1. If your wallet allows for it, book extra comfort seats.
We exclusively fly with Hawaiian Airlines and booked row 11 on a previous trip and loved it. Row 11 on the Airbus A330 allows for extra leg room (so much so, with my back against the seat I could barely touch the wall with my feet). This allowed my 3 year old to play on the floor, walk around (or jump around), and even go spend time with dad who was seated in the seat across the aisle from us. As an added bonus, we were right behind first class so there were no seats in front of us, and right in front of the exit door so no seats behind us. This still allowed our seat backs to recline and we each had a personal tv monitor built into the arm rest.
2. Milk is provided on the plane
Like most planes, complimentary coffee is served. So, since my son had a ticket of his own and doesn't drink coffee (I don't know what kid does) I asked for milk. This was a lifesaver because there was nothing more my son wanted than some good ole milk and we all know the airport charges an arm and a leg for ANYTHING!
3. Car seats and strollers fly free
Car seats and strollers are a pain to lug around but this is a necessity. We always check-in our car seat free of charge. We use a car seat bag to protect the seat and found this car seat bag by JEEP to work perfectly for our Britax seat. This time around we decided to gate check our stroller. It's a big hit or miss when my son decides he wants to walk so we took the stroller as far as we could just in case. This worked for the busy airports or when we needed to walk at an adult speed to get to our gate.
4. Bring familiar toys and some new toys for the trip
I don't know what we would have done if we didn't have my son's beloved Mickey Mouse with us. He usually just sleeps with Mickey and doesn't come out of the house but we allowed him to tag along everywhere we went. Yes, he came everywhere with us! From the theme parks, to the grocery store, Mickey was our 2nd child. Having Mickey around offered a sense of security for my son in an unfamiliar environment so we were ok with the extra accommodations that needed to be made for our stuffed mouse.
About 2 hours into the plane ride I could tell my son was already getting bored of the toys he had. Luckily, we left the day after Christmas which allowed for some new toys. He loved being able to play with something he's never played with before and this allowed for some extra shut eyes for mommy and daddy.
5. Show your kid some videos of where you're going beforehand to spark their interest
My husband was great at looking up YouTube videos on the various cities and theme parks we were planning on attending. This allowed us to see if our son would be interested in going to these places and also got to start getting him excited for it. My son is a big Blippi fan and I don't know how many times he's seen the Kinderland and Children's Discovery Center visits in Las Vegas, NV. My son thought it was so fun to go where Blippi went and we even used it as an incentive for good behavior.
