The Best Kids' Headphones for Travel

Manufacturer-published figures read 11 September 2026. We have not tested these headphones and make no claim about hearing safety beyond what the makers publish.

Two numbers, and the second matters more on a plane

Every kids’ headphone is sold on its volume cap, and the cap is real: it limits how loud the headphones can physically get. What it does not do is change how loud a child wants them.

An aircraft cabin is a loud, constant background. A child listening to a film over engine noise turns the volume up until the dialogue is clear — and on a capped pair that means sitting at the cap for hours. Isolation, the share of outside noise the ear cups block, is what lowers the volume a child needs in the first place. It is the less-marketed of the two numbers and the more useful one at 35,000 ft.

The published numbers

The 95 dB setting, in plain arithmetic

JLab publishes two Volume Safe settings: 85 dB and 95 dB. The decibel scale is logarithmic — every 10 dB step is ten times the sound intensity. So the higher setting is not a little louder; it is an order of magnitude more sound energy reaching the ear.

JLab positions it for louder environments, and a plane is exactly that. We would still set it to 85 dB and leave it there, and we would check it after the child has had the headphones for five minutes — because a switch on a child’s headphone is a switch a child finds.

Wired mode is not optional on a plane

Seatback entertainment is still a 3.5 mm headphone socket on almost every aircraft. A pair that is wireless-only cannot plug in, and a child who cannot hear the seatback film is a long flight for everyone in the row.

• Puro publishes an included 3.5 mm audio cable.
• JLab publishes wired and wireless modes.
• Or keep them wireless and use an adapter that turns the seatback jack into Bluetooth — one model publishes pairing for two headphones at once, which is useful with siblings. Airplane Bluetooth adapters.

Battery: 20 hours against 65

Puro publishes 20 hours; JLab publishes 65+. On a single long-haul flight either is enough. On a trip with several flights and no reliable way to charge in between, the JLab figure means the headphones are one fewer thing to plug in at every hotel. The other dependencies to remove before a flight.

In wired mode, of course, neither needs a battery at all for the seatback. That is the quiet advantage of a pair that does both.

Why not just use an adult pair?

Because an adult headphone is built to go as loud as an adult wants, and Sony, like most adult brands, publishes no child volume cap. It is also sized for an adult head, so on a child it sits loosely and leaks noise in — which pushes the volume up again.

Active noise cancelling is genuinely good at engine drone, and there is an argument that a well-sealed adult ANC pair at a sensible volume beats a poorly sealed kids’ pair. The problem is the phrase “at a sensible volume”: nothing on an adult pair enforces it. The adult headphones compared.

The picks

• Puro BT2200-Plus — the pick. A hard 85 dB cap, 83% published isolation at 1 kHz, a 3.5 mm cable, at a published $99. Its con: the dearest here, a 1 year warranty, and no published weight.
• JLab JBuddies Studio 2 Wireless — for multi-leg trips. 65+ hours and a 2 year limited warranty, both published. Its con: a 95 dB setting, no published isolation figure, and no price readable on JLab’s page.
• Sony WH-1000XM5 — for the parent, not the child. Its con here: no published volume limit and an adult fit.