Traveling with a Toddler

Here are my tips for loading up your iPhone before you go on vacation with a toddler.

1. Put a movie on it. I put Barbie In The Nutcracker since Elise is so big on Bawh-Bee and the ballet lately. You can also put other non-iTunes movies in there that she finds entertaining.

2. Install the 3rd party app Sketches. It lets you make simple line drawings by dragging your finger around on the screen.

3. Put lots of family photos on the phone so your child can scroll around and look at images that soothe them for those not-so-fun “time to buckle the seatbelt” moments.

4. Install VNotes. Simple voice note taking app that lets your toddler record funny notes and play them back.

5. Replace the earbud style headphones with something more comfortable and lets your toddler actually hear sounds from the iPhone over the loud cabin noise. <- I wish I had thought of that one before we left for the trip. Earbud headphones do not fit in Elise's ears well and it kinda made it hard for her to hear. 6. Change the setting for Auto Lock to "never". You don't want to have to keep reaching over to touch the screen to wake it up during a movie. I wish there was a mode in the iPod video mode where touching the screen does nothing but making a specific gesture would bring up the video controls. I can't tell you how many times Elise would touch the screen in an effort to touch the characters and bring up the play/pause/volume button combo, which also takes up a good portion of the screen and required me to step in and touch a "safe area" to hide the controls.