Travelling abroad with a toddler

Well we did it. We bit the bullet and travelled to Southern Spain with our 21 month old toddler. Granted this is only a short flight (3 hours max) but I still wanted to share some tips and tricks that worked well for us or made our life easier whilst away from home.

My first tip starts at home, before you even book your trip. For us there were certain important deciding factors being; flight duration, short transfer to resort and the times of the flights. This helped us massively. Our outbound flight was 7.35am so we had to get up at 4 am meaning Reuben was tired and ready for a nap on the flight. He slept for 1.5 hrs on both flights as they fell around nap time. We weren't prepared to fly anywhere over 3 hrs as toddlers and confined spaces don't tend to go hand in hand. Likewise we wanted a short transfer to the resort to make things as easy and tantrum free as possible. Ours was half an hour and Reuben was happy looking out at the new environment. Overall he did brilliantly on both travel days.

Once you're through security at the airport I would advise you to let your toddler walk around as much as possible. We found reins really handy for this as obviously airports are busy places. Most airports have a small play area somewhere if you have a lot of spare time.

My number one recommendation for the flight would be a tablet with a few favourite programmes downloaded. Love them or hate them they are a bit of a lifesaver and we tend to only use ours for travel at the moment which means it's a novelty in itself. I would also recommend a re-usable sticker book and colouring book as they are great to use throughout your holiday as well.

Reuben's ears were fine on the plane, I packed plenty of snacks and a yogurt pouch/drink to help but he didn't really touch them. If your little one is struggling you can massage gently behind their ear to try and help.

My essential items for in resort would be non slip pool shoes, a sun cream stick for ears and face, a poncho style towel and a few home comforts (small toys, teddy/comforter).

If you're calm and relaxed your child will most likely be as well. I wouldn't worry to much about sticking to home routines as children adapt really well and you often have a bit of time difference to play with. Reuben was so well behaved apart from one or two wobbles towards the end because he was loving the freedom and company.

If you're going away soon enjoy it! Take it all in and just live in the moment/go with the flow. I'm sure you'll all have a fab time!