Packing Cubes by eBag. I love these things. Almost as much as pork products. We use it to carry the kids' coloring notebooks and reading books in to keep them organized in our carry on. And we use them to pack our spare clothes on our carryons. And I have a bajillion to use in our check-ins. Each kids has their own color. Gone are the days when I tell the kids to get an outfit out of the suitcase, only to find the suitcase as been turned upside down and my neatly-folded clothes are back to a messy pile.
Here is a $10 off link that'll get you a discount on the website, and it'll give me a discount as well:
https://bit.ly/2KOr3db
I love that they are extremely light-weight and come in different sizes. Mediums are great for carryons. Large packing cubes are great for everyone's clothes in the check-in luggage.
Wet Wipes. LOTS of them, and they are especially good for the flight. Good for cleaning up yucky hands or spills on the plane's tray tables.
A wipe-off bib. We like the Baby Bjorn bib for our 1- and 3-year olds. We wipe them off with the aforementioned wet wipes.
Juice Box Holder. Best purchase ever. I purchased just one, and we use it all the time (not just when flying) for our 1- and 3-year old who always accidentally squeeze and make big messes of their juice boxes when we travel.
Ride-on-Carry-on. This is an eating tray/child seat that attaches to your carry on. This is handy for keeping your kid trapped while you are standing all those security lines. It's also great for those times when you're eating in the airport and need a high chair with a tray for the little ones so they don't spill all over their clothes.
Car Seat Cart. We needed the carseat for our toddler as a way to keep her buckled up and out of trouble on the plane. Without it, she would have been running up and down the aisles. But after the flight, who wants to bother getting their kid out of the carseat and finding a way to lug it to the next gate? Enter the Car Seat Cart. Different kinds of car seats fit in different kinds of carriers. We love the kind we got, but I don't think they make 'em anymore. But I'd heard lots of good things about this Britax one.
Double Stroller. We also have used our BabyTrend Sit-n-Stand double stroller, successfully in airports and then just gate check it. But if we choose this option, then we usually don't use the Ride-On-Carry-On, since we can just strap the kid into the front of the stroller instead...and it serves the same purpose. It just depends on if you want to juggle a stroller, etc.
Headphones. The plane's free ear buds don't always fit in my kids' ears. Or they end up hurting their ears after awhile. So we bring a few kinds of headphones. For the older ones, we bring these folding ones:
For the younger ones who have trouble keeping it on their heads, we bring these headband type headphones that stay on wonderfully:
And, for flights without TVs, the kids use our ipad with a multi-headphone port so we don't bug our seat neighbors with our ipad volume. This isn't the exact one we have, but you get the idea:
Crayons/Notepad. We also like to give them these awesome "Mini Twist 'n Sketch Set" notepads that we found in Walmart. We love it because the crayons snap in the plastic holder, so they never go rolling around on the plane's tray table. The crayons are the twistables, so you never need to worry about peeling them. And the crayon holder snaps shut over the notepad to keep everything in place. We give each kid their own. We also bring stickers and good books for the kids to read. The long flights over the oceans are easy because they are all glued to the TV. The shorter connecting flights that don't have seat-back TVs (and when they are jetlagged) are the worst! So we just try to bring little things that will keep them occupied.
Other Random Helps
I just saw these, which might be worth looking into: the JetKids BedBox. It's a suitcase that they can ride through the airport, and then it converts into a seat-extension so the kids can lay on their airline seat like a bed.
I also bring disposable water bottles with each kid's name on it. The labelling helps to stop arguments before they start.
I also bring Dum Dums for the kids to suck on during landing so their ears don't hurt. For the really little ones, that's when I give them their bottle, or I give them fruit snacks, or something that just makes them swallow every so often. And of course, we give them snacks throughout the travelling...it just makes things easier for everyone. We avoid anything that melts (like M&Ms), and anything that gets sticky (like gum or taffy). But trailmix (minus the M&Ms), pretzels, fruitsnacks, etc, are great.
