I’VE SPENT MY whole adult life traveling for work, extensively and regularly. If I’m being immodest, I do consider myself something of an expert on how to optimize the experience, from packing to choosing the best benefit programs. But once I had children, I had to learn how to travel all over again in a much less streamlined way. My older daughter got her passport when she was 3 months old, and for the first two years of her life (while she could fly for free as a lap baby), I took her with me on work trips anytime it seemed even remotely reasonable to do so (and sometimes when, in hindsight, it was not reasonable at all). Traveling with her was hard, but not as hard as leaving her at home. By the time she got to preschool, she had visited more countries than many adults I know (albeit she slept through many of them). Not surprisingly, friends who have recently become parents often hit me up for advice, perhaps thinking I have some secret wisdom to share. I’m afraid that for the most part I don’t — traveling with kids is challenging, even for those who do it a lot. But here is some of what I’ve learned through plenty of firsthand experience.

Despite what brand-new parents fear, flying with little babies is, in my experience, pretty easy. I have found the trickiest time comes once they are mobile but before they are old enough to be engaged by screens. The crawling age is particularly hard because they just want to move — and crawling on the carpet of an airplane is just so very gross. My advice for this age is really the same as for any age, but more so. When traveling with kids, the plane ride is a job, not a time for relaxation. Put aside any delusions of reading or watching movies, and buckle in to be present. When my kids were very little, I would try to pack a lot of very small, special treats, and dole them out as needed. These could be stickers, Play-Doh, candy, toys, anything that might keep them occupied for a few minutes. And as soon as they got big enough, I let them overdose on screens unapologetically, and just tried to make sure they ate some real food while zoning out.

At the airport, look out for family lanes at security and passport control, a welcome sight after a long flight with tired kids. I have found these godsends to be particularly prevalent in Latin countries — I’ve seen them in Italy, Portugal, Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru.