In my footloose and fancy free days, I would turn up at the airport and flinch whenever I saw families with young children looking to board a plane. I used to think how selfish it was to travel with toddlers and would dread being kept awake by screaming babies....

My how times have changed! We flew to and from the States recently with our 3 children, who are all aged under 4. As we queued to board the plane, our baby was dribbling and puking and our 2 year old was refusing to walk - she's recently taken on the persona of a pet cat and will only answer to the name Midnight, but that's another story. As she crawled through our fellow passengers' legs, followed by her older sister chasing her, I suddenly realised that I had become my worst nightmare. Somewhere along the way, my i-pod and handbag have been replaced with bags dripping with toys, milk and wet wipes. Instead of dressing nicely in the hope of an upgrade, I find myself dressed in practical and but dark coloured clothing, to cover up the inevitable drool and spills that I will be covered in at the other end. I manage a quick 'good luck' to Ben as we board, here goes 9 hours in a confined space with 4 seats between the 5 of us.... eek

Nine hours later, we disembark, in reasonable shape. Having been dreading the flight for so long, I couldn't quite believe that we had done it. We were all still speaking to eachother and as we began to queue for immigration, feeling everso slightly smug for having survived, I started planning our next trip....

So, my top tips for flying with children;

1) Sounds obvious, but pack a bag of treats for the children to open during the flight. Magazines, a pencil case full of new felt tips, favourite books, you name it.  I also bought Usbourne's 100 Things to Do with little children on a journey, which went down really well.

2) Plane food is really not toddler friendly (especially on US Airways!) So I took lots of raisins and snacks with me.  For the baby, I took lots of spare milk.

3) Take lots of wipes, nappies and spare clothes (for everyone!)

4) One of the most traumatic parts for the children was going through US security. All of our shoes were x-rayed, as well as all teddies, blankets etc. If you all wear slip-on shoes, it will make this a lot quicker and easier. Also, stash your child's favourite toy in a bag before you get to the security gate, so you don't have to go through the trauma of wrestling it off them with a queue of people behind you.

5) Don't be too self-conscious and remember to have a sense of humour. There is a lot of background noise on a plane, so actually the noise from your child and baby is not that bad and most people are watching their TV's with headphones, so you're not disturbing them that much. And even if people do glare at you every time your baby cries, well, you'll probably never see them again anyway..... 

PS Thanks to flickr user hyougushi for the photo.