Simple And Effective Tricks To Surviving The Airport With Kids

As the mom of three kids who were, at one point, all in either diapers or pull-ups at the same time, I know a thing or two about traveling with little ones in tow and the extensive packing that's needed to avoid meltdowns and mini-crises. While a tablet full of Cartoon Network or Nick Jr. videos can go a long way in keeping the troops happy, it will only get you so far when you're stuck in Atlanta on a three-hour layover with a trio of restless traveling companions who don't understand why they can't see Mickey already.

From an 18-hour car ride to Bonnaroo Music Festival with my then-15-month-old son to a speed run through the world's busiest airport, I've learned the secret to traveling anywhere with kids is strategic planning (and packing) that starts with listening to other parents who have already been through it themselves. The Mary Poppins bag of common sense tips and sneaky mom hacks I've picked up from other parents has taken my family from the stroller to teen phases. Bookmark this list for the next time you find yourself facing a layover with kids — and also don't forget to check out these bizarre attractions at airports around the world during your longer layovers.

My husband and I love to reminisce about our holiday trips to Walt Disney World when the kids were younger. And anytime I get the chance, I love to share how my better half — a tech writer for SlashGear — engineered a secure car seat dolly out of a light-duty hand truck and our then-pre-kindergartners high-back car seat.

"The idea just came to me, so I just put it together," Justin likes to recount, "because I knew traveling with a child through one of the world's busiest airports was going to be an ordeal." Not only did it make navigating the airport extremely easy, but our son was pleased as punch as we zipped him around the airport. While we ran around all sweaty and stressed chasing terminals and trams, the little guy happily kicked his feet and watched all of the people rush around him. Having endured the misery marathon of Atlanta airport with a toddler by myself a couple of years prior, I am here to testify that a rolling car seat is far superior to lugging one around.

At the time, we had no idea that this was an actual product you could buy — my husband was just using his tech-geek brain to solve a problem. But these days, you can pick them up on the internet for as little as $40.

There's a time and a place to worry about kids getting too much screen time — and it isn't the airport. When everyone is hot, hungry, and grumpy and boarding time feels ages away, a tablet and some kid-sized noise-canceling headphones can be an exhausted parent's emergency button.

And don't forget to download a handful of movies with your kid's favorite streaming service. While we all want to believe we live in a world where Wi-Fi is strong and stable no matter where we end up, the bitter reality is that the moment our kids have become so overstimulated that only "Clifford the Big Red Dog" can talk them down, it somehow always happens in a Wi-Fi dead zone.

This could also be a good chance to download content that gets excited about their destination. "[F]find some odd info that sparks their imagination and gets them excited about going. Watch GeographyNOW on YouTube about Germany," one Reddit user advised another parent based on her own experience traveling with an age-spanning brood. And don't forget to make sure your child's favorite games can be accessed when their device is offline.

Something I was fortunate enough to learn early on in my parenting journey was the value of keeping basic drawing supplies on hand at all times. You can pack a few coloring pages or some crayons or markers, but you don't necessarily have to. I can't tell you how many times rummaging through my purse to find a small pad of sticky notes and a bank pen saved the day when we found ourselves stuck in traffic or the kids were getting restless at a family dinner out.

It's also one of the few on-the-go entertainment supplies that has lasted my kids through every stage of their lives. When they were little, they'd be happily scribbling away on a robot or monster. But even as teenagers, they're still every bit as grateful for the diversion when I break out a notepad and pencil. And it's not just good for doodling — a pen and notepad is good for a handful of games from Tic-Tac-Toe to Hangman to DIY Pictionary.

If your kids are old enough to write or draw, one great way to kill time while you're stuck in the airport is to give each child their own travel journal. Follow the advice of one Reddit parent, who advised, "Bring each of them an empty scrapbook and help them make a 'travel journal' of their trip- what they saw in the airport, what they see on the plane, etc." Kids who are old enough to appreciate it might even get a kick out of putting their own special touches on their journals ahead of time, they noted, adding, "Decorate the covers at home in advance and make a big deal of how they will be able to fill them up on the trip – the older kid in particular may have fun with this."

I did something similar for our kids on our trips to Disney World using free travel journal printouts I found online. Pinterest can be a gold mine when it comes to sourcing free kids' journal page templates. Even kids who aren't old enough to write much can draw pics of their vacation snacks, the weather, or the airport terminal, while older kids can follow prompts to describe the sights and sounds they're experiencing to help create a memory they can look back on for years or even decades to come.

Once you and your crew have settled into your airport seats as comfortably (after using these hacks to zip through TSA), the last thing you need is to gather up all of your belongings for an emergency trip to the washroom. But kids tend to be messy, and there's a non-zero chance you're going to have some degree of mess to clean up at some point in your airport adventure.

It's also good to travel with both sanitizer and wet wipes. While wet wipes are handy for wiping down messy faces, hands, and shirts and come in super-portable travel-sized packages, they typically aren't sterile. Pocket-sized sanitizer small enough to make it through airport security is good for wiping down seats and airport tray tables to help minimize the chance you'll spend your vacation with a gnarly head cold — because you already know your kids are going to touch every available surface. Just make sure your kids actually wash with water before eating anything at all since hand sanitizer and wipes are all but useless against norovirus, the bane of airport travelers.

One of the easiest tips and tricks for making travel with your kids a stress-free experience is to stick a few low-space-requirement games in my carry-on bag. If your kids are elementary school age or older, Uno is a perennial hit. "UNO is peak travel game. We take a game with us every single time we travel and play with family from 6ish to late 70s," wrote one Reddit user. For kids too young for Uno, Old Maid is a good alternative. 

Of course, a regular old card deck can be good for Solitaire, War, Slapjack, or Gin Rummy. Even if you don't know how to play, a long layover offers a great opportunity to teach yourself by watching YouTube videos. You can also pick up some pretty cool card-based tabletop games that don't take up a ton of room in your luggage like Tacocat and Exploding Kittens — both of which have been massively popular with all of my kids since they were tweens.

My other favorite travel game trick is mining games with trivia and questions you can read off to create a collection you can rubber band together and stash in your purse or hip bag for use throughout your trip. Or print them up off the internet and make your own purse game of "Would you rather?" or "Guess Who?" In a pinch, you can even search YouTube for trivia games — a tip that helped preserve our family's chill factor in many a long line through the years.

Books are another great on-the-go entertainment solution that works well for the big kids and the little guys alike. With infants through about preschool age, two or three favorite board books can be fantastic entertainment since your littles will enjoy flipping through them over and over again. And even if it might not look like they're getting much out of the experience other than checking out a few cool-looking pictures, prereading is actually an important part of a child's learning process.

For kids old enough to read chapter books, an anticipated layover can serve as a great excuse to invest in a book series or manga you think they might enjoy. You could even pick up a choose-your-own-adventure book to keep them entertained even longer.

And no matter what everyone's age is, listening to an audiobook together or reading a chapter book aloud can be a huge hit with some kids. I sometimes read books to my family when we're traveling or stuck somewhere, a trick that works really well with short stories. Older kids might also enjoy a podcast — my teenagers loved the quirky comedy sci-fi series "Welcome to Night Vale" and the Markiplier sci-fi podcast "The Edge of Sleep."

With little kids, comfort items like a beloved plushie or favorite blanket can be massively helpful when you're in an overwhelming environment far away from home. When my oldest son was little, breaking out his well-worn stuffed Elmo doll could instantly improve the mini-me's morale in just about any situation. And even if your kid doesn't have a special lovey or woobie, just bring along something you know they're familiar with to help them feel calm and secure. 

And while it might seem like comfort items would just work for younger children, sometimes big kids and teens can benefit from this as well. Tweens and teens who suffer from overstimulation or anxiety can feel incredibly overwhelmed in a busy airport, especially when they're suddenly ripped away from the same daily routine. In fact, it's really not that uncommon for older teens or even adults to use these types of comfort items as a tool for managing stress when they travel. In a thread full of adults who travel with plushies for this very reason, one Redditor reported using a small plushie either clipped on or inside their carry-on to touch when they start feeling anxious. "It's a good comfort and coping mechanism my therapist says," they advised. For some teenagers, a beloved hoodie can serve the same purpose.

At some point, every parent will get to experience the horror of a diaper explosion or another clothing emergency. Should this happen while stuck at the airport, it can make for a miserable flight home. If you have younger children, don't forget to bring an extra change of clothing or at the very least, a spare pair of pants to avert such a crisis. 

As one mom recounted in a Reddit horror story sure to send shivers down most parents' spines, "I had a layover where my two-year-old had three blowouts that soiled every change of clothes I brought for him." The disaster sent her fleeing to the family restroom where she was forced to bathe her child in the sink and wash her own shirt. "[H]e still ended up re-wearing something from our laundry bag because everything else was checked. THANK GOD it stopped before we boarded our plane or I don't know what I would have done."

If you find you don't have room for a spare change of clothes or two, try using travel pro-Samantha Samantha Brown's helpful vacuum seal bag trick to fit more clothing inside your carry-on bag. And don't forget to bring more diapers than you think you'll need as well.

As someone who used a pretty simple over-the-shoulder baby sling similar to a ring sling when my kids were infants, I loved the flexibility it provided for traveling. I also found that as my babies grew too big for front-side baby-wearing, I could easily pop their behinds in and skooch them to my back where they could sit comfortably against my hips almost like a backpack. Not only was this unbelievably handy for managing household chores like laundry, but it was also a complete game changer when we found ourselves walking around festivals or hustling through airports.

Even if you typically use a stroller or just carry your baby, consider investing in a baby carrier for your little ones when traveling since it can leave your hands free to manage things like luggage and boarding passes. And if you pick up something small like an over-the-shoulder or ring sling, they can fit pretty compactly in your luggage when they're not in use. Plus, they're pretty handy for restroom runs. "Ring sling is unmatched in bathrooms," wrote one Reddit user, adding, "Both for you using bathroom and for carrying baby in to change."

Even if you didn't have a liquid limit to deal with at airport security, traveling with a full bottle of water on top of everything else you've got to worry about when you're on the go with kids would just mean one more thing to have to cram into your luggage. But you're going to need water both to keep up your crew's hydration and to help wash down all of the inevitable snacks you'll need to keep the team happy.

Parents with plenty of airport travel experience say the best option is to bring empty water bottles through airport security. Once you've made it through the checkpoint, you're free to fill them up at the nearest water filling station and even take them with you when you go to board the plane. And that's crucial because water bottles on the plane are generally not free and airplane tap water is notoriously unsafe for drinking. Generally speaking, most planes will allow you to bring water picked up after the security check. As one Reddit account reported, "I have purchased water at vendors inside the terminal and/or filled my bottle at a drinking fountain and carried it on with no issues."

My family is what the kids these days are calling neurospicy — which is to say that we've got a few family members who either have autism, ADHD, or some combination thereof on deck. And of the tricks, I learned early on in my advocacy for my autistic child is the value of fidgets or little toys and objects that folks can click, flip, or generally fidget with to give them something to focus their energy on other than the overwhelming environment around them. Think of them like a lightning rod for all of that stress, anxiety, or pure kid energy.

But if the rise of fidget spinners, silicone-popping toys, and stress balls is any indication, they aren't just for neurospicy folks. The reason is simple: they just feel pleasant to mess with, especially when you're feeling just a little bit wound up — which is why these are perfect airport accessories for folks from four to 84.

You can pick up simple fidget toys like stress balls and pop toys at just about any discount store for under $5. Just stick a few in your bag to break out as soon as Junior starts to get the Zoomies and Yahtzee! You've won the hyperactivity game.