When I traveled all across the world with my baby before he even hit three weeks old, I was commended by everyone I encountered for my bravery. While I smiled and thanked them, I knew I wasn’t really one of the brave ones–after all, my newborn slept 80% of the time and when he did scream it was so quiet it didn’t bother anyone. Plus he was so little that any annoyance he caused was immediately forgiven after one glance at his squishy newborn face.

On the flight back to the US after that first trip, I sat across the aisle from a 6 month pregnant mom I knew with her 13 month old son. I watched her son wriggle and fight to move around and scream nonstop for most of the duration of our trip to Hong Kong, and then I looked down at my tiny, sleeping infant, unaware of where he was and with zero desire to run around and generally cause trouble.

Eventually, the plane landed. The parents of the little boy were clearly exhausted and overwhelmed with relief that they could finally get off the flight and after seeing what they went through to travel, I knew–they were the brave ones.

Last weekend, my son and I began our second plane trip since my baby became a toddler. Alone, as always.

We flew from North Carolina to Malaysia. 10,623 miles. Did you read that? Ten thousand, six hundred and twenty three miles. When I calculated the flying distance, I did a double take. We flew that far?! I did that with a toddler? By myself? 

Ugh. I really am crazy.

Also, the trip confirmed what I already knew. Traveling with a baby is easy peasy compared to traveling with a toddler–it’s kind of like thinking a mild thunderstorm was extremely loud and dangeous and then experiencing a full on hurricane with 16 tornadoes that destory your house and realizing that perhaps the thunderstorm wasn’t so bad after all. Right now my little hurricane is only a category 1 or 2 but it’s only going to get worse.

Now imagine bringing that hurricane on an airplane. Hurricanes don’t sleep and funny enough, neither do toddlers on planes. Hurricanes don’t take a break from ridiculous wind speeds and destroying everything in their path and they don’t quiet down–which sounds a lot like my toddler. You can’t reason with a hurricane and ask it to quiet down and stop being insane because it’s disturbing the people who are trying to sleep next to it. And my toddler? Also resistant to reason.

Yep, it was glorious.

I’ve been doing road trips with my son since he was born. His first plane trip was at nine days old and he’s been on over 20 airplanes since–I know all the tricks and now that he’s a toddler I had to throw all those out the window. Traveling with a toddler is nothing like it was with a baby.

If your toddler was a nightmare on your trip, don’t feel bad–mine was overcome with tortured cries before we even boarded the plane and then on our eight hour flight from North Carolina to London my son only slept for two hours and spend a significant amount of flight screaming to be let down. It doesn’t sound so bad until you consider that it was an overnight flight and everyone else was sleeping except our row, thanks to the insane tiny human seated in the middle.

Thankfully, there was an empty seat next to us on the otherwise full flight (because God knows what I need to keep my sanity!) so there was a place to put him down and the man seated next to me was understanding and very helpful, spending time playing with my son and watching him so I had a little freedom. There were a few times I neared my wit’s end but the two wonderful men on either side of me helped keep the crazy pants calm and the assistance was invaluable.

Our flight from London to Kuala Lumpur was even more eventful. Thirteen hours of sitting still, quietly, in one spot? Toddlers are not particularly interested in that kind of fun.

After not sleeping during our four hour layover in London, I knew that the little guy had to be exhausted, and he fell asleep for an hour and a half at the beginning of the flight to Malaysia. Oh, praise Jesus. But then he woke up with eleven hours to go and except for a measly one and a half hour nap midway through the flight, that was it as far as sleeping went. I spent hours, literally hours, trying to get him to sleep. He wriggled out of his swaddle, climbed out of his bassinet, made eyes at the girls sitting next to me, screamed like I was torturing him–oh, he did everything but sleep. When I say I tried everything, I am not joking. A sweet lady the row ahead of me took him for walks around the airplane, I sat below his bassinet so he couldn’t see me and beg for me to pick him back up, I rocked him, nursed him, gave him snacks, sung to him, walked the aisles with him, changed his diapers, tried to set up a movie for him, held his hand, rubbed his back, let him play endlessly so he exhausted himself.

Interestingly enough the only pictures I have of him from our flights are of the two naps he took, because that’s the only time I had half a second to pull out my phone and snap a picture for the blog post I knew the never-ending trip deserved. But believe me, these two sleeping pictures are not representative of the entire trip. Not at all.

Y’all, I pulled out all the stops to try to make sleep happen.

Nope. Nothing worked–nothing. NOTHING.

About eight hours into the flight when nobody had slept and the crazy pants was still showing no interest in snoozing, an old Chinese man sitting in the row next to me approached. Up until that point, the other passengers had been gracious, but I knew eventually I was going to hear about the constant screaming and insanity coming from my little tornado of endless joy and rainbows.

“What is wrong with your baby?” he demanded to know.

I told him that my son was overtired but he was having a hard time sleeping and he was screaming because he was too sleepy.

“Has he been taking anything?” the old man continued brusquely.

Has he been taking anything? What? Like drugs? Sleeping aids? What on earth would I have given him?

I looked at him, confused. “No?” I responded, not quite sure what to say.

Immediately I knew that was the wrong answer.

“What?” he belted out in shock. “You did not give him any meals??? Aiyo!” He began shaking his head enthusiastically, muttering about food and silently accusing me of staving my child, because that’s obviously what moms do on international long-haul flights, right?

The language barrier–of course. Asians and Americans hardly communicate the same way, which I know since I grew up in Asia. There are a million language and translation discrepancies that I am very aware of since I spent all my formative childhood years trying to understand garbled accents and why Asians always told me something would be done next week when really they had absolutely no idea when it would be finished. I attempted to explain that I had indeed been feeding my child meals and he was fed and cleaned and loved, the only problem was that he was so so sooooo tired. The old dude didn’t understand and continued to ask me what was wrong with my baby and why I didn’t give him food and finally he continued on down the aisle, still shaking his head.

The two weeks Australian girls sitting next to me on that seemingly endless flight deserve a shout out–really, you two are the heroes of this story.

There was a lady two rows ahead of us who would crane her neck back over the seat just to glare at us–for five, ten minutes at a time–any time my son started crying, and when she would walk past us to go to the bathroom, she would give us the death stare. What did that accomplish? I don’t know, but obviously she was very emotionally and physically invested in letting us know that she was ticked off and the literal hour or more she spent staring us down made that very obvious. There was the old Chinese guy who thought I had starved my child and a well meaning mother behind us who kept making all these suggestions that I told her I had already tried and then she insisted on trying herself and got annoyed when they didn’t work.

The two girls sitting next to me laughed about it. They were patient and understanding and they talked about how my crazy son was no problem and how they loved kids, even after sitting next to his insanity for over 12 hours. They occupied him while I took a quick nap and they let him crawl around their feet and play with their books and clamber all over them. I was able to stay calm because they stayed calm and without them I probably would have lost it–being seated next to them was truly God answering prayers.

By the end of the trip, I was seriously questioning if I was ever willing to travel alone with a toddler again. Because I married a Marine, he is always gone and has never had the opportunity to travel with us–therefore every single plane trip I’ve been on with my son except for two I took with my parents have been done by myself. Multiple suitcases, a stroller, a car seat, lots of carry ons, a very squirmy child, and only two hands.

It’s simply impossible without help. Traveling alone with my son has been further proof to me that God created children to have two parents for a reason–doing it entirely alone is hopeless and a recipe for insanity and emotional breakdowns.

But we did it. We made it. We both survived, and now that I’ve had a few days to recover I once again have the emotional stability to be willing to do it again, which I don’t have a choice about anyway since I have to get back to the US.

Mamas, I hope this post hasn’t scared you away from traveling with your toddler. If you have a baby, check out my post on tips and tricks for traveling with a baby because I promise that it’s infinitely easier. But mamas with toddlers, you can still do it. 

Is it easy? No.

If your husband is with you, oh my goodness–I can’t even imagine what a difference that would make, even though I guarantee it would still be far from “fun”. Talk about a game changer! I haven’t ever had the chance to fly with both my husband and my son, but I can only imagine how much easier it would be. But even if you’re by yourself, I promise that you will get there, even if it seems like an eternity. 

Traveling with my toddler has brought out some nastiness in the impatient people around me, but it’s also shown me that there are wonderful people in the world who want to help. People who care and who are willing to sacrifice their own comfort and rest to help out a mama who is on the edge of losing it. I met those people on my way to Malaysia and I made new friends and I was able to take my son on an adventure that in retrospect I would do all over again.

If you live in fear–even fear of doing long, exhausting, things–your world becomes far smaller and you will never experience many of the joys of life that only happen when you step out of your comfort zone and decide to do something a little crazy.

Friends, I promise that it was worth it.

I want to leave you with the words of a very wise man, Dale Partridge.

“The anthem of most families is: “The more kids we have, the less we do.” Every birth means less dinners out, less vacations, and less parties. However, it’s not because of the children, it’s because of us. … Too often, our own selfishness prevents the very moments, memories, and experiences our children require to thrive. As parents, we must come to terms with reality: Vacations are no longer for relaxing, they are for adventure. The easy response to opportunities is, “Sorry we can’t make it”, then get the kids in bed by 7:45pm, and indulge in a kidless home. And sometimes that’s needed. But be sure that your constant need for peace isn’t also preventing your family’s need for fun.”

Be the crazy, adventurous, courageous family. Be the mom who is venturesome enough to go on daring undertaking such as braving a endless trip singlehandedly with your insane toddler.

You are brave. You can do it.

And I promise, it will be worth it.