Later this week, Jasper and I are flying across the better part of the continent. It won’t be his first flight — that was back in December — but his awareness has changed so much over the past eight months that this will be a completely new experience for him.

In June, we took his dad to the airport for a business trip, and for the following week, Jasper noticed every plane that flew overhead and eagerly asked “Dad? Dad?” He loves the airport page in his “A Big City ABC” book. He loves to play with his Green Toys airplane.

But I’d be kidding myself if I thought any of this could guarantee a peaceful four-hour flight on mama’s lap.

I appreciate the Montessori idea that instead of just asking a child to “keep still,” we should offer activities to busy their hands — which then keeps the rest of their bodies still and focused! With that in mind, I’ve been stocking up on beautiful, realistic stickers, have packed up our nesting boxes and lacing beads and am thrilled to have found a Melissa and Doug “paint with water” activity that has kept Jasper thoroughly engrossed on a few recent long car rides. I’ve even (gasp) downloaded a Bob the Builder episode onto my iPad.

But I’m not interested in just keeping J distracted during our trip. I want him to feel like he’s a part of what’s going on, to be able to really benefit from the experience of new environments and not to feel out of control or afraid. To that end, I’ve been using lots of language about airplanes, airports, and luggage. He knows that soon he and I will be flying on a plane, and now when he sees a plane, he says “Me? Mama?”

Recently, in celebration of my new laminator purchase, I made a “Jasper Travels on an Airplane” book. I got this idea from Elizabeth Pantley‘s book “The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers.” She recommends making a book about your child in order to help them through simple transitions like bedtime, or larger ones like weaning.

Using a mixture of photos from Google Image searches and my own family photos, cardstock and binder rings, it was a fairly low budget way to bring structure to my efforts to prepare Jasper for our upcoming trip.  I took pictures of our own luggage, and he’s thrilled to recognize his own suitcase. I made certain to get photos of the actual airports we’ll be traveling through, and photos of both inside and outside the plane. I also used a few photos of toddlers happily sitting on their mothers’ lap aboard a plane, and thankfully those are some of his favourite images.  I ended with a few photos of Jasper around our home and town, to reassure him that after our travels, we’ll come back home.

There are no words in the book, in an effort to make it fluid and useful in the longer term. Right now I tell the story saying things like “Jasper is going to go on a plane with his mama.” After we return from the trip, we can look back on it in the past tense.

Our plane book has become the most requested story around here, and I’m hoping the pay-off will be a calm and informed toddler as we wing over four provinces and back. Wish me luck!

This is part one of a two-part post on air travel with toddlers. Read part two here: Have Toddler, Will Travel.

Melissa over at Vibrant Wanderings also has a great post on Montessori travel tips for toddlers. What’s your best advice for plane-travel with toddlers?