Tips for long distance travel with a toddler

My husband is from the island of Cyprus (located in the Mediterranean Sea, near Greece) and we travel there once a year to visit family and friends.

Last year, our little guy, Theo, was still very much a baby and at 7 months old, there isn’t much going on other than sleeping and eating. 

This year, Theo was 22 months old when we made the same trip. And, let me tell you, it’s a totally different ball game. In all honesty, we almost lost our minds. Before I give you a few tips, I’ll tell about our personal experience. Before we left, I didn’t set any expectations for the trip, I was basically hoping for the best and expecting the worst. Well, we got our share of whatever could go wrong, but I guess it could’ve been worse. Haha!

Are we there yet!??

We traveled from Phoenix to DC, DC to Vienna, Vienna to our final destination, Larnaca. The first flight was really good. We busted out a few new toys, my custom made snack tray (see below for both), we even got a little nap in. All the heavens broke loose on that “night” flight from DC to Vienna. Night is in quotes because little Theo was over excited and anxious about the whole ordeal and spent the 8 hours of flying running up and down the aisles (while everyone was sleeping), clockwise and counter clockwise. Even the screen didn’t calm him down but for about 20 minutes. That’s when you realize that 8 hours may never end and a plane is really small.

He finally fell asleep…as we were landing in Vienna. Yup. We had a 12-hour layover there. He slept through 4 of those while we were visiting, zombie-like, this beautiful city. The last leg of the trip from Vienna to Larnaca was fine as well. Nothing major to report here. Probably because we were just done. 

What do you do about jet lag?

Cyprus has a 10 hour time difference with Phoenix. Night is day and day is night. We suffered with Theo the first few days, but more easily than I thought, we got back on track by day 6. My little kiddo rises with the sun, that’s how he rolls, and made our life easy. The only thing we did was keep him awake longer at night (he went to bed at midnight several nights in a row, instead of the usual 7 pm) and it seemed to have done the trick for us. 

Snacks, snacks and more snacks

On a friend’s suggestion, I bought a bead storage box at Michael’s and stuffed it with new and known snacks. That was a game changer. It’s easy to store in the diaper bag, pretty light and Theo loved to have a variety of foods. 

Travel toys

If you search on Amazon for travel toys, a whole list of light weight, compact, magnetic toys will pop up. Another good reference is this website. We didn’t show them to Theo beforehand, so he could get a nice surprise. He played with them off and on during the “night” flight but the excitement of the plane itself took over his little being. 

Invest in a light and compact stroller

I recommend a travel stroller, one that folds into a carry on. Last year, we had to check our ordinary stroller at the gate. It took almost an hour to get it back and we had to run through London Heathrow to make our connecting flight. You’ll have to worry about so many things already, having a small fold-able stroller will save you a headache. We specifically bought the Graco Jetsetter. New mom alert: if I had known, I would have bought this one from the very beginning as an infant car seat can be clipped to it and this stroller is just a dream.

Benadryl maybe?

I’ve heard that you can give your child Benadryl to help them fall asleep. We didn’t try it so I cannot give you my insight on this. If you do go that route, test it before your trip: it can have the opposite effect. Check with your pediatrician first!

All this being said, you can be super prepared, you never know what’s going to happen when you go around the world with a tiny but mobile and curious person. Be prepared for sure, but also give yourself some grace and take deep breaths when needed. 

Safe travels, mamas!