Spring Break Baby!! How To Entertain a Toddler on a Plane

For this spring break I hopped on a plane with nothing but my bikini and a good book in a backpack in search of a righteous beach and a minty mojito.

Or I laboriously packed my carry on with ten thousand things to entertain a toddler on a 50 minute flight to Ohio to visit my parents.

If I'm being a hundred percent honest I would prefer to do the latter, which is a good thing because that's what I did.  For the most part Callah was very good on the airplane.  I opted to hold her in my lap and save the $400 price of her ticket for a rainy day.  It was a bit difficult to contain her 18 month old enthusiasm from scampering up and down the aisle, but my bag of goodies helped in this area.

Tip #1:
Pack an outrageous amount of food.

Tip #2:
Raid the toy box...and buy a new toy!  I bought a couple new toys at Target in the dollar spot area and hid them until we were on the plane.

Tip #3:
Coloring book, crayons and stickers.  She wanted to pull the tray up and down a million times, so being able to put a coloring book on it distracted her from that activity.

Tip #4:
Patience is a virtue.

On the return flight United kindly put us in a row with an empty seat.  Callah buckled and unbuckled the seat belt an average of 5,000 times on that flight.  When all was said and done we only had one meltdown and the flight was well worth the fun visit we had with my parents.