How (not) to pack a carry on for young children.

Our travel time to Qatar seems long.. really long.  We have a short one hour flight to Chicago and then a 14-hour leg the rest of the way.  It's nice that we don't have many stops, but 14 hours is a long time for an adult to sit, let alone little ones.  I've been working on how to keep them busy during the flight for quite a while and have come up with a pretty good array of activities that will be both airplane friendly and fun.  One plus for us is that we fly through the night.  Assuming they sleep for several hours (which at their age is necessary), we should be in good shape.  I thought I'd share their bags in the hope that it will help someone else who is working on a "parent sanity bag."

P's clothing bag and familiar items.

P's new activities.

Above are P's activities.  She just turned 5.  Her familiar items include two picture books, (one of her best friend and one that her Grandma made for her), some familiar books, a picture of her best friend, a couple of small things of play doh, and her pencil case.  I also packed two outfits, PJs, and some socks in a large Ziploc.

I included a new Princess "workbook," stickers and paper, crayons, beads and pipe cleaners, two play packs (coloring sheets, stencils, stickers), gum, tic tacs, fruit snacks, a lacing sheep, and a frozen book and sticker book. 

Along with that, we have DVDs, the ipad, other snacks, and the in-flight entertainment system.  She also has a small bag of her favorite princess toys.

M's clothing and familiar items.

M's new activities.

Above are M's activities.  M is 3.5.  His familiar items are a few of his favorite books and his Spot It game.  He also has two outfits, PJs, and socks.

His new treasures include a new book about flying in an airplane, a new "workbook," lacing cow, activity packs, stickers and paper, crayons, beads and pipe cleaners, tic tacs, gum, fruit snacks, and play doh.

He also has his bag of cars that he loves dearly. 


My thoughts on creating these backpacks for the flight were:

Have familiar items that they enjoy.
Have activities that we can do together (game, coloring, bead lacing, workbooks) since we are sitting in twos (M with daddy and P with me).
New items are centered around their interests.
Everything is compact and fits in a backpack.
We can reuse a lot of it for busy bags.
It's inexpensive.  In fact some of the items were gifts given to them by friends.  I just stashed them away until now.
It isn't messy, loud, or annoying to people around us. 
They can do some of the activities on their own so we can get some rest.  (maybe)


***  Here are my thoughts on this post AFTER the flights.***

There were WAY too many things in their bags.  They didn't use most of it and couldn't carry the bags.  Qatar Airways is EXCELLENT and the in-flight entertainment is great.  They could watch movies or TV shows and were given a little busy bag as we taxied out.  We had a few snacks from the bags, did a few pages of the (sticker) workbooks, and colored.  The rest was just more weight for A and I to lug through the airports. 

Gum, extra clothing (in bags), and stickers were a YES...