Traveling with twins requires a lot of luggage, right? Well not necessarily. Now that we’re well into family travel season we figured we’d reveal how we pack up our twins. It’s not as much luggage as you think. In fact our first trip with the twins required NOT A SINGLE piece of checked luggage. How did we do it? We arranged for a pack n’ play on the other end, counted out the clothing we needed and got it all in compression sacks. I felt like a victory.
Since then however we’ve learned that we need more than just one extra set of pjs or outfit and our luggage has grown a bit. As a couple who spent 21 months traveling around the world with only carry-on size backpacks however, we have fought the desire to over pack. Here’s what we brought on our last trip to D.C. with our 5 month old twin girls:
Clothing: The clothes are the easy part. You know how often you need to change your kid. Some kids go through 3 or 4 outfits a day while others can wear the same onesie all day long. Like adults, mix and match outfits are good. Admittedly we are fortunate because we have twin girls so in theory they can share clothes meaning we don’t have to bring double of everything. On the other hand, even with a boy and girl if you’re careful about how you pack (bringing gender neutral items) you may be in luck. We’ve found (through an unfortunate night in Toronto!) that we should break the travel rule when it comes to baby clothes- look at everything you’ve pack and then ADD an additional set of pajamas and daytime clothes.
Baby Carriers: For us, these are essential travel items – the twin stroller can be a bit cumbersome to navigate a city with. We love both our Moby Wraps and our Ergo Baby Carrier’s for different reasons. I love the flexibility of the Moby Wrap, especially when the girls are going to be wrapped up all day – it’s nice to be able to change positions and carry them in different ways. We also use the Moby Wraps on the plane to carry the girls – besides being a great way for them to nap (yay!), it also helps keep hands off of them during boarding. Maybe two sets of carriers is excessive, but the Moby’s are pretty small and I love the ease of the Ergo Carrier, especially when we’re taking them on and off a lot in one day. It’s also a bit easier to show someone else how to use and have the girl’s positioned correctly.
Sleep Solution: We use our Pack N’ Play Twin Bassinet still when we travel with the twins. We are way beyond being able to use the bassinets, but even without them our girls are pretty good sleeping together in the Pack N’ Play. Note that Graco does not recommend putting two babies in one pack n’play. That is a choice we have made. Pretty soon the girls will be too big to share the pack n’play, but until then this works for us. I looked at other options like the LulyBoo, but ultimately decided that the pack n’play was easier for us since we already had it.
Car Seats: It’s not an option to travel without the car seats unless you are going to a city and are planning to use public transportation (like a subway) 100% of the time. If you purchase a ticket for your twins or plan to use the car seat on board, make sure it is Airline approved. We have the Peg Perego 30/30 which is airline approved- we have brought them on board twice without a problem when there have been extra seats on board. Otherwise we have gate checked them without a single problem. Some airlines will even provide you with a thick plastic bag to check the car seat. Otherwise you can get a protective cover or car seat bag pretty inexpensively.
Stroller: Although it isn’t the easiest to navigate around with, we always travel with our double snap n’ go stroller. We use it to go through the airport quickly and efficiently with two squirming babies. It’s easy to collapse and small enough to fit in the back of a rental car without a problem, plus it has a decently large bottom for storing carry ons.
Toys: Admittedly we are bringing more and more “entertainment” on each flight. Traveling with twins doesn’t require double the toys, we just swap toys mid-flight to help keep things interesting. We always travel with our letter links, which both girls love and are fantastic to use to clip things to both car seats and the stroller. Thankfully they are silent, yet colorful and interesting enough to keep a baby amuse for a little while. They are also our favorite teething toy right now. We also love these colorful animals from Lamaze: Freddie the Dragonfly (called Jacque in our house!) and Pierre the Peacock. Again, colorful, interesting, but without the incessant music that so many toys have. We also bring a few soft touch and feel type books, which the girls love to play with at this stage.
So there you have it. That’s what we bring traveling with twins. What would you add to the list? What would you leave at home?
They are so darn cute and worth every bit of your travel packing time and energy!! Sounds like you have it down to a science too! Happy travels to all of you.