Family Flying (or the case for drugging your children)

Traveling with children is equal parts art and science.

This is why we can't fly business class.

The science component is fairly straightforward: what do you need to survive a long-haul trip? How do you establish a sleep pattern? How many time zones are you traversing? What “sleep aids” can assist you? 

The art component is trickier: how do you talk to your child about where you’re going? How do you keep the child entertained? How are you going to convince them to sleep in a strange place? How are they going to react to the experience? It’s about knowing what makes your kid tick.

We had the science down – we booked the red-eye flight so that Little Miss could sleep through the flight and had some children’s Gravol as an insurance policy. (Fun tip: drug your children)

As for the art, we had done some flying with Little Miss and she was excited to go on a plane to Ghana. So there was no kicking and screaming. And Little Miss’ grandmother had insisted on purchasing a portable DVD player with her favourite kiddie programs, which helped when we wanted her to sit in one spot and eat some dinner at the airport.

Then there are the things you just didn’t factor in: we had a few hours before the main flight where Little Miss needed to burn energy, which occurred in the form of running up and down the moving sidewalks for a solid hour. This concerned other passengers imagining tomorrow’s headline reading “HYPERACTIVE CHILD SWALLOWED BY AIRPORT MACHINE”, but we took it as a calculated risk with the payoff being a peaceful flight with a sleeping toddler.

 
In retrospect, we should have considered the X factor of other children on the flight (including two wee Ghanaians directly behind us) and passed around the Gravol. But we got a few hours of sleep and Little Miss slept from take-off almost to touchdown. Mission accomplished.