Ever wondered what flying alone with a toddler is like? Well now I can tell you. We had tears (mine), screaming (little ones) and exasperated sighing (audience, sorry I mean fellow passengers) and that was when we were still in UK airspace. I – well more accurately my son – went through a days supply of nappies before we reached cruising altitude, so he was on a strict no poohing regime until we were reunited with our luggage, a mere 16 hours later.
The plane was all very exciting. Pretty much a toddlers dream. He kept pointing out of the window to see an aeroplane! Amazing. I’m not quite sure he understood that he was also inside said aeroplane.
After a few hours, well past bedtime, he decided he’d had enough and asked for his cot. He was pretty gutted to learn his faithful cot wasn’t hiding out with the lifejacket under his seat. The whole sleeping on a seat wasn’t very successful, but soon enough it was dawn and we were all roused for the breakfast service. It seemed to take an eternity for the trolley to reach us at the back of the plane. But finally we were fed and watered.
After that my son was all full of get up and go, sadly the same couldn’t be said for me. He has an exceptionally short attention span, especially when at 15,000 feet. The entertainment went something like this: TV time (2 minutes); drawing (3 minutes); stickers (6 minutes); reading (5 minutes); spilling a drink on our neighbours (2 minutes). And repeat ad infinitum (well for about 7 hours).
We had a nice break where he had a run around the plane and there was a near escape when he got hold of the handle for the emergency exit. I’m not too sure how easy they are to use but I really didn’t want to learn if they were toddler proof or not.
And then somehow, we were here. We had survived, and more importantly so had the fellow passengers. After collecting our bags and heading to our room for the night the sense of relief was immense. We had made it. I was tearful with relief (seriously). South east Asia for a month. Surely if we could survive the plane ride here we could survive anything. Well, OK, so I might have gotten a slight false sense of confidence but still, I think flying solo with a toddler deserves a pretty big pat on the back.
While I’m not sure how its going to work out, one thing I’m certain of is that it will be an adventure to remember. Watch this space and I’ll update you when we are back.
If you liked this you might also like to know about some of our travelling tales and what it’s really like to travel with a toddler.
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