I started my Cosy Garden Cottage about two years ago to save up a little money for family holidays. We have just had our first trip with the proceeds!! We went over to England and Ireland for a family reunion. Now from South Africa that is quite a long way to go – especially when flying via Dubai. With a toddler it can be even longer!
Our little girl has just turned two and she is as busy and inquisitive as any little one at that age. I knew I had to pack an amazing activities to keep her entertained. Here’s what I included in the pack:
Beads
We have the best bead shop just down the road from us. I went there on a hunt to find some nice big beads to be strung on a string. An excellent activity for fine motor skills but I was more hopeful for lengthy entertainment value. I manged to get round wooden beads as well as square plastic beads to string on a string. The square plastic beads where a better option as they didn’t roll all over the place.
Puzzles
Three small puzzles. I discarded the box that the puzzles came in and packed each one into its own zip lock bag so they could be pulled out one at a time.
Coloring pages, coloring pens, crayons and wax crayons
While my daughter is too small to do any decent within the line coloring, she loves to scribble on pages. I found some free Peppa Pig printable pages from Pinterest – thank you the purple pumpkin. The pictures of Peppa just made the scribbling so much more exciting for her. My daughter is a Peppa Pig die-hard fan.
Mosaics and Stickers
I could not recommend these more. Any type of sticky thing that can be stuck on a page is worth quite a long time of entertainment. Not all the stickers ended up on the page but I just made sure I removed the ones that would have been left behind. You don’t even need the mosaic that I had just a few stickers to stick on a page will work.
Craft Kit
I found a craft kit at our local stationery store. Not only my daughter had a great time with these but also her 13-year-old cousin. It was a wonderful bonding session for them, they sat for hours making this brightly colored worm together. This is the item that my little one talked about the most after the trip. I will definitely buy one of these again.
Art bag
All of the above packed very neatly into this travel art back that I found. This was super handy as it can be hung off the bag of the seat in front and make a nice work table in the airplane or even the car.
Tablet and Headphones
A tablet is a wonderful technological invention. I love my tablet. My daughter is fast beginning to love mine too. This is a wonderful tool if you need a break from a supervised activity. Although I am not a fan of too much screen time I think it can be forgiven when travelling as ‘go and play outside’ is just not an option. We bought some ‘volume limiting’ headphones to go with the tablet so as not to disturb our fellow travelers with Peppa Pig dialogue. I was pleased to find the volume limiting headphone as I knew my little one’s ears would be protected.
Soft toys
There is nothing like having a couple of soft toys to cuddle. We had Peppa and George accompanying us on our journey. The nice thing about the soft toys is the double up as little sleeping pillows and can be squashed into the travel bag when not in use.
Now this little pack was an absolute lifesaver on those four long haul flights that we went on – but we survived and had a wonderful time. We are home now and our little girl is still pulling her blue pack out to play with the contents. If you are travelling with your toddler I hope you will find some of these tips useful when deciding what to pack for your little one. This is part 1 of a three-part story on what to pack for your toddler, be sure to look out for part 2 where I talk about travelling with the car seat.
Are you travelling to Johannesburg, South Africa? Why not book to stay at our Cosy Garden Cottage, I will be able to tell you about our travel adventure first hand!
Being a grandmother I was very impressed with your tips for traveling with a toddler by air, never having had to do that with my own offspring as toddlers! Definitely worth sharing with other parents traveling with toddlers, and with other grannies in my circle.
Thank you Deborah, yes our family unfortunately is spread far and wide around the globe so I suspect there will be more travel for my little girl compared to when I was growing up too.