TRAVELING with toddlers
The jet lag is real.
We landed safely from LA to Tallinn, Estonia. We are joining my husband Daniel while he is here working on a new film. He’s been in Tallinn for a few weeks and we arrived late last night. The jet lag has started to sink in. We are 10 hours ahead of our local LA west coast time. It’s almost July 4th back home.
We flew on a red eye from LA to Moscow then from Moscow to Tallinn. For those of you who are wondering, where in the world is Estonia, it is in Northern Europe below Finland and west of Russia. The sun doesn’t set till very late, it starts to go down around 11pm. This is Kingston’s first time across the pond, and all of our first times to Estonia. Zola’s first trip to Europe was to Rome when she was only 6 months old.
Our flight to Estonia was almost 12 hours long. And they did it with no problem at all. Both kids napped for a while when we took off, only to be woken up by another screaming toddler next to us. Zola had fallen asleep with her Frozen headphones on but Kingston could hear everything. I assume the other kid was extremely uncomfortable, possibly in pain from the pressure I can’t be sure. But I’m going to share our flying experience and how we get through it.
Kingston is 15 months and still nursing before he sleeps. I read that the sucking action is a huge help for relieving pressure during take off and landing. When Zola was a baby I would nurse her and she would already be napping as we are going to flying altitude and it seems to have worked with Kingston as well. So whether it be nursing or a bottle, same effect.
In preparation for a long travel day these are some essentials I make sure to pack in our carry ons.
A lot of snacks (variety of different things; granola bars, fruit snacks, frozen Go-gurts, etc)
Extra outfits, packed in ziplocks. Then use ziplocks to place the dirty clothes into.
Fully charged iPad with downloaded movies. I don’t get WiFi for the iPad on the plane. Plus most apps don’t work in foreign counties. I let Zola choose which movies she wanted to download. (Lion King 2, and Trolls)
The obvious things: diapers and wipes. Diaper garbage bags. It’s similar to doggie poop bags on a roll. It’s a lifesaver. Always pack more diapers and wipes than you think you’ll need.
Candy. I’m not ashamed to say I bribe my kids with candy. Maybe the security lineup or customs is taking forever. So some sour patch kids can work wonders for antsy toddlers. I never let them hold the bag, I distribute them when I need to.
Crayons and coloring books. So simple. So effective. With Kingston learning how to use a crayon recently he loves to color. And it can keep them both occupied.
The last thing is I always gate check our stroller. We have a Uppababy Vista with the rumble seat on the bottom and a piggy back for when Zola doesn’t want to sit down. In the storage basket on the bottom of the stroller I was able to fit a carry on suitcase, my SkipHop diaper bag and Zola’s SkipHop monkey backpack. Then I can drop off the stroller at the gate and it’s waiting for us at our connection.
We landed in Moscow at 4am our time, 2pm local time. We had a few hours to kill. We had lunch, and then we found a kids area. It had a playhouse, some wooden activity centers which were great and time consuming. The Moscow airport also had a family room. It was equipped with a nursing room, a room with twin bunk beds you could use for napping, a feeding room where you could warm up bottles etc, and a changing room with bathrooms and a shower. I was very impressed with this.
We got on our connecting flight to Tallinn and we were all asleep before the plane taxied to take off. We landed in Tallinn to find one of our suitcases didn’t make it. Fortunately it was MY suitcase. My clothes, all of the toiletries. But we have the kids suitcase. So we have all their clothes, their toys as well as all the extra Honest Company diapers and wipes we can’t live without. That’s an upside.
Now we wait to see if the airline can locate my suitcase. Or else I will be walking around the streets of Estonia in Daniel’s Nike workout clothes to find some shopping. Please wish us luck with the jet lag!!
