First the ground rules. We're flying so weight and space are of utmost important. Along with mess (must be low). And entertainment value (must be high)...
Thy will be NEW
Thy will be rationed
Thy will be light and ideally not easily weaponised against thy fellow traveller
These are amassed from a number of amazing family, friends, blogs and insta profiles and we have tested them all. Special thanks to all those who gifted or loaned items from their little ones travel stashes to share the love. You know who you are.
Puffy Re-usable stickers; For the plane seats, for the tray tables, for the water bottles, for mum's face. We like this set as there are different scenes so we seperate and rationed (rule number 2). Still sticking 3 flights later (We think we'll need to re-purchase come flight 4-ish). **These are currently our GOAT flight entertainment!**
Silicone fidget dimple popper: Yep, that's what we call it. No idea it's real name but it works for a full five minutes most times. Sometimes seven. There is a brand name version of this toy which is LARGER so we bought this smaller, lighter option.
Paint with Water books; All the fun of painting with none of the mess.
Touch & sound books; A little weightier than paperback but way more entertainment value, we take one new (rule number 1) touch & sound book plus a couple of small, light paperbacks.
Window spinners; Suction these to any windows (plane, airport corridors, car). These are our pick as they are also same buttons as the silicone fidget dimple poppers which our daughter has been obsessed with...(Coming in list number 2)
Sensory Tubes; These make it into our top 10 on weight limit alone at an outstanding 25 grams!
Busy Board; Clips, sliders, scrollers and beads. This busy board has more options and pages than most but is soft and light and easy to slide into the nappy bag!
Light colourful scarves; We scrunch these into an empty wipes case (one with the hard plastic clasp) and our daughter loves pulling them out; followed by stuffing them into our pockets, seat pockets etc to be "found" and then peekaboo baby / parents / toys soon follows.
Fingers puppets; perfect for annoying passengers within 3 rows with loud animal noises. We only took those that we could fully imitate - cow, duck, dog, frog, pig (if anyone can teach me how to imitate a panda I'm dying to add this one to the collection.)
Screens. Phone or iPad; we're not anti screen but our toddler honestly hasn't been that bothered about tv/iPads before. We bought a iPad and downloaded a few episodes of "Peppa Pig" and "Coco Melon" for the journey - very little sh*t's given. We also downloaded a couple of Apps; Kidloland and Peekaboo Barn. A couple of sh*t's given but a lot of smacking the iPad so we took it away. We figure it's an extra weight unless you're carrying it for you anyway but if there's anywhere to test a screen time for some peace we figure it's on a plane when all your fellow passengers are trying to sleep.
And finally, if you have time, and can be bothered (nope we haven't done this but maybe one day) we've seen fellow travelling parents wrap these up in coloured tissue paper...adding the unwrapping into the experience of rule number 1...Thy will be New.
And the best tip we read for travelling with all of this extra stuff...keeping it in cubes/pods/pouches. The best we found for the small toys for hand luggage are A4 Mesh Pouches, easy to slide into carry ons we divide them between our bags so something is always accessible.
C, C & M