Is it crazy to fly with twins under a year old?
Wondering if I’m crazy here. We live in the Midwest by my wife’s family, and my family is a 4 hour flight away. We have six month old twins and a 3year old boy (he’s flown in the past and did great, but he’s definitely a toddler now and thugs may be different). We are considering traveling to my family over the holidays, but my wife is freaking out at the logistical nightmare of it all. She thinks it would be easier when the girls are a year old or so when we don’t have to deal with bottles.
I completely understand that it would be a nightmare of a flight and travel during the holidays always sucks, but i feel like it would be doable with enough planning.
Am I crazy here? Anything we should consider? I was thinking about getting 4 seats on the plane so we have enough room for at least one baby to be in a car seat (one baby is VERY squirmy). We have a city select double stroller, so it doesn’t fold up well with the seats attached. Is it possible to gate check it, or do you need a special airline approved stroller or something? Any general tips on traveling with twins? Should we just wait until they’re a year old?
Posted Oct 2, 2019, 3:16 PM UTC
We've flown quite a bit over the years, probably once or twice a year since they were born. When they were under 1 was the only time we did them as lap riders and it wasn't aweful (I remember 2 being the worst), but I would recommend getting them each a seat, at the very least get one seat. There aren't enough oxygen masks for two lap riders in a row so they will split you up if you don't have at least one seat for them.
You can gate check any stroller, doesn't need to be airline approved. I will say, however, their baggage handlers tend to beat the shit out of baggage, so you might be wise to pick up some used second hand stroller for a cheap price and take that if you don't want your nice daily stroller screwed up.
Just be prepared and you should be fine. And in my experience, if things do go sour, which they probably will eventually, just put in the effort to calm them the best you can and you won't upset other passengers on the plan. I've always had good experiences with the other passengers as long as you're apologetic and putting a noticeable effort into it. I've even had people offer to take them off my hands to go for a walk through the cabin so we could have a break.
Thanks, that’s good information. We’ve flown maybe 4 times with the older one before the twins were born, and as much as I like saving money, he did better with his own seat even when he was younger than 2.
Good call on a beater stroller. I’m remembering we did that as well for my son.
Another tip to keep in mind once they are older and in actual car seats. We used cheap foldable luggage carts from Walmart, they were like $15 and we buckled/bungee strapped the car seats to them. We then buckled them into the car seats and pulled them through the airport on the cart. We got a lot of awkward looks, and a lot of "that's a really cool idea" comments.... but it was really helpful for getting them through the airport and not having to worry about them wandering off. We then just took the car seats on the plane and buckled them into their seats. You could just as well gate check the seats if you didn't want to take them on the plane.