Flying with a 16 month old is a challenge. We flew with Anya when she was 6 months, and again at a year. Both times were OK- not horrible, not great. This time it was a different story. At 16 months she is VERY active and also does not sleep well out of her crib. So needless to say flying to NC was an adventure. On the way over we had a 5 hour flight and then a connection with an additional 2 hour flight. She eventually fell asleep for the last 30 minutes of our second flight. THAT WAS IT. The rest of the time she whined, moaned, wiggled, screamed, cried and maybe smiled twice.
FUN!!!!
What's in NC you might ask- well the Outer Banks and our extended family. My Dad's sister and husband (aunt and uncle). their two boys (cousins) with their wives and kids. In total our group was made up of 12 adults and 3 kids- Morgan (4), Mia (13 mo), and Anya (15 mo).
The house we rented was AMAZING! It had 4 floors, an elevator, 9 bedrooms, a media room, game room, pool and hot-tub. The Atlantic ocean is very warm, however we were unable to spend much time swimming. Thunderstorms were scheduled for the week so we weren't anticipating the best weather, but a tropical storm ended up blowing through which really confined us to the house. Anya and I swam in the heated pool in the pouring rain one day but the poor little thing got cold from the wind and rain. We played on the beach between rain squalls and visited the aquarium.
We tried to make the best of the weather and thankfully the kids had each other to entertain. Mia and Anya had a great time playing with each other's toys and books. Morgan loved "the babies" as he referred to the girls but was a little disappointed they weren't older.
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.The flight home was a little better than the flight out. Our game plan was to entertain her more and try not to force her to sleep even though she gets really tired. We used Baby Einstein to keep her distracted for some of the flight. Scott and Natalie flew all legs with us so they witnessed our successes and failures. Conveniently Mom and Dad (gramma and grampa) weren't on a single flight with us..... suspicious yes?
