We’re about 9 days away from our Bahamas trip. We are traveling from SFO - MIA - Freeport, Grand Bahama Island. So I’m starting to put a packing list together for the trip. Here’s some nice tips I found from Glennia Campbell at The Silent I on traveling with preschoolers age 3-5. Lets start with the 5 year old. I think this is easier than packing for the 10 month old though!
Packing list for the plane for my 5 year old:
- Backpack he can carry himself.
- Extra change of clothes in a ziploc bag. Extra fleece sweater for the plane ride.
- Coloring books, puzzle/maze books, crayons and pencils.
- Blank journal book, and tape. When we see souvenirs (like ticket stubs) we can just paste it into the journal book.
- Flying paper airplane book and some colored paper for making paper airplanes.
- DVD player (very important!) and some new DVDs. Good headset.
- Snacks. Include hard candies that can be sucked while the plane is descending, to deal with ear pain. This is only 1 of the strategies that we’ve used with him: sometimes we’ll try to keep him drinking liquids, sometimes we ask him to squeeze his nose, close his mouth and blow. But the candy is a little incentive that he appreciates when his ears are hurting!
- Magnetic checkers board. We’ve been starting to play some father-son checkers these days so maybe a small travel magnetic checkers board would be a worthwhile investment.
I haven’t thought about how to survive a layover at Miami airport (MIA) with the kids. Fortunately the travel outbound is pretty efficient, but the return includes a 5 hour layover! I could only find a little information about MIA here. But no real information about family friendly activities at MIA. Does anyone have a parents guide to MIA or “family guide to MIA” or something? SFO is easier…he loves the AirTrain.
OK, next up will be: what to pack on the plane for a 10 month old!
UPDATE:Â For earaches on plane trips, Glennia suggested we pack some Benedryl as well.
Posted by: scoutdown
Categories: