Holiday

We’ve travelled a lot and night flights work well. He’s slept through an entire long haul flight on more than one occasion. Now he’s more active, we do pay extra to get him his own seat and take car seat for him to sit in. Game changer especially for day flights though it is more pricey!

Also take lots of fiddle toys - some of which are new to them. Plus lots of snacks!

I first took my boy when he was 19 months old. Like yours he doesn’t sleep or sit still so was dreading the plane journey but he slept through nearly the whole flight there and back! I booked somewhere with the shortest flight time I could find (2 hours) and then a very short transfer time once on the other side (half an hour). Honestly it was so much easier taking him at this age than when he was 3 and had an opinion about everything 😂 Even if he’s a nightmare, it should be better than staring at your same four walls and you don’t have to worry about cooking or chores for a week! In terms of routine, we took him up to the hotel room most days at normal nap time and he was fine. He also had a couple of pram naps. We just lowered our expectations and went at his pace. It was very different to pre-child holidays but was lovely all the same. We also went in May so it wasn’t too hot xx

I have taken my boy when he was younger, 9 months, and at 18 months. Was harder at 18 months on the flight but I was going to say the same as Melissa above - the flight is only a few hours and once you get through it it's so worth it to be away! We had lots of toys, snacks, something to suck on for take off and landing like dummy or bottle. You might be able to get him to sleep as the plane is white noise, we did a lunch flight and the airport tired him out! We let him nap in the pram, took a spf snooze shade and rockit, or went up the the room and he napped. I would say get a balcony or somewhere where you have some space for yourself like an apartment so while he sleeps you can still chill out in another room/area. Balearics are lovely for a short flight.

We have just got back from Tenerife 4 hours ish, we went to nyc 8hours when she was 1 and Ibiza when she was 7 months. She’s a really active wriggly baby but she was brilliant every flight, we took her books, a new busy book thing and downloaded some miss Rachel just in case but she was fab! She adapted back to routine straight away . In the eves we actually let her fall asleep in her pram and stayed up until 10pm then just flopped her into the cot. No issues whatsoever!! The sun and swimming etc meant she was shattered so she slept through every night too!

@Leanne how do you manage sleeping on a long haul flight? When I did mine when he was 12 months, at the slight turbulence the air crew would come and say I should hold him so he is seat belted. So always been disrupted in his sleep.

Thanks for your advice everyone!