I have a confession to make–we hadn’t flown with all our kids before this past Christmas. Despite the fact that we are a traveling family flying is just so difficult and expensive compared to driving. Depending on how closely you follow our #YoungFamilyJaunts hashtag it may or may not surprise you that we prefer a road trip. In fact, I hadn’t flown with a child since my oldest was around a year–about 10 years ago! To say I was nervous to fly with six kids under the age of 11 is an understatement. Luckily it went pretty smoothly and today I want to share the fruits of my over-planning with you! Here are some tips for flying with kids–from packing to the plane and everything in between.

how did I really feel about our flight?

Like I said, we’re a roadtrip-loving family. We won’t think twice about driving down to southern California to visit a theme park or the beach. In fact, we’d never even consider flying as a family verses driving for seven hours. Once you factor in driving and parking at the airport, having to get there early, and tickets for our family? It’s not even a little bit worth it! We’ve even driven to places as far away as Texas and Mississippi from our northern California homebase.

Truth be told, we even had planned to roadtrip for this Christmas trip to South Carolina. In the end we decided that 14 hour driving days in the middle of winter might not turn out well. The decision to buy plane tickets instead was something we really struggled with. Honestly, I’m still bummed we flew instead of drove because we had a couple of stops planned I was excited about. However, I am glad we didn’t have to drive multiple long days in a row. Eight hours of driving max is usually what we prefer so there’s more time to enjoy the journey.

tips for flying with kids

I asked in my InstaStories if anyone had any questions about how we handled with flying with six kidlets in tow. I had a few questions come in that ranged from how we packed to how we kept track of everyone. All valid questions that I’m more than happy to address! I hope that you find these tips for flying with kids useful. Again, as nervous as I was to fly it all actually went very well. So if you’re contemplating a flight with little ones don’t be scared, be prepared!

packing tips

1. Limit your bags by packing light. This can be challenging with kids because they need so much stuff (diapers, etc.) but for our family of eight I was able to keep it to four bags for a week long trip. Of course, I also knew we’d have access to a washing machine so that helped us too. Not having a lot of bags to handle really helped us in the airport when we had a lot of little kids to keep track of.
2. My biggest packing tip whether your flying or driving is always to use packing cubes! I used to use gallon-sized bags, but packing cubes are definitely worth the upgrade! You can organize everything by day or person and they pack nicely in your suitcase. Plus, when you’re flying you don’t have to worry about your clothing getting all tossed around should they choose to do a random check of your bag.
3. Plan ahead by packing snacks for the return flight in your checked luggage. I knew I wanted to bring lots of snacks on the plane. However, I also made sure to pack a gallon-sized plastic bag in our checked luggage with more snacks for the flight home. In this bag I also included extra Color Wonder markers in case they lost some on the way out, and a new activity book in case they were bored with what we had flown out with.

| Packing Tips for Families |

in the airport

1. Check your car seat and stroller at the gate. We only had to check our infant car seat and decided to bring along the stroller attachment it clicks into instead of our double stroller. Every time we got off the plane, whether we had a layover or were at our final destination, our stroller was waiting for us at the gate which was very handy.
2. Let your kids get their energy out at the airport. Flying across country often means multiple flights and layovers–it certainly did for us! Resist the urge to have your kids sit while you’re waiting playing on their tablets or reading. After all, that’s what they’ll be doing on the plane! Instead, walk around with them and explore the airport.
3. Take advantage of airport time and charge your devices. Airports have lots of charging stations around and it’s easy to sit and charge your phone or tablet. I had brought travel chargers but never needed them because we always remembered to charge in the airport. By the way, if you bring travel chargers they must be in your carry-on and can’t be in your checked luggage.

| Travel Countdown Printable |

on the plane

1. Pack activities for the flight based on where people will be sitting. As a family of eight flying on Southwest we knew we wouldn’t have assigned seats and that we would need three rows. We decided my husband and I would sit with the youngest two, our oldest would sit with the six year old, and our nine year old would sit with our seven year old. Mike and I sat behind two of them and the other two sat next to us across the aisle. This arrangement worked well for us and it was helpful having one small bag of activities with each set of kids.
2. If their bags won’t fit under the seat in front of them plan accordingly. Before the plane takes off have your kids pick one snack and one activity and put it in the seat-back pocket in front of them so they have easy access to it. On all of our flights back and forth across the country they rarely turned off the fasten seatbelt sign due to turbulence. It was nice having access to their things.
3. Take-off, and especially landing, can be tough for little ones when their ears are popping. Bring suckers or something else they can suck on for these times. And be sure that you have access to it when you need it. Infants can benefit greatly from pacifiers or even nursing during take-off and landing.

| Screen-free Activities for Kids |

Do you have any tips for flying with kids?