The terrible twos descended on my son seemingly the day of his second birthday and hit hard for about two months; unfortunately, we had a couple very long flights over this period. During the first flight, he refused to sit down, screamed loudly, kicked seats, threw toys, never slept, and managed to irritate pretty much everyone on board, including his mother. Somewhere between the Pacific and the Atlantic, I sobbed silently into my tray table beneath the glares of fellow passengers. I tell you this not to scare you but to say that sometimes toddlers are awful and it stinks, but you'll survive and the other passengers will deal.
As a result of this airborne disaster, we restrategized our air travel plan for our big toddler completely.
We started by encouraging him to go wild (ahem, burn as much energy as possible) in the airport before boarding. Instead of pushing him through the airport in his stroller, we let him run beside us. If he found a small platform in the terminal he wanted to jump off of, we would hunker down beside it and let him climb up and jump down repeatedly for 45 minutes before heading to our actual gate. We were thrilled to see him getting out so much energy.
We also stopped rushing to board the plane. While families with young children are often given priority boarding, we decided to pass on this perk. Sure, it's nice to gate-check our stroller without a long line behind us, but boarding early only meant there was more time my son was restricted to his seat. Instead, we hung out and played by the gate, only boarding at the last minute.
Pro Tip: Consider packing Plan B: Benadryl. Yup, this is a controversial one and everyone will have to figure out what makes sense for their individual family. I did some research into the safety of children's Benadryl, and, for us, a small dose on an especially long or arduous flights was 100 percent the right decision. In fact, it was downright miraculous.
