The plight of a flight with children

Dear Betsy,
I am travelling soon with two children, one aged seven years and the other nine months, on my own.

I have to travel to London then on to Spain and my seven-year-old is very boisterous and not easy to control. I am dreading the night flight as I know she won’t sleep and I need her to rest, as without some sleep myself I will be too exhausted to carry on to Spain the next morning. Any ideas?
June Jackson

Dear June,
Ah yes! The joys of travelling alone with small kids! I remember this well. I have a friend whose doctor told her to give her eight-year-old son some cough medicine to help him sleep on the flight. Unfortunately, he turned out to be immune to its soporific effects and it made him totally hyper and my friend a nervous wreck by the time they landed at Heathrow the next morning. 
Try to make sure your daughter is not allowed to nap during the day of travel, get her involved in some really physical activity such as swimming, as late in the afternoon/early evening as you can. 
Make sure your husband takes both kids for the whole afternoon so that you can sneak in a nap to give you strength for the ordeal ahead. 
Give your daughter a late dinner and don’t let her go to sleep afterwards. Dad can keep her amused and wide awake until you get to the airport and don’t let her sleep in the airport departures area.
Make sure you take her favourite snuggle-up toy that she likes to sleep with. Once on board get her settled and tucked in.
Now it’s time for my secret weapon! A few days in advance you can start using this at home and tell your daughter it’s a “magic sweet dreams potion”, it never failed to work for me with my two boys.
You need to blend three drops of sweet orange essential oil with two drops of roman chamomile essential oil in 15mls, (a tablespoon) of sweet almond oil and pour into a small bottle.
Make a game of massaging this into her hands, a little on her face, neck and upper chest and encourage her to breathe deeply.
Next a tissue with two drops of sweet orange oil and on drop of roman chamomile can be placed inside the pillowcase of her travel pillow and she should soon be off to the land of nod.  (Never let the undiluted oils get onto the skin.)
Many people mistakenly use lavender oil for this purpose and that is okay for adults, but for kids this blend works much better. 
I used to teach Aromatherapy Stress Management Techniques to Gulf Air stewards and stewardesses and this was a trick I taught them to help parents (and the crew) make it through a night flight with kids on board. 
Sales of these oils went through the roof! You can find them in pharmacies around the kingdom.
Of course, these days Gulf Air have their award-winning Sky Nannies service which means you will find a smiling, helpful angel of the skies to help you with the kids on board. 
Other airlines are not always so helpful and in my experience it depends very much on the crew themselves.
Meet and assist services are available with most airlines to help you on arrival and with transfers to your next flight so make sure you request additional help well in advance of your date of travel. 
If YOU need some “get-up-and-go” when you land, to help you through the day until you reach your destination, then try a few drops of grapefruit and rosemary oil on a tissue and inhale deeply.
These natural “uppers” will energise you. Omit rosemary if you have high blood pressure, suffer from epilepsy or if you are pregnant.
I also recommend you take along some tea tree when you travel as it is great for any insect bites, cuts and scrapes and it can be used, diluted in water as a very powerful natural antiseptic.
I also pull back the bedsheets and sprinkle the mattress with a few drops of tea-tree and a few drops of lavender essential oils whenever I check into a hotel, regardless of how posh it is, as you never know what may be lurking in there! Better safe than sorry.
I am sure all parents have their own methods of dealing with  parental travel challenges, so please email me if you have any suggestions. Happy Travels.