10 TRAVEL Tips & Tricks when FLYING WITH A TODDLER *Car seat, Stroller, Backpack*

There's a sun in the sky, there's a cloud drifting by, all kinds of birds make you wish you could fly and in the distance I see... Hi guys, welcome back to my channel. My name is Arlene Zahines. Today's video is going to be all of the tips and tricks for traveling with a toddler. Meadow is 17 months and I have flown with her at least 10 times. A lot of those times I've flown by myself, just her and I, so I feel like I have a pretty good grip on what to do, what to expect. So hopefully you guys find this video helpful. If you guys do, please give it a huge thumbs up, that's super helpful. Subscribe, turn on your post notifications and again I'll have everything linked below so if I talk about something it'll be in the description box. Keep in mind that this is specifically flying with a toddler because when she was an infant things were a lot different. I brought different stuff with me, she was nursing the whole flight, like it was a totally different ball game. My favorite backpack to travel with, I got this one recently and it has been a game changer. I used to just bring a regular backpack with me and in the backpack this is where I would throw her toys, her snacks, all the stuff that she needs on the flight but this one right here makes things so much easier. It is a diaper bag and I just personally don't use a diaper bag regularly so this is literally what we use just to travel with but like how big and awesome is this. I love all the different compartments, I love that it makes things easy to like grab and then I love that it has this little back pocket right here so I throw my backpack, my backpack, my computer in there. I love that it has little like pockets on the side and if you guys can't tell I think it's like a fawn design dupe that I got from Amazon. It looks almost identical and I think the review said that it the quality is pretty similar. I don't have that one so I don't know but the quality of this is amazing and it was under $50 from Amazon. I will link it below. This front pocket is where we keep her little diaper changing leather mat which I will link below as well. Love this, we take this anytime we're traveling so if we're at the airport even though they have like the changing tables um we'll set this down and then I have a few diapers and wipes in here that's the first thing. Okay the next thing so that's the diaper bag that's the first thing I feel like so many things start the night before you have to really plan these things out and just play out how your entire airport day is gonna go um at least that's how I do it and that's how I've been able to travel with her so many times so the next thing is my big tip is check everything in everything the only thing you should have on you is your backpack um which is gonna have all her snacks and everything like I said and then a fanny pack which I'll get into in just a minute so those are like the only things that you should have on you at least I think because you don't want to have to be pulling a carry-on and also making sure your toddler isn't running around or running off or having to pick up your toddler and also having to pull a carry-on um and I know that's the whole purpose of a carry-on is to bring it on a plane but if you're by yourself or even if you do have help I find that it's so much easier to just check everything in even carry-on bags um okay and then the next thing is her car seat so we do have a travel car seat that I got really recently I had searched online was trying to find something super lightweight and then I saw Chelsea Hernandez post about it on her Instagram and this is the one that I kept coming back to every time I was researching so I went with this one um it's the Costco car seat that I got at Bye Bye Baby I will link it below we love it it's lightweight I think it's like eight pounds so it's literally super easy to pull up um so if you're traveling somewhere like for fun for vacation like say Hawaii for example you're gonna need a car seat while you're there for me we always travel home to my mom's house where we have car seats my in-laws have a car seat in their car so we don't necessarily need a car seat when we get there but we take an uber to the airport so we need a car seat for that so I mean regardless of where you're traveling to or what your travel plans are I feel like most people are gonna need a car seat so we love how lightweight this is and then the next hack is putting it on a dolly I feel like it's pretty genius so this way you don't have to bring a stroller but then again if you're going somewhere on vacation you're gonna want a stroller there so you can either check in your car seat at check-in when you first get to the airport and that'll make things super easy you don't have to think about it you'll just grab your car seat when you get off the plane or you can bring the dolly and this can act as your stroller so the dolly we got recently and we put meadow on it when we first get to the airport right after security is actually we have to take her out because it obviously has to go through security and that's when she never wants to get back into it so it's kind of one of those things where you know your toddler best and you know what they're gonna want to do if they're gonna want to walk around or if they're gonna actually stay put in their car seat or the dolly car seat so that's one option but like i said if you do have to bring a stroller with you um i highly recommend the up a baby minu that i got recently also i used to have the silver cross which was amazing but i realized this is again what i realized after traveling so much i realized that the reason i had the silver cross was because i would go up to the plane i would put it in the overhead bin and i'm basically traveling with it so then right when i get off the plane i unfold it and i put meadow back in this is before she was walking um but like i said i realized that there's no point in doing that there's literally no point in bringing the actual stroller having to carry it onto the plane having to hold an infant in my arms and then put the stroller up in the overhead just to have it on the flight with me i don't need it while i'm on the if that makes sense so basically if you've never flown you're gonna realize that if you bring a stroller with you you literally take it right up to the gate same exact thing as almost bringing on the plane except it's gonna be the last thing that they take down so then a guy will come up he's gonna grab all the strollers and car seats that people have put right there right before you're on the plane and he's gonna take it down put it under the plane and then when you get off it's gonna be the first thing that they bring up so literally by the time you have gotten off the plane your car seat or your stroller or whatever is gonna be right there so there's literally no need for you to have to lug it on top of your overhead bin when there's gonna be a man that basically does it for you he's just putting it under the plane if that makes sense so that being all said that's why i love the UPPAbaby because the quality is amazing it's still super lightweight i think it's 15 pounds so super easy and then the one thing the biggest thing is that it's a one hand fold so when you get to security you do have to take your baby off of the stroller or even out of the car seat and hold your baby hold your toddler and then do a one hand fold with the silver cross that i had before i couldn't do a one hand fold hope that all made sense once you're there it'll make sense always call your airline too like every airline is different but okay the next thing also i mentioned this wear a fanny pack or a forward facing backpack where you have all of like your essential essentials so if you have a baby in one arm the carrier i only used when she was like two or three months one time i don't find it necessary now that she's bigger and for me it's way too heavy on my back but anyways you're gonna have your backpack on your back in the front is where i keep my id cash um your ticket to board the plane all the essentials like that it doesn't have to be any anything big because it's just little things like that because you do have to pull your id out often and your plane ticket and i need it to be accessible in the front so literally just a little unzip pull it out hand it to them or also make sure you wear pockets that's always super helpful i throw my phone into my pocket it really makes a huge difference if you don't have pockets you're gonna regret doing that okay so now we're on the airplane so once you're on the airplane of course every baby and toddler is going to be different with us i feel like we've gotten really lucky with meadow i feel like she's just always been a pretty good baby overall um but mind you like i said we always just fly to my mom's house which is only a one hour flight i've never done anything longer so okay maybe now you guys are clicking out of the video you're like you've never done a real flight and hopefully you guys are still finding this helpful um once you're on the plane i do like to kind of space things out and space out what i brought so for example when we first get on i start like showing her the plane and like the window and i have her looking out the window and explaining things and explaining to her that we're gonna take off and we're gonna be in the sky things like that and then once everyone's boarded once we're ready to go and she starts getting more comfy on the plane that's when i like take out maybe the first snack and some of my favorite snacks to bring are puffs of course that she loves to eat regularly and then like fruit i like to do bananas and cuties because those are easy to throw into a bag unpeel when she's ready to eat and then also another thing that i got recently we didn't have this before because i obviously don't really give her this on a regular basis this is literally just for traveling that's exactly what we got it for she's never seen it any other time unless we're on an airplane so a tablet this one is i forget the name of it but i'll link it below it's been awesome make sure you download shows before so the night before prep download whatever you need to download we download like disney movies you could even download um netflix you could download like cocomelon shows and stuff so she doesn't sit too long watching a movie while we're on the plane probably like 20 ish minutes but i mean every minute counts so it really does make a big difference and it's easy to bring this little guy along a few other things worth mentioning while we're on the plane so aside from the snacks also a water bottle we do bring her water bottle or you can also buy one there and by her water bottle i mean like a little straw water bottle because then once we're there we do buy water pour it into her water bottle straw cup and then we have her drink it while we take off and then also while we're landing just because um i've just heard that like the gulping helps their ears and again she's never like thrown any big fits on an airplane or cried even when we're taking off but now that she's getting bigger and it does hurt her ears i've noticed that she'll kind of like smack them so i know it's hurting her ears whenever i notice that i immediately grab the water bottle and have her drink it and then also her binky if you have a binky baby i'm sure you know to bring one she's not like a huge binky baby she always uses them just to sleep but on travel days we basically let her have it the whole time if she starts to get a little antsy or we notice that her ears or whatever it is we do just kind of pop it into her mouth and hope that it kind of soothes her and calms her down a little bit but she doesn't ever like get scared when we're taking off or landing it's always just been normal to her so that's a big plus of traveling quite a bit and then as far as toys i've heard a lot of people say this i've heard a lot of people say that they bring a new toy for their baby or toddler so that it's something new for them to like play with and explore but for us i would bring the toys that i know she absolutely loves this is when she was smaller now that she's gotten bigger i literally bring like a little backpack or a little bag full of the most random stuff i could find this girl like kids toddlers love random things i mean random like i brought like a roll of tape maybe a little figurine a puzzle piece like the more random the better at least for meadow and she'll like grab it she'll look at it for a little bit and then as far as like cleaning the airplane and desanitizing and stuff before we definitely try desanitizing but at the same time we know that it's just going to be inevitable like she's going to get germy and dirty like the thing she touches on there is it's inevitable i'm telling you like she's climbing on things she's grabbing this grabbing that like it it's gonna happen so yes you can try to desanitize as much as you can or want but at least for us i know that when we're flying and traveling she's going to touch everything and then even while we're at the airport she'll go up to random seats and like kind of just put her arms there's like there's just so much touching going on so i already know that she's going to be dirty and then as soon as we land we just wash her hands and that's how we do it that's everything while you're on the plane that i feel like covered everything the last thing is when you get off the like i mentioned you'll have your stroller right there or either the car seat or whatever it is that you chose to do one thing that we got recently is our little rolling suitcase that i shared on instagram that a lot of you guys loved and even while we were going to the airport we had so many stares and people saying it was the coolest thing they'd seen all day so this is one of those optional things where you can either check it in or not again it can act as basically your toddler can sit on it and hold on and meadow likes it but what we did we've only used it once we checked it in because like i said i don't like bringing anything and having to pull anything extra with us especially knowing my own toddler and knowing that she might not sit on it the entire time yeah she'll like it for a few minutes but she might not sit on it the entire time we're at the airport if that makes sense so it was kind of one of those extra things i don't want to lug around once we got off the plane and we went to the carousel we grabbed it from there and then that's when we put her on it while we walked out to our uber and she loved it then and we loved it as far as that i don't know in the future i'm sure we won't check it in and we'll actually use it throughout the airport when we know she's a little bit bigger and we know that she'll actually sit on it the entire time we're at there we do love it it's amazing quality i did want to mention it so i will link the exact one down below but i think that covers everything as far as traveling i'm telling you i get these questions on my instagram all the time i've had friends ask me about it so hopefully all the little details made sense and hopefully this will kind of ease whatever worries you have i know the first few times i flew by myself i was so anxious like i'm not even exaggerating like my hands are sweaty i like don't know if i can pull it off um and then everything went smoothly and fine so and if you see a struggling mom or a mom who looks like they can use an extra hand always be that extra hand i'm telling you even if you just tell them like oh my gosh like you're traveling with a baby by yourself like you're doing so well i'm sure that's gonna make their day and also while you're on the flight if you hear another crying baby toddlers are gonna cry they've never been on a plane they think it's scary um it's all normal and no one's judging everyone's trying to do their best um so yeah i just want to mention that because i feel like we all know it but just hearing it again just makes things a little easier so yeah i wanted to mention that good luck on your guys's travels and on your guys's upcoming trips um subscribe turn your post notifications links are all down below that's it i love you guys and i'll see you in the next video bye