Long-haul flight anxiety? It’s going to be okay.
If you’re worried about an upcoming long flights with kids, or if anxieties about big travel days has kept you from taking a big trip, we want you to know that it’s going to be okay. You can do this. Long haul flights with kids have challenges. A few tips make for less stress, plus skills to endure (and accept) the hard parts. You might even find yourself enjoying the flight more.
Real parents share their tips for long haul flights with kids: Watch this video
Long flights with kids are doable, even enjoyable, once you know what you’re doing.
We have logged thousands of long-haul air travel hours with our kids. In fact, throughout our full-time travels since 2022, we’ve flown around the entire Northern Hemisphere with our kids. Our son and daughter have been on planes at every stage: infants, toddlers, children, tweens, and teens.
In this 30-minute YouTube Live video, we share the strategies that hold up: what to pack, how to handle sleep, keeping kids calm on connections, and the mistakes most parents make on their first big trip. If you’ve got a long-haul flight coming up, you’ll want to put these tips to work.
Long-haul flight tips in a nutshell
- What you need to bring – less than you think
- What to do about sleep on the flight
- Jet lag when you land
- Toddlers and young kid strategies
- Not the day to worry about rules
- Download stuff while you’re still home
Video transcript
0:04
4 seconds
Good morning from Japan. Go.
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Yes, it’s probably evening wherever you are, but we are enjoying our coffee here.
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We are very green today. I know we matched unintentionally.
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Um, we are here talking about long haul flights. A week ago, we just made our
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journey back to Japan from the east coast of the US. And so we had about a 24h hour Yep. We crossed North America.
0:38
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We crossed the Pacific. We flew into Tokyo and then flew to Osaka. So it was
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a really big day with a massive flight and a couple of short hops. And coming
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off that long flight and the jet lag and the just getting to another place got us
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thinking like, “Oh man, what are people wondering about with those long haul flights, especially if that’s a new
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experience?” And long haul doesn’t have to just be on the scale of crossing the continent and crossing an ocean. Long haul can be a few hours. It can be
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crossing the US. It can be going from major point to major point. So, long golf flight, I think we could safely
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just put this in the realm of anything longer than like a movie except maybe some of the maybe some of the MCUs, you know, where you get past a three-hour
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mark. If it’s pretty much like I don’t know,
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at least two hours. I think for a lot of folks that’s feeling that’s feeling really long. I think most people consider a long haul flight and
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more. Um, but we can do even a little shorter than that as well. I think I think for a lot of folks the idea of
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being in a pressurized metal tube for longer than a movie can be a pretty intimidating experience. There’s so much
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anticipation wondering how it’s going to go. Do you have the right things? Do what do you need to bring just in case?
2:08
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We want to help you find a little center there cuz you know what?
2:15
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Here are what we’re going to go over cuz one, it’s less than you think. We’re going to talk about sleep. We’re going to talk about jet lag when you land.
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2 minutes, 25 seconds
We’re going to talk about especially with kids, what to worry about and not to worry about on that flight. And a little tip for when you’re at home.
2:34
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Yeah, I think even though we’ve done it many times,
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um I still get a little bit nervous before like how is it going to go? how are the kids going to be that day? Um,
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they’re a little less variable than they used to be, but when they were younger,
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you just don’t really know how they’re going to handle it. And so, um, but I still have, even me, I’m like,
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how am I going to feel? Because occasionally I’ve had times where the exhaustion is just really wiping me out.
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Um, and the last few times though, not so much. I think our longest travel day
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was around 40 hours that we’ve had and but usually it’s more around 24 hours
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when we’re crossing the ocean and I mean we’ve flown countless other small kind of um smaller amounts but like crossing
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the Pacific obviously is the largest or crossing the Atlantic.
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Um, and I you might have some summer plans for some big travel coming up or you might just be dreaming about doing
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something like this and that flight is one of those barriers in the way. So,
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let’s get into it. Um, what do you need to bring? Way less than you think.
3:54
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Yeah, I think that it’s really about making things as simple as you possibly can. it. When you are planning, when you
4:02
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are starting to pack or making that packing list, it is so understandable that your first thought is, “Oh my gosh,
4:08
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you know, my my kids, me, what, you know, we’re going to be on this plane for hours and hours and hours.
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Oh my gosh, we cannot possibly let ourselves get bored. What if the kids run out of things to do or to play with?” And it is so tempting when that
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happens to just start grabbing another bag and just stuffing whatever in there. grab the whole toy store and pack it up.
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Don’t need to do that, though. On flights, honestly, you’re in your seat,
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you’re hanging out, and most of the time is just it is downtime. It is just chill
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time. Kids are also far more inventive and able to deal than we often give them credit for. Like the first time we flew to Japan in 2013, Connor was a toddler.
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His favorite things in the world on that flight were a Coke can, a paper cup, and a magazine.
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He was occupied for hours. We had stuff in the bag. We didn’t even get out because he just loved how the Paper Creek pulled in the magazine.
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Yep. Yeah, it was actually that was one of the big surprises of that trip. We did have a We had to be very minimal
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with what we brought on that first trip to Japan. Um, and because we were moving a lot, we had a lot of changing cities
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and everything. And so that uh flight I was nervous about. And it was our first
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time really doing something like that with kids with a kid. And and so yet the fact that he just played he like first played with
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the paper cl cup and then he ripped up the paper cup and a lot of the time he spent just sleeping too because it uh it
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was that overnight time in redeye flight and that made it really easy. He just curled up and went to sleep for a good
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portion of it. One of the most important things about not overpacking is it is also a way for you to be kind to
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yourself when you land. The more you pack, the more you’ve got to haul from place to place. And when you are tired,
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when you are jet-lagged, when you have been flying for hours and dealing with all the wrangling and logistics of getting everything and everyone where
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you’re trying to go in one piece, the less stuff you have to haul, the easier it is to deal with just the fatigue and the stress of that.
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Getting into specifics is going to vary so much family to family. In general,
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it’s the what’s something that kind of lights them up. that is there a favorite book, a favorite toy or two? Figure out some of those things with your kids,
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with yourself. What will you honestly do? And I would also caution you. So,
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trap that we’ve often fallen into is the, “Oh, going to be on this plane for eight hours. Got to get some work done. I’m going to get caught up on things.
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That project I’ve been meaning to start, I am on it.” No, you’re not. Like Elsa said, let it go.
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When you are on a plane, maybe this is different for some people,
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but unless there is something truly pressing that if you take care of it on the flight, you will feel so relieved once you’re done that it’s just behind
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you. That’s one thing. In general though, your long haul flight is not the time to try to do all the things.
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Frankly, this is garbage time. This is throwaway disposable time to just do
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flip. We often kind of refer to our long haul or long travel days. I mean, it doesn’t really matter if we’re flying or
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if we’re taking, you know, a 10-hour train or something. Um, long travel days is like just survival days. And when we
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do a survival day, there’s a there’s a couple reasons we have a survival day.
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Long long travel day is probably the most planned way, right? A survival day can also happen when the plans that you
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had go out the window because of weather or some unforeseen circumstance and you’re having to pivot very quickly.
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Survival days are rules out the window days. So for us that means like food
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rules that we have for ourselves. Yes, I want to feel good, so I’m going to try to eat kind of balanced, but also if I just want the quick and easy snack
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that’s maybe not the thing I would grab normally, I’m just going to grab the quick and easy snack that’s going to bring me some joy in the moment. Um,
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same thing for the kids. Like sometimes they get to have things they we normally would not really indulge in as much or
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for screens. For us, travel days are just like a free screen day. So, the kids can watch as many movies. They can
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play their tablets or their Switch games or whatever it is that they have with them
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as much as they want. Um, when the kids were younger, we did instill a little
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bit more breaks. So, because they, our kids at least, will play their game
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the entire 15-hour flight and like with almost no blinks.
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When they were littleer, we tried to be like, “Okay, after we’re going to eat the meal, we’re going to take, you know,
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an hour and like no games and just kind of rest for a little bit.”
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Now they’re old enough, we trust them to like if they need rest, they will rest.
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And if they need, you know, we preface it, we can say like you cannot be a cranky pants when we land and and be
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difficult. And they’re old enough. We can talk about that, you know, how we have to still treat each other kindly
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because that’s what the tiredness can really bring out is, you know, snippiness, um, crankiness,
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just the inability to really kind of do some basic functions. So, if they’re tired, we let them they they know when Yep. They’re pretty good about that. And
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it’s a it’s a process and it’s going to depend a lot on the ages and stages for your kids.
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Oh, I had something I was about to say and I totally lost it.
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Was it something about the Oh, I know what it was.
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One of the trade-offs with having kind of more free for all time. You want to watch the thing that is kind of guilty
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pleasure, go for it. You want to sit there and read a bunch of books, go for it. You want to nap as much as possible,
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go for it. with the basically kids have whatever you want to eat, drink, play,
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watch. We balance that with also reminding them, hey, once we’re there,
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we’re probably going to have a lot of days where we’re not on devices as much. We’re out and about, we’re doing things,
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we’re seeing family, we’re having experiences. So,
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there is a tradeoff as well. And when you can frame that with your kids, like,
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hey, you know what? While we’re on the flight, you have at the entertainment,
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do your thing, have fun. just remember when we’re there and we’re rested up and we’re doing our stuff, you got to have all this extra time in part because
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we’re going to have these days where we’re focused on other priorities.
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We find you set those expectations. Kids are usually really good about taking that on board and realizing, oh yeah, I
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got to do this. Now we’re going to do this. I just want to stop for a second.
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If you are traveling to Japan, the other thing that can sometimes be really overwhelming are trains. And so, we
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created a little quick train guide that’s free. And you’ll get on our email list. You get to hear a little bit of
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where we are, what we’re doing, but also every week great tips and it’ll direct you to our videos or our articles about
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what we think is really important travel stuff. So, I’m going to put that link in the chat. You can get the track train
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guide or you can just get on our email list. Either one. All right. Should we talk about jet lag? Jet lag and sleep.
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Sleep on the plane. On the plane.
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Oh, I can talk about sleep. So, Anthony and I kind of have different strategies,
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I think, a little bit with our sleep on the plane. Do you want to go first?
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Well, there are different schools of thought. Some people are just like, you just don’t sleep until you get there.
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Some people are like, sleep as much as possible on the plane. Some people are like, set your watch to your destination time and follow that as if you were
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already on it. There is actually no oneizefits-all thing here. This is very personal. And also how you want to
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balance out how you’re doing on the plane with how you might be tired later and figuring out the trade-offs you want
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to accept. When we’re on the plane, for me, I’m pretty much like if I feel tired, I’m gonna close my eyes and see
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what I can do. If I can sleep some, I’m gonna sleep some. At the very least,
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have a rest, kind of clear my head a little, and no matter what, I’m always a little more refreshed. I know that once we are where we’re going, bags are
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sorted, we’re in our space, and I can finally just go,
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then I will just be out like I was whacked with a hammer. That’s my way to deal.
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I know we used to when we were younger prek kids try to like set to the current time and um we don’t really do that anymore.
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I don’t feel like that worked. It worked sort of.
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I think it works really well for some people. It worked okay for us for a while and then it just wasn’t and it didn’t seem worth. It definitely did not work with kids.
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Like there was there was no juice in that squeeze. The big reason that I try to sleep on the plane is because I’m responsible for small people once we’re
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off the plane. Like they’re sort of in one place on the plane, right? So they’re a little contained, especially
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when they’re small. And then and then you’re off the plane and you’re the responsible party again. And not that
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you weren’t on the plane, but they’re contained. They’re no longer contained once you’re off the plane. And so I just like I need to be as rested as I
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possibly can be once we’re off the plane so that I can think clearly, make good decisions, you know, act and move
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promptly and all of that. So um I think how we approach sleep on the plane is not that different like that we both try to get rest while we’re on the plane.
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But what is a little different is how I have a like maybe this is also how we are at home. He can sleep much easier.
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He goes to sleep easier and stays asleep easier. I’m a little bit more of a light sleeper. So I have like a very
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particular sleep routine on the plane and now I’ve done it enough time and is I can call it routine. So I even though
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we are frequent travelers, I do use a neck pillow because I will get a really
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bad crook in my neck if I do kind of fall asleep deeper with it without it.
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And so that helps me feel better once I’m off the plane. So I for long flights I use a neck pillow. I also use an eye mask that does not press on my eyes.
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It’s got like those cups. Um, mine is a really cheap one from Daiso here in Japan, but it’s so it doesn’t need to be
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expensive or fancy, but I can’t be pressing on my eyes. And I have a playlist of like sleep sounds that I put in so that if there is a sudden noise,
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it’s not going to wake me up. The eye mask is if somebody turns on the light next to me or something, it’s not going to wake me up. And so all of those
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things kind of help keep me asleep. I also feel like I can totally tune out because our kids are older and I can I
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know that they’re fine. When they were littleer, it was a little bit harder to totally tune out that way. Um I think I would have had a little bit harder time
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with the earbuds. Like I would have wanted to keep an ear out if they needed me or something. Well, also when the kids were littleer, we would often try
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to kind of coordinate sleep, especially say after a meal when often on those long haul flights, there are times where, you know, after meal, especially
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international flights, you take you’re cruising, cabin lights are dim, things are cooled down in part to encourage people to to to rest. So, we would have
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times where say, “Okay, we’ve had our meal, everyone. We’re just all going to close our eyes for a while.” And with little kids, that could work pretty well
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for our family. And then gradually, you know, things changed and we stopped using that strategy. It wasn’t working anymore and it wasn’t necessary anymore for us.
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Yeah, I think that kind of goes over what it looks like for us on the plane. And no matter what,
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there will be jet lag. Jet lag is a fact of life with this style of travel.
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Honestly, I don’t care what kind of cool supplement there is or special strategy or anything. There will be jetlag when
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you cross time zones. Your body just has to adjust. You can mitigate the effects,
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but you’re probably not going to completely prevent them. Yeah.
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When you arrive somewhere, I totally appreciate that there is this momentum and excitement and feeling of just hit the ground running.
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Honestly, the more you can build in some time to rest, the better you will do
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overall on that trip because now you’re starting to give yourself the ability to catch up a little.
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Well, it little depends a little bit on when you’re landing. Yes.
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If you’re land honest, I think that the hardest landing time crossing the Pacific. So, this is really different depending. Okay. So, we mostly cross
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Pacific. We’ve done both, but we coming to Asia, the hardest landing time would
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be the morning by far. You’ve been up for 24 hours and you really do have to try to stay up to a sort of reasonable um going to bed time.
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Oh, yeah. Keep going. Yeah. Okay.
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I meant that with Oh, yeah. kind of how you handle dreadlock also depends on when you arrive. Not when you’re scheduled to arrive, when you actually a
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world of difference with getting in somewhere in the morning where you’ve got the whole day ahead. You might not be able to get to your accommodation yet versus getting in at night when you know
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it is maybe just get to where you’re staying and flop out. Crossing the Atlantic,
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I feel like arriving in the morning is not quite as detrimental. It doesn’t tend to be quite as long of a travel day,
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but I still would prefer either way to be scheduled to arrive in the afternoon, early
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evening, because then if you have a delay, you’re arriving at night,
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hopefully not too late. Um, like we were scheduled this time to arrive at 7.
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Yes. Some of something like that. And we still didn’t get in. We our flight had delays so we got in until like 10:00. Yeah.
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Yeah. So um by the time we got to our apartment everything it was like 11 basically bedtime anyway.
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Yeah it was bedtime anyway. So we were like get the bedding in place and crash which that is ideal really like so that
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late afternoon and evening time does give you like just this wiggle room of
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of if it’s delayed. Um so we that’s that’s where we like to be so
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that we don’t have to kind of try to force ourselves to stay up. And the first night is never the hardest night because you’re so tired. You’re gonna sleep pretty well the first night.
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Usually in Japan, I don’t remember if we were like in Europe what happens. But when we come to Japan, we always wake up
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super early in the morning. It’s usually like 4:00 or 5 in the morning local time. And it’s because like our bodies
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are just very confused. And so you almost take this very long nap and then you’re awake awake early early. And
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that’s where convenience stores come into play because they’re a great place to just go and get that first um nothing
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is open yet so you can get you might be very hungry too. You could get a meal.
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Having some food, having something to drink is a huge way to help your body along. Just having some nutrition,
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having some hydration. You’re just taking care of the fundamentals and that will start blunting the edge of some of that jet lag. How you roll with this is
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going to vary so much person to person like Jody said that when we arrive like we’re tired but it’s funny like the second day I know that second night it
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gets to be around 8:00 9:00 and I just it’s like my it’s like someone hit a switch and my body is just like no we’re
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done. We’re done for the day. And that’s one of the ways I’ve pretty much always been.
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Yeah. I um that second night for me especially is the night that I will often wake up more like 3:00 in the
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morning and have kind of a long block where I might be really having trouble
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sleep. Um so the kids seem immune to all of this at this point. I feel like all
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of these things have become more pronounced as um I get older, but the kids seem to just not have too much of a
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problem. They do wake up really early sometimes when we first come in.
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Yeah, there there’s an importance of trying to really account for those rest needs. If someone’s feeling really sleepy and they’re just getting to where
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they’re just about non-functional, then yeah, you just got to figure that out as best you can. And depending on the circumstances, you know, if you got to
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hang out in a cafe for an hour and just keep pounding the pastries while, you know, your daughter or spouse or someone is just conked out for a bit,
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roll with that. We had one time getting into a hotel after a a trans-Pacific flight where Aster fell asleep like in
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the early afternoon for something like 12 hours. She woke up basically at bedtime,
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but she was so conked out. It’s like clearly she really needs this.
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So reading, you’re kind of reading the room with travel. You can’t perfectly schedule this no matter what or foresee
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how someone is going to feel and function once you’re there. Just try to build in that flexibility as best you
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can to have that grace, have that ability to say, “Okay, here’s where we’re going to kind of push through and stay awake. Here’s where we’re trying to get some rest. How’s everybody doing?”
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And it will start to to mitigate.
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Yeah, I think the kids adjust quicker than we do.
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And I think also it’s great to have some plans, like options, I should say. I don’t like
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they’re not plans cuz it’s not something you’re going to do. It’s just like, oh,
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if we wake up, this is how we’re going to deal with it. Cuz you don’t want if you’re in a hotel room, you don’t want your kids to be bouncing off the walls in middle of the night in a hotel room.
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So, you need to have like some idea of like if we wake up really early and my
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kids are just awake, what am I going to do with that time? Are we gonna watch movie for a walk?
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24 minutes
Go for a walk. You know, it just depends a little on where you are and all of that. So, yeah. Yeah.
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Speaking of your young kids, your toddlers, your youngans, those long haul flight days are
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a huge source of anxiety for many parents and it’s understandable. Now,
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one, I’m going to put one thing out there as a proud dad of two. You have absolutely nothing to apologize for simply because you have a baby, toddler,
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a small child on flight. They have just as much right to exist in this world as everybody else on that plane. You have
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just as much right to be there. And I totally appreciate if you feel intimidated or worried about people judging you. We went through that, too.
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One, odds are if someone is being really judgy on a plane, they’re probably not a parent. And you know as well as I do that if they’re not a parent, their
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opinion of your parenting in the moment has about as much value as board game money at a store.
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Screw them. You’re doing your thing.
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Just, you know, if you’re setting appropriate boundaries, you’re doing what you can to take care of your kids,
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and you’re trying to be generally considerate, you are doing the right thing. Not everything will be in your control. Baby might cry. Toddler might
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have a moment. Teen might get huffy. All these things happen. We’re all just people trying to get from one place to another in a pressurized tin can. It is going to be okay.
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Now, all that said, logistically with them toddlers, them little ones, we were always fans of the strategy of have
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a long walk, little runaround time, look for a playground, something. burn off some energy before you get on said tin can. In our experience, that was a huge
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help for both of our kids. They just got on more relaxed. They might be more prone to taking a nap and just they were
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far more open to just hanging out and being chill.
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Let’s see, what are some of the other strategies for those children?
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Those children. Yeah. I mean, I think getting the energy out, you know, a lot of times when our kids were really
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little, we did like kind of walk up and down the aisle some if if it, you know,
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the seat belt sign was off and we had a moment to just kind of do a little bit of movement
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um when they were really little having a carrier of some kind cuz and they our our kids were used to being carried. So,
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I I mean, if it’s the first time you’re using the carrier, that’s not a great thing. But if you are using a carrier anyway, it’s your biggest tool by far.
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Yeah. Having a carrier on a on a plane in the airport, it frees up your hands. Yeah.
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It just helps you in so many ways to move kiddo around, move you around. If you got to take care of something,
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I did a lot of wearing for both of our children. Fortunately, not at the same time, but but it was a big help on travel day, too. There were times I
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might put baby in a carrier and walk up and down the aisle for a round if they were feeling fussy or something.
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It helped cut down my own personal fatigue and I’m not trying to arm carry the kid. You I’m using all my my core
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and my overall body, so it’s less tiring and it kind of turns some of that flying time into some snuggle time and that’s
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always a great thing when you got those little ones. Yeah, I would say um when they’re really little also something to like suck on for takeoff. That’s just
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general airplane advice, but also like little snacks kind of doled out one at a
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time. Um those that takes up some time and interest. There are plenty of like
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articles out there about like things to occupy your toddler um during road trips
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or flights or whatever. And if you’ve had some of those things be successful,
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don’t don’t be like, “Oh, we can’t do this because it’s the long call flight.” Like, just go for it. Yeah. Go for it.
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Whatever is working for you. Now, we’re about to wrap up, but one other little tip we wanted to make sure we shared
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with you. If you are bringing some sort of entertainment that is digital, your podcasts, movies, ebooks, whatever,
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download that at home. Trying to download at the airport is a recipe for failure. That will be the time the Wi-Fi
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is not working, everything’s really slow, or you realized how much more it’s going to cost you in data.
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Yeah. Oh, it’s just going to suck. And especially if suddenly, you know, you got to say to your kid, “I’m sorry. I thought we were going to have your favorite movie for you, but we’re not.”
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I mean, you’ll be okay. But as much as possible, download all that stuff at home like a couple days in advance. Sit
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down with your kids, go through whatever is going to be on any device you’re sharing or that they have that they’re using. Make sure you got it on your own,
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and just everyone will be that much more prepared.
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Yeah, that’s Yeah. Not. We know. We don’t like it when we arrive and our movies are not available.
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So, we hope that helps you have a better longhaul flight wherever you are going this year and in the future. Uh, please
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share your comments with us or other questions, things you would love us to dive into on a future live or other video. Check out our blog,
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learnersandmakers.com, for more in-depth travel guides on traveling as a family,
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traveling with disability, and traveling to destinations all over the world. We’ll see you next time. Bye.
