Gatwick with kids: family security, baby care and play areas

Getting through Gatwick with kids comes down to using the facilities built for you rather than queuing with everyone else. Both terminals have a dedicated family security lane, baby changing and feeding rooms are scattered right through the airport, and the North Terminal has a free play area past security. You keep your own pushchair all the way to the gate, and you can carry as much baby milk and food as the journey needs.

The one thing families cannot buy here is speed: the family lane is calmer and more patient, not faster, and everything with small children takes longer than you plan for. So the real strategy is time, not tricks. Arrive early, use the day-before bag drop if your flight is an early one, and let the airport's family facilities do the rest. The sections below cover each in turn.

Both terminals run dedicated family and Assisted Travel lanes at security for departing families. You reach them by following the signs after check-in, and the point of them is breathing room: wider gates that take a pushchair, staff used to travelling children, and no pressure from a queue of business travellers behind you while you unload a family's worth of bags, bottles and coats. It is the single biggest stress-reducer at the airport for anyone flying with young children.

The screening itself is the same as any lane, covered in full on the security page: children have to be lifted out of the pushchair while it goes through the X-ray, coats come off, and the pushchair is scanned separately. What changes is the pace. Give yourself the time to use it properly rather than arriving so late that even the calm lane feels like a scramble, and you have the morning half won.

Baby changing and feeding rooms are spread throughout both terminals, marked by a babycare symbol, and they are genuinely everywhere you need them: in the check-in areas before security, along the routes to the gates airside, in the transfer areas, and after passport control in the arrivals halls for when you land. Some of the ordinary toilets also have fold-down changing tables. You are never far from somewhere to change or feed a baby, and the airside rooms mean you are not tied to landside before you have even cleared security.

On milk and food, the rules are generous. You can carry enough baby milk, formula or baby food for the whole journey in your hand luggage, with any surplus in the hold bag. Gatwick's scanners take containers up to 2 litres in any case, and baby food and milk are exempt at every UK airport, so the allowance holds even on a return flight from an airport still running the 100ml rule; the liquid rules page has the detail. If you would rather not carry it, Boots lets you pre-order baby essentials for airside collection, and every restaurant will warm a bottle for you before the flight.

Take your own pushchair. You are welcome to wheel it through security and all the way to the departure gate, which is the sane way to move a small child and a pile of bags across a big terminal, and there is nowhere better to leave a tired toddler while you wait. Gatwick has no pushchairs to borrow, so the one you bring is the one you have; a lightweight, one-hand-fold buggy is worth its weight on a trip like this.

At the gate, the pushchair is tagged and taken to travel in the hold, and at Gatwick it usually comes back to you in the baggage reclaim hall with the rest of your luggage on arrival, though some airlines hand it back at the aircraft door instead, so ask your airline which they do. Car seats follow the luggage rules rather than these: they generally travel free on top of the allowance with the major carriers, checked into the hold or, on some airlines, used on board if you have bought the seat. The specifics sit with your airline and in the baggage allowance guide, so book them onto the trip in advance rather than turning up and hoping.

The North Terminal has a free Kids zone after security, on the lower level of the departure lounge, with educational play elements designed to run some energy out of small legs before boarding. It costs nothing, and for a delayed flight or a long wait it is the best thing in either terminal for under-tens. The South Terminal has no equivalent dedicated play area, which is worth knowing if you have any say over which terminal you fly from with a lively toddler; the North Terminal guide covers what else is up there.

Beyond the play area, the airport is reasonably kid-friendly to sit out. Most restaurants and cafes have highchairs and children's menus, and power points by the seating for the tablet that saves everyone, and every venue will warm a bottle. If you would value a calmer space with food, drinks, space to spread out and reliable wifi included, some lounges welcome families: infants under two go free at several, and a couple run their own kids' zones, though note that Clubrooms is adults-only. A lounge can be the difference between a long delay endured and a long delay survived.

• Arrive early, then use the family lane. It is calmer, not faster, so the time has to come from you. Be at the desk as your airline's check-in window opens rather than cutting it fine.
• Clear the bags the night before. The free day-before bag drop for early flights, covered in the check-in guide, means arriving with just the children and hand luggage instead of a trolley of cases at 05:00.
• Carry the milk and food you need, and pre-order the rest. There is no limit for the journey, Boots stocks airside collection, and every restaurant warms a bottle, so you do not have to load up before you fly.
• Keep the pushchair to the gate, and label it. It carries child and bags to the aircraft door, then travels in the hold. Ask your airline whether it comes back at the gate or in the baggage hall so you are not waiting in the wrong place.
• Head for the North Terminal play area if you can. The free Kids zone after security is the one place built to tire children out before a flight, and the South Terminal has no equivalent. The rest of the airport's family-relevant services are indexed in the services guide.