and snacks…and once this wears off, then just pass them the tablet or turn on the kid shows on the plane. This order does not work in reverse, or at least not with my kids.

*Make sure to download their favorite shows ahead of time so that you aren’t relying on in-flight wifi. This by far will be the most entertaining thing for them, just don’t forget the headphones!

Handling Meltdowns

The ride back on a late night in 2021?…not great. We made the mistake of booking a later flight so she was overtired, overstimulated, and then the TSA precheck line was closed so Nate and I were feeling harried and stressed. We apologized in advance to our rowmate, who was more than kind. Reagan slept for awhile on me, but started to lose it as the plane landed and then we were stuck because of some issue with the gangplank (I couldn’t hear or understand much over the crying). At that point, we mostly did what we could to placate her, rocking, talking to her, snacks when she would take them, and took the phone off of airplane mode and watched IG reels from the Kitten Lady. Babies cry. It sucks. It will pass eventually. There is no magic fix for that, as much as I’d like there to be!

We tried hard to remind ourselves that this was temporary and we were almost home…and then decided to take the next day off.

Any tips I missed? I’d love to hear from your experiences, especially for longer flights!!