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Are you renting a car? Could you rent car seats?

For us it was easier just to buy inexpensive car seats at the destination (my parents' place) than to bring our own.

We always take our own car seats. You can check them with your luggage for free. The hardest part is getting from the car to the check-in line. If you can take a cab or have someone drop you off at the airport, it's not bad at all. I put the baby in the stroller and checked that at the gate. My 3 year old walked just fine, and they were pretty large airports. If you are taking your infant car seat, be sure to bring your base too! Forgot it once and it was a huge bummer.

@SleepyMonkey: we don't have a car so we always take a car service that has car seats. not always an option in other cities though!

@sleepymonkey No, we didn't. They have sturdy plastic bags at the counter for free and we used those. Some moms might judge me for letting my car seats be handled roughly with baggage (I've heard people say it's too rough, like being in a car accident), but I personally felt like it was fine. Also I don't have super fancy car seats, so if they were damaged I wouldn't be too upset about buying new ones.

We just traveled with our 2.5 year old and 3 month old. Curbside baggage check was our friend. DH dropped me, baggage, car seats & baby at the curb. I checked the baggage and got our boarding passes (needed birth certificate for Southwest). Since we used a travel seat for LO1 she stayed with DH when he went to park at long term parking. They rode the parking lot bus back to the airport (the driver sang wheels on the bus, did the wipers and doors, highlight of the trip). They had the stroller and one carry on bag. When we met up at the security line we had baby in the ergo, toddler in stroller, a backpack, and a diaper bag. Then we gate checked the stroller. Easy peasy.

At our destination, I went and got the rental car while DH waited for the bags. I drove the car to the airport lot and walked to baggage. Then DH & I schelped the baggage and seats to the rental and installed them.

On the way back MIL told us there was no curbside check so I asked her to come to the airport to help us out. In hindsight we could have made it work but her presence helped a lot.

Arriving back home we decided to get all the luggage and ride the bus to the parking lot together instead of splitting up. That worked too but we were all pretty cranky by then.

Sorry this was so long. Not sure if we did it "right" but I spent so much time thinking about it I figured I would share.

The only surprise we had was that in my efforts to get one big suitcase I didn't consider 1) it ended up weighing 55lbs so we needed a 2nd bag anyway. 2) the big suitcase and stroller barely fit together in our sedan.

@SleepyMonkey: We have rented car seats when traveling with DD. My plan when we have two will be:

DD (will be 2.5+) - leave car seat in our car parked at airport, rent a car seat through car rental (we have used Avis and Hertz and been pleased in the past). She will walk in the airport.

LO#2 - while less than 6 mos we will travel with an infant carrier and she will have her own seat (you can gate check this too if you didnt want to get a seat for the LO). We will check the car seat base and gate check the stroller (which the carrier clicks into). When LO#2 is over 6 mos we will take a stroller and gate check - I will wear LO on plane. We will rent two car seats from car rental.

Since you are in NYC...can you take public transport to the airport?

We check our car seats as soon as we get to the airport. I do not bring the base for the infant car seat. We have 3 kids and not enough hands to gate check! We have rented seats in the past, but they were very difficult to install, and just seemed like awful quality. Plus, they were like $25 a day or something absurd. I wear our infant and bring an umbrella stroller for my toddler.

We have travelled with 2 several times (3.5ish and 10m, now) and have done a couple different things.

- Easiest, in terms of luggage, is to just rent 2 seats when you get there. But then you have to install unfamiliar carseats.

- The majority of the times, whether all 4 of us are flying or just me with 2 LOs, we have checked DD1 carseat inside a wheeled travel bag (and also can then put diapers, etc in with it!) and brought DD2 infant bucket seat to gate check. I always wear DD2 in the Ergo, but the bucket seat is easy to hook to a wheeled carry-on or snap into stroller, depending what we have. I just liked knowing it would make it no matter what, since DD1s carseat has not made our flight before.

We always checked DD1s because it's a pain to cart around the airport, and she won't ride in it if we use one of the attachable rollers.

- You can also check both, but see above comment about carseat(s) not making it DD2 is also a good carseat baby, so in the off-chance we had an open seat next to us, I would bring it on the plane so she would sit in there/sleep.

As for getting to the airport, we always do curbside check to get rid of however many bags/carseats we can as quickly as we can. We usually drive our own car, and DH will drop me and a kid (or two) off to handle that while he parks.

If you're going somewhere like grandparents (and assuming they pick you up at the airport), we have found it's easiest to have a cheapo carseat that just stays at their place and not have to travel with the convertible carseat at all. We have a Cosco Scenera (soon two) for that purpose. Totally worth the $40 or whatever they cost!