Flying with a 2 yr old

My family is taking a trip to disney with my parents and brother. I am 5 1/2 months pregnant and its our. 2 1/2 yr olds first time flying. We are taking some type of car service to the airport and the magical express bus to our hotel. Is the car seat a must? I'm thinking ill need it for the car ride to the airport anyways. Any advice? I am so confused. Also any tips for keeping my ds nice and quiet in the plane would be awesome!

Re: Flying with a 2 yr old

We just got back from Disney with my 4 and 2 yr old. We rented a car so did bring car seats and gate checked them. Bought bags with wheels for them to make it easier going through the airport.
You can gate check the stroller. I bought the backpack stroller for my 2 yr old. He's a maniac and it was the best purchase. Put some small toys in it so he loved wearing it.
My 2 yr old can't sit still so wasn't that great on the plane. Thank goodness it's not that long of a flight.
Coloring books, crayons, movies (he couldn't sit through that so my 4 yr old watched), lots of snacks, put sippy cups on the plane on the carryon and bought juice and water at the airport. Carful putting it in the sippy before take off bc the tops will pop off sometimes from the cabin pressure.

Re: Flying with a 2 yr old

I flew to Fl with my almost 2 yo when I was 7 months pregnant. Def gate check the stroller. I brought a car seat but checked that with my luggage. For the plane we brought lots of snacks, stickers, crayons, etc. I brought my computer so we could watch DVDs. I also brought a travel aqua doodle. All the play things I got were new things DS had not seen before so he was kind of excited to play with them for at least a few minutes. As the PP said, its a short flight so it isn't terrible. I also read somewhere or someone on here told me they wrapped up toys in tissue paper so it was like opening a new present every half hour or so. I was too lazy lol.

Re: Flying with a 2 yr old

I recently flew to Colorado with my 2.5 YO DD. That was a 6-hour flight. This is what we did and it was successful for the trip out (the trip home was a completely different story as she was overly tired from the trip and flight delays, so nothing was making her happy).

We gate checked her stroller.

We brought our car seat on the plane with us (has to be placed in window seat) as I had heard horror stories about people having their car seats damaged in flight by crew or bouncing around the cargo hold and airlines do not take any responsibility for damage. The other reason we brought it on the plane - it was something DD was used to sitting in and comfortable in, so it wasn't foreign to her and was more than willing to climb in the seat. We bought a bag with wheels to carry the seat around the airports with us that DH was able to carry on his back like a back pack.

One of my carry-on pieces was a bag filled with new books, toys, activities, coloring books, magic markers, etc for my DD. She had never seen any of the items before, but knew there were going to be surprises in store for her on the plane if she behaved. She had a back pack with her favorite items, but for the most part, she played with the new stuff on the plane.

Two life savers was her leap pad with games and my DHs ipod as she was able to watch movies and connect on Southwest to watch her TV shows. She wore head phones without any issues.

Also, bring lots of snacks - the snacks on the plane did not satisfy her, so we had goldfish and crackers for her, bought her yogurt and juice in the airport.

Hope this helps!