Flying with a toddler = anxiety. At least for me. Travis is all mr. calm, cool, collected, while I am a hot mess, basket case. Anyway, I was super worried about flying with Dane since he legit doesn’t sit still when he is home. He is constantly moving and playing and saying, “walk” or “ready to go”. But I do have to say now that we are home, the hardest part wasn’t the traveling but coming back home and trying to settle back into home routine. And trying to get rid of that dang paci.

Luckily, he fell asleep on both flights so that bought us about thirty minutes. For the rest of the time, we ate snacks and read books. The highlight was the bottle with pipe cleaners and gel stickers. I would hand him one pipe cleaner at a time, he would put one in, and then we dumped them out and started over. He loved it! We did that for a good fifteen minutes. Bonus, this activity targets fine motor skills. You can use a water bottle, milk bottle, or whatever bottle you have lying around. Gel stickers for the window were entertaining but they get a little gross when they fall on the ground. We loved stickers and magnets. Anything that you can take off and put back on, or put in and dump out. I definitely overpacked toys but I really wanted to use manipulatives before we resorted to using the iPad. We did great on the first two flights but coming home we needed to use the iPad for some entertainment. You win some, you lose some. I hope these materials and activities work for you too! Good luck, mamas! You can do it!

ps. practice universal precautions! Hand sanitize and soap & water! 😉

p.p.s. you can find some good stuff in the target dollar section too.

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