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In about 48 hours we’re going to board a plane to Hawaii. Awesome, right? Except we’ll also have an 18-month-old with us and the flight is 7.5 hours. Hence the title of this post: Am I insane??
We flew with Adeline for the first time when she was 8 weeks old. We’ve since taken 10 trips with her. That’s 20 flights. Adeline has boarded a plane 20 times in less than 20 months.
on a flight in March. unfortunately she’s not that into the iPad right now.
There have definitely been some rough moments, but on the whole it’s gone surprisingly well. We’ve been lulled into a false sense of security and had our confidence boosted. We felt so sure of ourselves that we decided a seven hour flight with her wouldn’t be crazy. But I’m suddenly having second thoughts. The toddler-on-a-plane good luck can only last so long, right?
Still though, I tend to be pretty laid-back. “What’s the worst that could happen?” I tell myself when I start to get worried.
Oh, I don’t know… She could refuse to sit in her seat when the fasten seatbelt sign is on, causing the flight attendants to threaten to throw us out of the plane. She could scream for hours. She could, instead of screaming, do that incredibly annoying whining thing where she just whines for hours on end and it makes you want to stab your eardrums with the blunt end of one of her toys.
Seven hours… If I even try to keep her in the house for seven hours straight she loses it. Keeping her in the limited space of an airplane, confined to her seat for much of the time? This could get ugly.
But once we make it through, we’ll be in Maui. Paradise, so they tell me. It will be a (relatively) short period of struggle in order to reach something much better. Like with so many things in life, the pain will be worth it.
Right?
YES!! It is worth it!!!
We’ve never taken a flight less than 5 hours. My son has done all of those terrible things and more. The whining is the worst. At some point they sleep. The last hour is beyond rough. The last time we flew to LAX from JFK, we had an hour delay and an extra hour of travel due to strong headwinds. We all survived.
It will be rough – not going to lie. But it will be soooooooo worth it. Trust me, I contemplate taking two kids on the 11-13 hour flight from NY just to experience Maui again (though we can’t afford it time or money-wise, I still think about it) – that’s how awesome it is! Just to smell that sweet fragrant air again…
You must go to Sansei – looks like a strip mall but it has sushi to die for. Dine before 6pm and your whole bill is 25% off. Check it out before you go.
Yes, you are. That said, that much sand is always worth it. Seriously.
Good luck!!
Wow… That’s a lot of flying so far. I’d say you’re an old pro and you’ll be fine. We took our 18 month old to Florida last summer and tried to time the flight around her nap schedule (didn’t work) and brought a portable DVD player with lots of elmo DVDs (that worked). Good luck!
We’ve traveled by plane with our kids even when they were as young as four months. The trickiest part is usually getting everyone through security without losing any of our stuff or any of our children. (We have three, each a couple of years apart.) They get tired and crabby sometimes, but aside from causing my father-in-law migraines, they didn’t harm anyone.
Babe and I are about to take on the friendly skies again ourselves…wish our 7 hour trip was to the sandy beaches of Maui but the warm embrace of family at the end of our trip will have to do. In any case, I have the same fears and worries preparing for the 7 plus hours confined to our chairs. It’s never easy, and it only gets more challenging as our little ones grow. But who in their right mind would give up on a chance to spend a week in paradise (or relaxing with family in my case)? You’ve made the right decision. Hope you have a fantastic time!
That’s a lot of traveling and awesome she does so well. I’m from HI and have twins who are autistic so we didn’t go back for a bit but fortunately, they’ve done WELL with planes.
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