By Andee Layne, The Honeybee From andeelablogspot.com

Hi loves! Today I wanted to finally share some pics from our Travels last month. We flew back to DC to visit my family for a few days so Ava could be in a wedding (will post on that soon). After our trip there we flew on down to Cayman. If you’ve been following my blog for awhile you know we go to Cayman usually once a year to visit family (tough I know ;). We’ve traveled quite a bit with Ava and a lot of you ask about our travel tips with the little one so here we go.

First I would be lying if I said I wasn’t dreading the cross county flights with Ava. 5 hours is a long time for a very active toddler to be contained on a plane but IT IS doable. If you have a little one who will nap anywhere (lucky you;) unfortunately not our case at all) then try to plan it where the nap time falls during your flight. Ava is not one to sleep just anywhere but she actually slept on both flights! Luckily I found that this stage was a lot easier then the flight we took with her at 9 months because……….

Now she is into the iPad! We downloaded a bunch of new episodes of her favorite shows (Bubble Guppies, Strawberry Shortcake, and Daniel the tiger). This kept her busy off an on for a few hours. We also brought a bunch of different snacks, small toys and some stickers and mini coloring books (from the $1 section at Target) to keep her from having melt downs when she wanted to leave our row. We try our best not to let her out to run in the aisle (if we do then its all down hill from there). If she knows she can get out and run around there’s no way she’s going to staying in her seat. Purchasing a separate seat for her was a MUST for this long flight. It’s a bummer having to pay for another seat but it made these long trips SO much more doable.

On the return flight Ava slept for 3 hours! We seriously didn’t even know what to do with ourselves. She was really overtired because we had to wake her up at 5am to catch the first flight out so it ended up working in our favor during the flight. On another note we got Angel Dear Blanket for Ava when she was about a year old. We only give it to her at nap time and bed time. It’s a comfort to her and signals sleepy time so was perfect on the flight! We take it with us every time we travel along with her sound machine, video camera and two little stuffed animals so we can recreate her bedtime routine at home. These are just some of the things that help us when we travel but I’d love to hear your tips too if you mamas have some to share! Okay now on to the rest of our vacay pics…..

For more on this story and to see lots more photos go to: http://andeelayne.blogspot.com/