10 December 2025 · Eric Richfield
Commercial Director · Father of four
How to Make Travel With Toddlers Easier
Everything that made a baby easy to travel with reverses at about eighteen months. All at once. She's mobile. She has opinions and shares them. She can't wait for anything. And she objects, loudly and at length, to being contained. Travel is about ninety per cent containment.
What you gain in exchange is a child who can be briefed. A baby can't. We have twins, so I get to test this twice. The briefing is the highest-return thing you'll do.
Prepare her days in advance
The aim is that nothing on the morning is a surprise. Tell her what will happen, in order, several times over the week before. Predictability does more for a toddler than any toy. It costs nothing but your patience on the fourth telling.
Read a book about aeroplanes. Watch a two-minute video of the airport. Recognising a place halves the alarm of arriving in it. Then act it out at home. Sounds absurd. Do it anyway. Queue in the hallway. Sit down with a belt on. Put a bag on the machine. Shoes off. Ours find this hilarious, and hilarity on Tuesday is composure on Saturday.
Tell her about the boring bits too. "There's a long queue and it's boring, and then we get on the plane" beats a promise of unbroken delight. A broken promise is what produces the meltdown at security.
Let her pack a small bag and carry it herself. Ownership buys a surprising amount of cooperation. A child carrying something is less inclined to demand carrying.
Book around sleep
The cheap flight at the wrong hour isn't cheap. A toddler who has missed a nap is a different and much worse person. Whatever you saved goes the moment the day falls apart over the South China Sea.
Fly around a nap where you can, or first thing, while everyone is fresh and still speaking. Overnight travel suits some children and wrecks others. Find out which yours is on a short trip before you commit to a long one. Build in twice the time you think you need. Rushing causes more meltdowns than anything else. Book seats together at the point of booking. The alternative is negotiating with a stranger in row 34 while holding a toddler.
The younger version
What goes in the bag
Two rules for the bag. Everything in it is small. Nothing comes out until it's needed.
Snacks. A lot more than seems reasonable, in small separate portions, because eating is an activity as well as a meal. A refillable water bottle, filled after security. Two full changes of clothes. Accidents happen when routines change, even in a child who's been dry for a year.
Then the entertainment. It works best new and wrapped. Small things, wrapped one at a time, handed out across the journey. The unwrapping is half the value. Sticker books, masking tape, pipe cleaners, a notebook and crayons. Flat, quiet, reusable. Bring the tablet, charged, everything downloaded. Take no principled stand on screens at 35,000 feet. Bring child-sized headphones, for the sake of rows 30 to 40.
Bring the comfort object. If it's irreplaceable, buy a second one today and rotate them. I wish somebody had told me that before a rabbit called Bun was left in a hotel in Penang.
Surviving the queue
Airports are almost entirely waiting. Waiting is the one thing a toddler can't do. The queue is where the trouble lives. The flight itself is the easy part. Don't save the entertainment for the plane.
Let her walk, run and climb wherever it's safe before boarding. A toddler who has moved will sit still longer. Use a carrier or a buggy for the stretches where she must be contained. That removes the negotiation. Give her a job. Holding the boarding passes, pulling the small case, counting planes through the window. A toddler with a job has something to do. Ask about family lanes and priority boarding. Most airports have them and few advertise them. Feed her before boarding. Nobody wants to wait on a trolley with a hungry two-year-old.
In the car
Plan shorter legs than you'd drive alone. Make the stops involve running. Fifteen minutes charging about a service station buys the next two hours. Best exchange rate in family travel. Could be wrong about the two hours. Never less than one.
Pack a bag for the back seat you can reach without pulling over. The car seat isn't up for negotiation, so don't open one. Consistency ends that argument. Debate never has. Find audiobooks. They work from about two and a half and do far less damage to the adult mind than the same four songs for six hours.
Arrival, where a good journey still gets ruined
It usually goes wrong on the first night. Recreate the bedtime routine exactly, in whatever odd room you're in. The sequence is the reassurance. The room was never going to be familiar.
Blackout matters more than everything else put together. A toddler up at five on the first morning sets the tone for the whole holiday. Portable blinds, or bin bags and masking tape, are earns the space. Do one thing a day. Two is ambitious. Three produces a bad evening for everybody. Keep meal times roughly familiar even when the rest of the day has moved. Expect some regression in sleep, toileting and clinginess. It clears within a few days of getting home.
The bit that deserves saying out loud
Other passengers matter far less than you imagine. Half the cabin has done exactly this and is willing you on. A toddler crying on a plane is a small person who's been made to sit down for four hours. Not a parenting failure. Not an emergency. Whatever the man in 14C thinks.
Deal with your child. Ignore the audience. The journey is how you get there. The holiday starts when you arrive.
This guide is general information, written to help you understand a topic and ask better questions. It is not medical advice and does not replace your own doctor, midwife or paediatrician. Anything that worries you about your baby belongs with them.