Traveling with a toddler

Not as scary as I thought. Z is a well-traveled baby. In the last 6 months alone, he has traveled to California, Hawaii and back to Califonia. Considering we don't live in the US, thats pretty impressive. The kid has more stamps on his passport at 22 months than I had at age 18. But I always worry because as he gets older, he gets more active and less willing to sit in my lap. But he has always been a great little traveler. Case in point:

Here are my tips for traveling:

1. Something new, I had made an airplane tray cover which had velcro on it which was pretty much the most exciting thing ever to a toddler
2. Snacks - little fruit snacks that you can doll out on at a time are especially handy when you are taking off and they have to sit still and can't play with the seat tray
3. Books, a new one and then a couple favorites
4. Sticker books - the best kinds are the ones with reusable stickers. I bought mine at the dollar store so the stickers weren't really all the reusable but they don't really stick all that well which means you aren't scraping stickers off the seat trays - plus they stick to the windows which is always fun
5. Anything with buttons, even a calcular is exciting to a 2 year old!
6. Wipes - even if you aren't doing diapers anymore, they are so handy for so many things!
7. Ask for an extra seat, if there are any extra seats, they are usually more than willing to switch things around so the couple traveling with a baby has an extra seat - it makes life so much easier! We've only had it once in our many, many flights where we didn't get an extra seat and that was when we were flying at Christmas.
8. Ask for a seat in the back, by the bathroom. This way you won't get stuck by the refreshment cart when you really need to go (helpful for emergency diaper changes and pregnant moms!)
9. Backpack leash - this might be a little controversial but airports scare me. I'm really not one of those people that think someone is constantly trying to steal my kid but there is something about airports that freak me out, maybe it's that Z is still a lapbaby and even if he's not on our ticket, they let us take him on the plane sometimes. That always makes me feel like someone could grab him and bring him on a plane with them and who knows where they would end up. Anyways, to soothe my paranoid heart, I love our backpack leash. Z doesn't like a stroller and he loves to run and his pregnant waddling mama can't always keep up but at least with the backpack leash, he can run a certain distance away from me but he's still attached to me and can't get too far away from me.

Happy Travels!