First of of all, we finally made it to Swaziland. We arrived two nights ago (Friday night for us), a day later than expected and extremely tired. If you want to hear our whole story you can jump on over to Ben’s blog and read about it here. We hoped to post a video of the house, but are not going to have long enough for it to download. We will try again soon! It is a nice house, much larger than we were expecting. Fully furnished, we even have a Crockpot!! I am going to be keeping my eyes open for some sort of stand up mixer to fill our empty counter spaces soon.
Now, back to the story at hand. As most of you may know I was a little bit anxious about traveling with a toddler. Most people asked me if I had entertainment together for myself for the plane ride. My response was a light chuckle and yes of course, I have Mikayla!! I knew she was going to keep us busy most of the long flights. If you know her at all you know that she doesn’t stay still for very long. Others would ask me how I thought Mikayla would do on the flight. My response was, either really well or really bad. I was leaning toward the really bad though. However, in true Mikayla fashion she took it like a rock star. Even with all our delays and long layovers she never got overly cranky. She was in a good mood the majority of the time and we only had to bring out a few of her toys we packed for entertainment. She really enjoyed the busy book that her Mimi and Poppy gave her, as well as a flannel board and story pieces I picked up for her. She woke up today after almost 15 hours of sleep and was excited to play with her new friends and hang out in her home. She jumped right in at the hostile and played with the kids while we stood around a talked with one of the workers.
I think she also did really well due to a wonderful recommendation given to us by our travel doctor. She said to either give her a little Children’s Benadryl or Melatonin (100% drug free sleep aid). Since we couldn’t find Children’s Benadryl we opted for the Melatonin and I am so glad we did. It was like a miracle drug. Even when we had to spend the night in the airport she was still able to sleep a little. Seriously, once she took a 3mg dosage she was out in like fifteen minutes. It was amazing! And not only was she asleep, she conked out asleep. No noises or bumps would wake her. It also worked really well for us and allowed us to get a little sleep on the plane. If you travel long distances at all or are traveling with a toddler, I would recommend this natural remedy to help you out! For both of the long flights Mikayla slept for at least 80% of the time (maybe a little more).
This is Mikayla sleeping in the airplane after one 3mg dose of Melatonin. She slept through all the hustle and bustle of the plane during meal time!