Travel Toys for Toddlers

Some parents might argue that travelling with toddlers may be the most challenging time of travelling with kids. Having lived over in the UK for quite some time, we've had to travel with our boys on long haul flights to and from Australia at the different age milestones - baby, toddler, preschool and now early primary school age. I think each milestone has it's own challenges, but travelling with toddlers is challenging as we can't seem to "negotiate" with toddlers as effectively(!) as we can with preschoolers and school aged kids.

My answer is always - be prepared!

Entertaining kids on long haul flights is a combination of planning, packing age appropriate travel toys and also pre-empting what may happen next! If they are getting tired and grumpy - change their toys to something that may soothe and relax them. For example, books are great for changing their focus to a calmer state.

Here are some other fun travel toys for toddlers:

* Balloons - perfect to blow up and chase during stopovers! Bring a fly swat as well and you will be able to entertain them for hours in a quiet airport corner.

* Puppets



Story telling with puppets are also a fun way to entertain toddlers on flights. They may just want to sit and listen or try and join in being a character, choosing what happens next, choosing the ending etc.

* Little containers - such as snack cups (which will come in handy whilst on holiday to store snacks) with some accesories such as plastic spoons, sachets (you can collect these from the meal trays on flights) etc. Toddlers love to open containers and pop things in, pour from one container to another, pretend to cook and stir etc! Simple but very effective and will keep toddlers entertained for quite some time!

* Re-usable sticker play scenes



Toddlers love stickers, so this is a perfect travel toy for them! They can stick, pull them off, and re-stick. This is also great for their fine motor, to learn to "peel off" can be quite tricky but it's a good way to learn with a bit of help. They are then in charge of where to stick them and how the story is played out - lots of fun for little ones.

What are your toddler's favourite travel toys?