re: Traveling with toddlers on a plane. Any tips?

I’ll update this more later when I can, but I just travelled with 2 toddlers to Europe this summer (3 flights there, 3 flights back).

-buy the kids their own seats
-double stroller is key for moving through the airport. You can gate check it at the plane and pick it up by the plane door when you land. It’s also handy for hanging/storing your backpack or other hand luggage while on the move or at the gate. If you don’t have one and want to buy one, this is the one we bought (cheapest I could find with the basket part underneath) : amazon
-lots of (sugar free) lolli pops for take off and landing ear popping
-lots of entertainment and snacks, will update this post with ideas for that
-lots of patience! They don’t really understand what’s going on and why, especially the 1 year old. Remember that!
-it’s a short momentary thing in the grand scheme. The stressful moments shall pass. For us, the kids weren’t even nearly as stressful or annoying as the stuff the airlines did (changing gates and planes when something broke, changing up our seats after we selected them months ago, bags didn’t make it, lost a whole ticket on the way home (!!), all sorts of ridiculous things out of our control.

Take a deep breath and roll with it! It’ll be fine!!

Entertainment: toy cars, water wows, coloring books and a couple of crayons, stickers!!! You can get the puffy stickers that won’t cling too hard to surfaces like the tray table. I think for the 18 month old stickers occupied most of the time. You can get a huge set from Amazon for super cheap. And when all else fails, SCREENS. lol. We don’t use iPads at all so it was like a novelty for the older child. The younger child wouldn’t keep headphones on. For snacks, try to hit the trifecta of low sugar (to avoid sugar crash mood swings), low mess, and take a long time to eat.