We flew over 7 hours straight with four children and everything went smoothly.  Here are some tips on how you can replicate complete with some pictures and video from our trip.

This is basically an update to a post I made years ago about an international flight with my children.

It doesn't have to be torturous or horrible if you plan ahead.

Have plenty of activities, snacks, and it doesn't hurt for them to take a little sedative (like Benadryl) beforehand.  I'm definitely not ashamed about that part because I've witnessed how horrible it can be if you go without.

Pre-Flight Check

Make sure you have games, toys (preferably new), medicine, movies if possible, and a parachute just in case they kick you guys off the plane.  We stopped at the Subway in the airport and fed everyone right before we checked in at the gate.  After that everyone except for me and daddy had a dose of the pink stuff.  That is so crazy that there are Subway restaurants all over Brazil.

Games, Games, Games

You definitely want to give your children plenty to do.  We had a laptop and an iPad on our long flight.  We've since upgraded.  All the children now have child-safe tablets called Funtabs.  These
mini tablets are really neat.  They have all the apps and games they can handle.

These tablets are really neat.  It has the Zoodles app on it which has a ton of family-friendly features, games, and educational apps.  It even emails you every week a report of what your children have been doing on the tablet.

Our bigger kids also have their own big tablets as well.

These are really cool.  We have a pink and blue one for our two oldest.  We will definitely be using these on all trips!

pink for our girl and blue for our boy
The two youngest have these cool touch screen handheld game systems called Mobigo 2.  It comes with games and credits for free apps from their website.

And they have a Vtech Color Touch Tablet as well.

We plan ahead before any trip and make sure the tablets are preloaded with game apps and movies.  This makes car trips extremely easy and can really take a load of stress off of any flight.

Toys For The Flight

If your child has a favorite toy that is not too disruptive definitely pack it in your carry-ons.  We made sure to get a few new toys for each child and not let them know about them until right before boarding the plane.  My husband was adamant about that.  He did not wanting them getting bored beforehand.

I guess that is kind of like bribing your kids but who cares, it works.  I would rather give them a new toy than have them kicking the person's seat in front of you or something else.  Trust me if you let things go that far you will wish you had given them a toy, Benadryl or something else.

The Seven Hour Flight With Our Four Kids

The children are just like my husband and I.  The girls are always talking, playing, fussing, and somewhat bothersome.  Yeah, they take after Mami.  The boys are way more easygoing, quiet, and patient just like their daddy.  You can give them a book or a video game and they will disappear for hours.

We split up because the plane had three seats on each side.  So we sat across from each other and took up the entire row.

I took the two girls and he sat with the two boys.

On my side it was party time.


While my husband pretty much just kicked back and relaxed the whole flight.

look @ the nerds LOL

We had two different experiences.  Mine was more stressed out and crazy while he was going on about how easy the whole flight was.

The flat screens showed the plane's progress from Brazil to Miami.  It seemed like forever at the time.

The in-flight movie was perfect for our family.  They showed Madagascar 3, which had recently came out so the children had not seen it yet.

They brought snacks and served dinner.  That combined with the movie mellowed the children out, well as much as the girls would calm down, and made our journey very easy.  We were so pleasantly surprised at how smoothly things went.

Here is a short video clip from the flight so you can see how calm it was.
It was so funny because my husband took traveling with them so seriously.  We started preparing way before the actual trip.  After his other experiences with them he was not taking any chances, LOL.

So this time we came armed and prepared for the worst.  Seven straight hours went by so smoothly that we felt like we just dodged a huge storm.

After that we had to go through customs in Miami and wait in these long lines.  That was the most
uncomfortable part of our trip because we had to do everything with the children.

The short flight from Miami to Columbus did not go as smoothly as the seven hour flight though.  We were tired from the previous flight and standing in customs.  Everyone wanted to go somewhere and lay down.  Unfortunately for us our youngest children were not content with napping on the plane until we reached Columbus, Ohio.

Good thing for us the flight was relatively short.

If you are taking a short three hour or less flight with children all you have to do is follow the tips above and prepare beforehand.  Trust me it will pay off dividends.

Don't take it lightly because that short flight can turn into two to three hours in hell.