'Everything I packed for a long-haul flight with a baby and a toddler.'

I recently flew my toddler and baby to Hong Kong. The flight is ten hours long, and the packing anxiety was enormous.

I'm very pleased to announce, however, that we managed to pull it off without (many) hitches — and now that I've lived to tell the tale, I'm here to share my packing tips.

Watch: Horoscopes At The Airport. Post continues below.

Activity bags.

Hear me out — more bags? Obviously nobody wants to take more bags on a plane, because that's insane, but the beauty of an activity bag is it sits inside your regular carry-on bag at all times when you're not flying, and then inside the seat pocket while you're flying.

I'm not saying I'm a genius, but I'm not not saying I'm a genius, because these worked beautifully.

For my three-year-old, the autonomy of having his "own" bag was a distraction in itself.

He spent ages going through it and making a plan for what he would play with and when. I'd recommend keeping the contents of the activity bag a surprise until you board or, if you need some extra hype in the lead up to getting on the plane, flagging one or two activities in advance.

For my baby, it was great having toys to entertain him kept separate from his brothers.

Sticky toys.

The problem with kids' toys and planes is that there are infinite places for toys to become lost (behind the seat, beside the seat, under the seat, under your own ass and you don't notice until it's time to disembark).

There is also only one person whose job it is to recover them when they are lost and a child is screaming for them (me). For this reason, I banned every toy with small parts unless it had the capacity to stick, which fell into three categories:

1. Stickers (I got the Paw Patrol Ultimate Sticker book because we're absolutely beholden to Rider and his team of pups in our house)

2. Magnets (like these travel magnetic boxes)

3. Spinny things with suction pads (this is the technical term)

If it didn't stick, it was not getting packed in my carry on, unless it fell into the extra-special fourth sub category: things which help other things stick.

I picked up a "universal in-flight phone mount" which slides into the back of a plane seat from Kmart on a whim and it was excellent.

Our own in-flight entertainment system.

Obviously planes come with their own in-flight entertainment, but those systems require specific headphones which are not at all created for toddler heads.

I strongly recommend getting a pair of headphones designed for kids (these often have volume caps on them for little ears as a bonus) and practicing wearing them before you fly.

Also, anyone familiar with toddlers will know that not all kids' television is created equal, and ten hours without access to the ghost episode of Paw Patrol could be sufficiently devastating to bring down a plane. Download your kids' emotional support shows before you fly, friends.

A travel pram that fits in the carry-on locker.

I've flown with a pram in checked luggage before, but due to a direct overlap between naptime and boarding time, I decided this time around that we needed to bring out the big guns.

A pram you can walk onto and off the plane is honestly a lifesaver if there's a chance your kids will sleep for all or part of the trip.

Enough snacks to fly us to the moon.

Imagine that the plane runs out of food (it won't) and the place you're flying to also doesn't have any food (it will). This is how many snacks I packed.

Do I regret it? No, because as it turned out, my children awoke at 3:30am every morning of our trip and I had to feed them little packets of blueberry puffs to sustain them before the shops and/or breakfast buffet opened.

If, at any juncture during the flight, you start thinking that things are falling apart, that is the correct time to offer your child the type of snack they are not allowed to eat at home.

Everyone knows that aeroplanes are exempt from normal rules (international waters and so on) so it's fine to feed a toddler a brownie AND an ice cream AND an LCM bar for dinner instead of a meal, especially if you accidentally forgot to order a kids' meal. Which I'm sure would never happen!

Anyway, moving on.

A change of clothes for each child, plus two extra changes of clothes for every child.

How many explosive poos could one eleven-month-old baby do on an international flight, I hear you ask?

Instead of answering that question, I'll ask you my own question: would it be worse to pack too many changes of clothes and have extra on hand when you arrive at your destination, or too few changes of clothes and have to wrangle a child covered in poo for anywhere between one to ten hours?

Your answer will determine how many changes of clothes you think it is reasonable to bring on a flight, but for me, the sweet spot was a casual six.

Nappies and baby wipes.

See above in relation to how much poo you are interested in dealing with and for how long.

Hand sanitiser and sanitising wipes.

Planes are, basically, disgusting. I knew my kids would have their hands all over everything and then their hands immediately in their mouths, and while there is little I can do about that, I could periodically wipe down their tray tables, armrests and screens and squirt some hand sanny into their little hands. This was probably just a placebo but it made me feel marginally better when anyone, for example, licked a drip of ice cream directly off their own seatbelt.

A book for myself.

Hahahahahahahaha.

Oh, my sweet summer child (me packing for this plane trip). Your optimism is a beautiful testament to how easily you forgot the last time you took two children on a plane.

Image: Supplied.

Feature Image: Supplied.