Seven year olds and long haul flights are a much easier thing to deal with than say, a one and a half year old. Or a five year old. We have this happening this week, so I thought it worthy of a blog post.

Seven year olds and long haul flights involve careful planning. We have a bag – the Yuutuu bag we reviewed back in 2014. We used it last year when we went to the Netherlands too.

It has a lot of room and it’s very sturdy. It is also cabin bag sized.

So what’s inside?

These days H is more likely to stay awake for as long as possible. I think she might make it to Singapore without any sleep as most of our flight is through the day. This means she’ll be watching films.

However, the first leg of the journey is to Germany. I doubt we’ll have any televisions on the back of our seats, so we need to keep her occupied (if there’s time). So we have one of the Parragon Art Therapy Disney colouring books handy which fits perfectly into the Yuutuu bag. Add some pencils and bingo.

As well as this she may want to play a game. While I love in-flight entertainment and the wide variety on offer, it’s nice to have other things to do. Thanks to being so small Dobble is coming with us. It has proved to be a hit and one of the games we play a lot. Because it comes in just a tin it packs down small enough to take up very little space.

Finally, H will need something to read. I suggested she starts ‘When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit’ by Judith Kerr which she got for Christmas. It has plenty of text so isn’t the easiest of reads (nor is the subject matter really). I thought it might give her something to read which she hasn’t really covered yet.

Add to this her neck pillow which squeezes into her backpack, and I think we’re ready…. seven year olds and long haul flights seem quite easy to deal with actually!