Everything you need to keep a toddler happily occupied at 30,000 feet, with almost nothing extra in your bag.
Short-haul flights, typically those lasting between one and three hours, are genuinely manageable without a screen, and the simplest ideas are usually the best ones. Finger games, window-gazing, storytelling from nothing, a small wooden toy, a folded napkin turned into a puppet: these are not consolation prizes for the device-free child. They are, as decades of developmental research confirm, among the richest forms of stimulation available to a young brain. The answer to "what do I do without a tablet?" is, more often than not, "less than you think, and it works better than you expect."
The key insight is this: novelty is your greatest ally on any flight. The aircraft cabin is already extraordinary to a child under five. The hum of the engines, the pull of take-off, the clouds appearing at eye level, the tray table that clicks up and down, the paper sick bag that crinkles just so. Before you reach for anything at all, that environment alone will absorb a curious toddler for a meaningful stretch of time, if you narrate it, explore it together and treat it as the adventure it genuinely is.
A two-hour flight imposes a delightful constraint: you cannot run away, you cannot be distracted by the washing-up, and your child has your complete, undivided attention. For most families, this is rarer than it sounds. Developmental psychologist Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and her colleague Roberta Golinkoff have long argued that the quality of adult-child interaction during play matters more than the sophistication of any toy. A confined seat, a willing parent and a child in a state of alert curiosity is, by that measure, close to ideal.
Flights also carry a natural arc: boarding, ascent, cruising altitude, descent, landing. Each stage offers its own ritual and its own small drama. That structure, predictable to adults but genuinely thrilling to a toddler, acts as a scaffold for activities. You are not trying to fill two hours with a single strategy. You are moving through chapters, and each chapter only needs to last fifteen minutes.
What the evidence tells us
The American Academy of Pediatrics advises that for children aged two to five, screen time should be limited and, where possible, replaced with interactive play involving caregivers. Researcher Dimitri Christakis has found that passive screen exposure, particularly in the absence of adult co-viewing and conversation, offers significantly less cognitive benefit than hands-on, language-rich play. On a short flight, the case for choosing interaction over a device is not about guilt. It is simply about opportunity.
Alison Gopnik's research into the learning infant reminds us that young children are, in her phrase, the research and development department of the human species. They are hypothesis-testing constantly. A toddler who is allowed to examine the seat-pocket card, fold it, unfold it, wave it, is not being disruptive. She is doing precisely what her brain is built to do. Screens interrupt that process; they do not support it.
The following activities require nothing from your bag at all, only your presence and a little willingness to be playful.
The novelty principle
Adele Diamond's research on executive function in young children consistently shows that novel environments heighten attention and engagement. The aircraft cabin, with its unfamiliar sounds, pressurised air, shifting light and close proximity to strangers, is neurologically stimulating in ways that a familiar living room simply is not. Your toddler's attention is already primed. Your job is to direct it, not manufacture it from scratch.
Confined spaces also remove the option of running off, which parents of active toddlers will recognise as a genuine advantage. There is no garden to disappear into, no other room to investigate. Attention returns to you naturally, and that return is the moment to offer something small, tactile and interesting.
When you do bring something, make it count. A single well-chosen wooden toy or compact traditional game offers what researcher Jeffrey Trawick-Smith has described as open-ended play value: the capacity to be used in multiple ways across multiple stages of development. A small set of wooden stacking rings can be a tower, a counting exercise, a colour-sorting activity, a threading challenge, or simply something satisfying to hold. It does not beep, it does not demand batteries, and it does not stop working when the cabin crew ask you to switch it off.
Jaques of London, founded in 1795 and the world's oldest games company, has been making precisely this kind of beautifully crafted, enduringly simple object for over two centuries. Their travel games collection and wooden toys range are curated with exactly this kind of portability and play-richness in mind: compact enough for a carry-on bag, robust enough to survive repeated enthusiastic handling, and beautiful enough to be genuinely satisfying to hold.
At this age, repetition is the engine of learning. Peekaboo behind the tray table, simple songs sung softly, a single textured object to examine. Keep stimulation gentle and your voice warm. Hart and Risley's landmark research on language acquisition reminds us that the sheer quantity of words spoken to a child in their early years has lasting effects on development. A flight is an opportunity to narrate everything: the clouds, the seat, the snack, the fellow passenger's hat.
Symbolic play begins to flourish. A napkin becomes a cape, a plastic cup becomes a hat, a boarding pass becomes a ticket to an imaginary train. Introduce simple two-player activities: sorting, matching, basic sequencing with small objects. If you carry a compact wooden game, this is the age at which a child will begin to follow rudimentary rules with your support, what Vygotsky called the zone of proximal development: doing together what they cannot yet do alone.
Conversation, story invention and rule-based games are all now within reach. Ask open questions: "What do you think lives in that cloud?" Introduce a simple travel game from your hand luggage. A child of this age can sustain attention on a shared activity for fifteen to twenty minutes when the game is pitched correctly and the adult remains engaged. This is also the age at which a child begins to find genuine satisfaction in playing by the rules, making traditional games a worthwhile addition to any flight bag.
Begin before you board. Frame the journey as an adventure with its own special activities, and introduce the first one while still in the departure lounge, so that the pattern of screen-free engagement is already established by the time you take your seat. If a child expects a screen the moment they sit down, the solution is to ensure they are already absorbed in something else at that point. A single novel object, something they have not seen before, is often enough to bridge the transition. Jenny Radesky's work on media and early childhood consistently shows that the habit of screen-reaching is exactly that: a habit, and one that responds well to gentle, consistent redirection rather than confrontation.
Wooden toys pass through security without difficulty and are not subject to any specific restrictions. For children under three, be sensible about pieces smaller than approximately 3.5 centimetres, which present a choking risk regardless of context. On board, keep small pieces in a zip-lock bag or the original packaging so that nothing rolls under the seat. A single compact game or toy with contained pieces is far easier to manage than a scattered collection of loose items.
The secret is that most activities on a short flight require nothing physical at all. Think of your bag as a reserve, not a primary resource. Begin with the cabin environment itself: narrate, point, name, count. Move to finger games and songs. Only then introduce a physical object, and choose one that can be used in at least three different ways. A short attention span is not a problem to solve. It is a signal to transition, and with no-kit activities available on demand, you can transition instantly and without rummaging.
An overtired or anxious child needs co-regulation before engagement. This means your calm presence, a quiet voice, physical closeness and a predictable, gentle routine, before any game or activity is introduced. Sandseter's research on children's emotional responses to novel environments notes that an attuned adult is the primary source of felt safety for a young child in an unfamiliar setting. Once your child feels settled, even a mildly anxious one will generally accept a quiet, familiar activity. Start with something deeply familiar: a song they know, a toy from home, your voice telling a story they have heard before. Novelty can come later, once the nervous system has settled.
Britain's oldest toy maker. Every toy open-ended, wooden, and built for exactly the kind of play the research recommends.