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What another wonderful meeting of new and expectant parents! I am always amazed at how large these meetings have gotten. I was a New & Expectant Parents (NEP) Liaison a couple years ago organizing these get-togethers and our meetings were half the current size. It’s fantastic! I guess this is what happens when you finally have a board member focused on advertising the club on popular online mailing lists and discussion groups.

This month’s New & Expectant Parents Meeting focused on travelling with your twins (or more!). A panel of eight parents offered their tried and true tips for making the entire journey doable while saving the sanity of the parents. I love it when we arrange panels of parents for topics like travel. This is a true benefit of membership – parents sharing advice and wisdom with other parents. We were also joined by Kelly Rubingh, an itinerant mom of two, whose Family Travel agency focuses on condo and resort packages in Hawaii, Mexico, and the Caribbean as well as Disney vacations. By the way, the services of a travel agent are free (to you) as they get paid commissions by hotels, airlines, etc for booking portions of your trip.

It was an enlightening hour of travel stories related, questions asked and answers (or options) given. All of the panel members had travelled long and short distances, in cars and via planes, stayed in hotels and relatives’ homes – and all had a lot to say about their journeys, good and bad.

The NEPs had collected a long list of travel tips from many club members and distributed them in a document to the meeting participants. (Wish I had that document years ago….). Here are a few:

• Pack one extra set of clothing for each baby for each leg and lots of Ziploc bags to throw soiled clothing in.
• Bring an extra set of clothing for each parent.
• Bring your stroller. Those airports are huge and you will be walking a long while.
• Research equipment rentals like Akamai Mothers so you don’t have to bring everything with you. Another site called Baby’s Away offers equipment rental in many resorts and cities throughout the USA.
• Even if your twins are under 2 years old, seriously consider buying at least one extra seat for the two of them. Having them both in your lap on a long flight - or even a short one - is very difficult.
• Bring a few items to childproof wherever you’re staying such as heavy duty tape (secure cabinets and doors), outlet covers, twist ties to secure long cords, and Lysol wipes.

One of the members demonstrated how the popular GoGo Kidz Travelmates worked. This popular piece of travel equipment allows you to roll your car seat around on the ground while giving your kids a ride through the airport. One of our members now rents hers out to members as needed.

As an alternative to the GoGo Kidz Travelmate, I showed how my husband tied small loops of rope around the backs of our Britax Marathon car seats and hooked up the leashes from our carryons/rollerboards. He simply attached the leashes to our carryons as one would a purse or briefcase. Easy and nice to have the extra storage space on the plane.

As always, it was an entertaining evening with babies cooing, crying and squirming everywhere. And the best piece of advice I’ll take away from the evening - Take a deep breath and remember that every minute gone is one less to spend on the flight.

Original Gemini Crickets blog post.

Posted by Linda D (March 26, 2008)