Travel toys!

We just returned from a 10-hour round trip transatlantic flight. We weren't concerned about going over to Europe as our flight left at bedtime and sure enough, a few hours after we took off, baby fell asleep and promptly slept most of the flight. Coming back though, we knew would be a completely different story as it would be broad daylight and our baby isn't the greatest of sleeper when removed from the 'comforts' of home.

When looking for entertainment for an airplane ride, here are some of the things we are looking for:

1. We want a quiet toy so we don't bother other passengers. To be honest, more and more people are using noise cancelling earphones (my husband uses Able Planet noise cancelling headphones
2. We want a toy that doesn't roll away when dropped. The last thing we want to do is chase a toy all the way down the aisle, especially if the flight attendants are in the aisle with beverage/food service. 
3. We want a toy that doesn't have a lot of pieces that can get dropped/lost/render the toy inoperable for the duration of the flight.
4. In the past, we wanted a toy we could use with a lanyard (we used Baby Buddy Secure-A-Toy for this purpose; worked great with pacifiers, but not so great with the type of sippy cup we used -- handles left a gap for the lanyard to slip out!).

A couple of toys that have worked well for us in the past for both airplanes and cars include the Bright Starts Clack and Slide Activity Ball and Freddy Firefly. We've always had decent luck with our Kindle Fire as a diversionary tactic, but while overseas, our child become unbelievably fascinated with the Kindle and constantly wanted to watch 'Elmo'. I was able to stream short bits of Sesame Street on the Kindle, but I knew that would be an issue while flying home. So while I was able to download Elmo Loves 123s (Kindle Tablet Edition) "just in case" and many other apps, I knew Elmo and the Kindle wouldn't last the full 10 hours home!

We also knew Baby had pretty much outgrown the toys I mentioned above and so I wanted to get her something new for the trip. Before we left, a friend recommended stickers as a good toy for an airplane. We loved the idea and set about searching for an appropriate book. The friend had suggested a Melissa & Doug sticker pad set and we liked that idea because right now we're trying to keep Baby as free from 'commercial influences' as possible (a losing battle as all parents know!). Because I didn't have enough time to get the set from Amazon and couldn't find a similar Melissa & Doug in stores, I ended up getting a gigantic -- and I mean, gigantic! -- activity book with 1000+ stickers, sketch pad and 'scene pages' from Costco for $12.99. It was Disney-themed, but we decided to let it go for now given the shortness of time.Best $12.99 we've ever spent as Baby spent much of the flight pointing to stickers, sticking them on the 'scene pages', resticking them and occasionally decorating us and the seats around us with the stickers.

Since a sketch pad was included, we also picked up triangle crayons from Crayola; they don't roll AND they are washable! The latter became especially important when Baby decided all she wanted to do was color on the tray table! It didn't take more than a single swipe of a baby wipe to clean up the mess and baby was completely happy. Also, whenever she dropped the crayon, no matter where, it stayed put. Love, love, love. We will definitely be using these again.

The items kept her occupied enough that I didn't have to break out the Kindle for entertainment purposes. This was definitely a concern as I wasn't able to fully charge the Kindle before leaving the hotel and also because I knew Baby would protest mightily when we had to take it away during take-off/landing. I'm still glad we had the Kindle and the apps/videos on it as back-up, but am really glad we didn't have to use it at all for this particular flight.