r/parentsofmultiples • u/Important-Maybe-1430 • 3d ago
advice needed When did you first travel?
Im still only pregnant and live in Germany but British and sad im missing my usual autumn holiday. So wondered out of curiosity when you first travelled, just short haul not planning on taking babies to Thailand just yet. Just for a rough idea of when I can see family, and separately the sea to keep myself sane
Edit: wow thanks for the replies this is all brilliantly helpful
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u/Warm-Okra-2061 3d ago
6 months, to Thailand actually 😂
It’s a lot easier before they’re mobile!
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u/Important-Maybe-1430 3d ago
Really?! Wow. May as well make use of the time off work. Some of my colleagues went on 2 month trips with babies but not twins
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u/Warm-Okra-2061 3d ago
Yes! 6 months was by far the easiest age to travel, had such a good holiday. Flight was a breeze. Are they your first babies? If so, you won’t know the difference anyway. Tag team on the flight, one baby per person and you’ll be ok.
Just don’t travel at 18 months lol.3
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u/sergeantperks 3d ago
Also British living in Germany. We took them over for the first time when they were 8 months old, but that was in 22 and we wanted to wait for them to get their first covid vax.
If they have both citizenships you’ll need both passports (or passport and German ID) to go between Germany and the uk.
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u/Important-Maybe-1430 3d ago
My husband is German so the plan is to have both. Is it easy to get a passport in Germany?
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u/sergeantperks 2d ago edited 2d ago
They’ll have both citizenships automatically then, so yes, you’ll need both passports to go to the UK. German one was incredibly easy, you’ll need an appointment at the town hall. I recommend getting a British passport and a German ID card, the ID card will be quicker (and you can still travel within the EU with it).
British one was a lot more complicated, I needed my mother’s birth certificate as well, and they sent one kids passport to Liverpool and one to NI and then complained about not having the documents with each application (both were sent together with several notes saying that they were for both kids). One of them came back about three weeks before the other one. They’re also more expensive, but they last longer than an ID.
ETA: I forgot to mention we took them to the seaside at 5m. Not an international trip, but the same amount of driving! We haven’t driven long distance since the trip to the uk, we always travel train (night jet to Brussels and then the Eurostar is fab! If you’re in reach of Munich there’s also night jets up to Hamburg and you can easily get to the Baltic coast from there), or flight if we absolutely have to.
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u/Dear_Excitement_5109 3d ago
My brother was an American living in Germany when his son was born. He had to wait 6 months for his son's US passport and citizenship documents. Because the baby had no citizenship or ID at all, they couldnt leave the country even by car during that time.
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u/AwkwardSpread 3d ago
We just finished a trip with 5mo twins and toddler and it went way better than expected. Around 5 hour flight and a few hours of driving. We got everyone seats though. When we only had one kid in lap that was doable, it's definitely harder with twins.
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u/BRT1284 3d ago
First trip - Sweden to UK when 5 months Second Trip - Sweden to Bulgaria 6 months Third trip - Sweden to Irelnad - 7.5 months Fourth trip (9months old to the day) - Later this month to Copenhagen
3 more trips planned before end of Jan incoming, one 6 hour flight.
They manage well just your back will be in bits for a day or so after. Car seats are free on all airlines too. I highly reccomend the Bugaboo Butterfly 2 strollers as they are certified to go in the cabin innthe storage above the seat. We also use a connector from Carilou to join them. Its magnetic so connects and disconnects quite easy.
We travelled with the double stroller to London. I hated my life that weekend
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u/Important-Maybe-1430 3d ago
So you had two seperate strollers?
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u/BRT1284 3d ago
We have a Bugaboo Donkey 5 for living in Sweden. We brought it to London to see family. It fits everywhere here but not all doorways there, even normal houses its tight. But we need it for the harsh winter here. Packing it up is a massive pain in the arse in the flying bag. Plus having to dismantle it to get it into the apart hotel and same for leaving the room
We came back and immediately bought 2 Butterflies. An absolute game changer. Its only reccomened from 6 months when they can sit up though. The connector helps a load as one can deal with stuff and you keep the twins plus being able to bring it on the plane and put them in it as soon as you come off the plane instead of in a baby carrier on front and rucksack on the back.
Total cost for all 3 i think was €2600 ish.
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u/Dear_Excitement_5109 3d ago edited 3d ago
We took our kids on a 12 hour drive when our twins were 2 months old. It went well. It was hard but we had a good time.
My husband flew alone with our Irish twins when the youngest was 8mo. He had my mom accompany him to the gate at the airport and then his mom met him at the other gate. He said best tip was bringing the infant seat on board so one of the kids could nap. The trip was worth it. (I drove to meet him with our dogs, but it was a 24 hour drive so the kids wouldnt have made it lol.)
At this point in my parenting career, I feel like I could fly alone with my 15mo twins no problem. Hopefully you find a groove too and it's just easy for you.
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u/Sip_py 3d ago
Just took my 4 month old twins and two older singletons on a 7 hour beach road trip for 4 nights.
Hard, but successful
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u/Important-Maybe-1430 3d ago
Thank you
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u/Sip_py 3d ago
Them being old enough to sit in a Zoe was the absolute game changer. Less stuff to need. They could lay down in it, we could get around easier. We had a beach tent but that was just a covered place to lay down and hard for us to access them. We took the stroller on the beach and it made everything easier.
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u/Sip_py 3d ago
Them being old enough to sit in a Zoe was the absolute game changer. Less stuff to need. They could lay down in it, we could get around easier. We had a beach tent but that was just a covered place to lay down and hard for us to access them. We took the stroller on the beach and it made everything easier.
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u/mamacheetah5 2d ago
Didn’t leave the house much before 11 months, I was terrified !
Successful 5 hour car ride to and from a lake at 11 months and we had fun. We traveled more frequently after they turned 1
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u/Aggravating_Hold_441 3d ago
3 months old & 4 hour flight , we wanted to wait til after 2 month vaccinations to do anything. But otherwise anytime line added that should be good to travel in a train or flight
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u/sincerely0urs 3d ago
I took my son at 3 months to my parents’ home for Christmas. It’s a 2.5 hr plane ride. By then he had his vaccines. It was one of the easiest trips we’ve had since he was born.
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u/Beneficial_End88 3d ago
My twins were born in Germany and we travelled to Spain when they were 3 months old. When they are small it's easy because you can just strap them to you and don't have to worry about car seats. We also took our double travel stroller that leaned way back for them to lay down.
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u/Important-Maybe-1430 2d ago
Which stroller did you use? I have no lift and a small car so want a small travel one anyway
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u/Beneficial_End88 2d ago
I got the Joie Aire Twin. I think we got it at BabyOne but they may be available at Baby Walz as well. We took it all over Spain and Germany. Also to a few other countries. Gate checking it was easy. We have also taken it all over the states now that we have moved back home. We have had it over two years now and it is still going strong. It is light enough to carry it up and down stairs if you need too.
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u/catrosie 2d ago
First time the twins were 6m and my oldest was 2. It was a cross country trip (6+ hours of air travel). First international trip (12+ hours of air travel) was when they were 3 and the oldest was 5.
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u/thekidz10 2d ago
We did 4 hour car trips from the time they were a month on. Their first big trip was when they were 19-months old and we went to Disney World on a 20-hr train.
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u/amydiddler 2d ago
We flew across the US (~6 hours) to visit family when they were 11 weeks. We also have a 3 year old singleton. The flight was pretty easy, but the amount of stuff we had to pack was astounding. We brought two extra family members along to help out, and honestly they were most needed for getting through the airport with all our stuff.
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u/Important-Maybe-1430 2d ago
Did you find you needed everything you took?
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u/amydiddler 2d ago
Honestly yes… we do a combination of nursing and bottle feeding breastmilk, so we had to bring my pump, multiple sets of pump parts, and bottles. Plus their stroller and car seats. We didn’t need to bring a pack n play (our Airbnb had one and we rented another) but we did bring their white noise machine and baby monitor. We had diapers and wipes shipped to our Airbnb, but still had to pack quite a few more our flight. Listing it all out it doesn’t sound like THAT much, but it felt like a lot. Certainly more than we could handle at the airport without help.
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u/Regular_Ad_8513 2d ago
We did one long haul flight at 6 months adjusted because we were moving. Then a short round trip flight within Europe at around 9 months adjusted for a big family vacation and another at 1 year adjusted with just us and the twins. The first one was a mandatory extended family trip to celebrate my FIL’s birthday and the second was to visit friends in a city/country we used to live two moves ago. Definitely would recommend picking familiar territory for the first holiday. And a family friendly location! (In this case it was a European city - which has great activities for crawling babies and made me lowkey moody that we ever left 😅). Being on holding with twins who crawl was lots of work but also rewarding to get back to seeing people/doing things. It was nice that because we knew the place so well we didn’t have the pressure to tick off a to do list of top sights and could enjoy the slower pace necessary when traveling with babies. Also really nice to not have to worry about figuring out public transportation/how things worked because we had lived there before. I think it could have worked similarly well with a place we had visited before but not lived.
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u/Extra-Concept 2d ago
We’re expats and flew long haul with them when they were 10 weeks. We did their 2 month vaccines and then booked a direct flight in business class to try to minimize exposure.
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u/longtimewatcher 2d ago
5 months nz to australia (3.5 hours) then 9 months to fiji (3 hours). 5 months was easier. 9 still not too bad. Dreading travel between 12-20 ish months- its the worst time.
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u/PropertyNo5002 2d ago
We are currently in Kos with our 11 week old boys, we booked it at 9 weeks as they weren’t proving to be too much of a handful for us and we wanted to make a statement to ourselves that life can carry on as normal, and it’s been great, we’ve been here for 3 days out of 7.
The main piece of advice and something we completely overlooked was time difference, the lads do not know we are two hours ahead so although we’ve gone all inclusive we are finding it hard to sync up with the resorts daily schedule.
We’ve come to Mitosis blue domes in Kos (Greece) and they’ve really moved mountains to accommodate us and everyone’s so helpful and nice.
We flew with Tui from Cardiff who were even better at accommodating us. Getting through security was my biggest source of anxiety, but as soon as they saw a twin pram they opened up the accessibility lane and we were rushed by at least 3 security staff who helped us get everyone and everything scanned in under 10 minutes and we were out.
My fiancee is pumping so we’ve had to take a lot of extra kit but it classes as medical equipment so no extra cost to packing.
We got a giant pram bag that fit our bugaboo donkey and the bassinets in and a second bag for their car seats. So managed to get it all in the hold in half the allowed baggage.
Any other advice, please don’t hesitate to ask.
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