We travel to visit family 1-2 times a year. It involves 6 hours fly time broken up by 1-2 hour layover (no direct flights available), then 2 hours by car. So, with airport check-in and what not, about 12 hours from our airport to grandparents' house.
We are taking her car seat for the plane and for when we get to our destination. We are not taking a stroller.
I can't decide whether I should buy one of those car seat transporters or not. We would use it primarily to get through the airport and to push her around during layovers.
I also have a great baby carrier that I could use instead, but we would still have to schlep the carseat and lately she has been requesting 'down' a lot in the carrier.
The bottom line is that I am willing to spend any amount of money to make traveling with a (young) 2 year old easier, but I just don't know if it actually would be easier.
Any opinions/ experience?
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@lizzywiz: I think if she tolerates being pushed around, the transporter may not be a bad idea! My LO is younger, and when I flew with him at 5 and 8 months, we used the carseat/stroller travel system, in addition to wearing him. The transporter would be like a travel stroller, in a way.
These days, he doesn't tolerate being in a stroller for long, so I'd be busy switching him back and forth between stroller, carrier, my arms, letting him walk, etc.
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We bought a bag that allows you to wear the car seat as a backpack. It's bulky and you have to watch where you're going, but it worked really well!
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@Pepper: @loveisstrange: thanks so much for the replies. I guess at this point I am thinking of wearing her and carrying the carseat while my husband schleps the bags. But I am still enticed by the idea so still scouring the internet for any reviews that will push me to change my mine, lol
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We got a gogobabyz for our last plane trip and LOVED IT!!!
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we bought a bungee cord to wrap our britax convertible around the handle of our rolling carrying bag and I wear our toddler in the ergo. That has been the best solution we have found (we take similar trips as you - cross country, 2 flights, 4x/year).
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@luckypenny: oops- just saw this- THANKS!
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Yes to Go Go Babyz! We love ours, have only used it on one trip but has already been worth it.
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We have a Go Go Babyz. It's so worth the money. We did the lap baby thing with him for two trips and used the Go Go on the second one. Go Go is easy to attach and LO liked sitting in it waiting for the plane. We pushed him around the airport and he loved it. Seriously, people in the airport thought he was adorable in it and impressed with the genius of it. I don't know what we'll do when we have two, but I can't recommend Go Go enough.
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We have the Brica one and it's basically a glorified handtruck with straps. But I've used it a ton, so I guess it's worth it, lol.
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I'm picking up the Brica one and a Go Go Babyz from craigslist this week. Amazon had them but it was a 3 week wait. ToysRUs didn't have them in stock, so I had to go used. Which is even better.
Since we have to bring car seats since at least one baby has their own seat, I figure these would work. We'll check our umbrella strollers with our bags so we can use them at our destination. I have a car seat bag to protect the car seat when the other one needs to be gate checked. So at the airport, we'll each have a car seat transporter with kid and whatever bags we'll need for the plane.
Hoping they work out for us.
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I just got one on amazon. I am 6 months pregnant and traveling solo with my 16 month old next week. It was the only way I could imagine getting baby + carseat + me to the gate. Still worried about getting the carseat on to the plane...
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If it's primarily for going to the same places, and those places are grandma/grandpa's house, I think it is much more practical just to buy inexpensive carseats to leave at those places. But it's a matter of preference; I realize some people prefer to have their child in a carseat on the airplane.
@maddyz: Someone will help you, I promise! I've traveled solo a lot in various stages of pregnant with a toddler/with two kids/pregnant with two kids, and someone ALWAYS offers to fold a stroller, carry a bag, hold a hand, carry a kid....:) It's actually sometimes the most unlikely people, like a business traveller I'd have expected to be really annoyed, but turns out to have several kids of his own and home and feels my pain!
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@PinkElephant: I am taking the carseat just because i will need LO to be firmly secured in a seat on the plane for my own sanity. We also have to take a cab on both ends of the trip and the highway + no carseat while legal scares me. It's a pain though because the thing is huge.
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@maddyz: There definitely are car services that do car seats ( I wouldn't be comfortable taxi-ing without a seat either), but I totally understand needing the child secured on the airplane - there are times when DDs were around that when I wish I'd bitten the bullet and brought the seat just so I didn't have to play chase!
I was directing the first part of my message to the OP, who seems to be primarily visiting relatives, so I assumed those people would be picking her up -
I've debated buying one of these as we fly a lot. However, one thing I keep coming back to is that I can babywear right through security but would need to unstrap her from her car seat, walk her through security, and strap her back in on the other side. I guess that's not worth it to me until I can no longer babywear (currently still working for us at 22 months).
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We have a go go babyz and I love it. We have the mini version. No complaints, other than that it is pricey for what it is. But it really makes it so much easier to get around the airport when we need to bring the carseat. We've always brought an umbrella stroller as well, so our LO will hop between the two of those to get pushed. I imagine it would be even easier if you could leave the stroller behind.
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@peachykeen: Do you need to bring a car seat? For me, I have to bring a car seat no matter what. (One baby will have their own seat and we are renting a car at our destination) Figure I have the ability to use the seat if I have to. I plan on babywearing one of the babies (maybe both) if they get fussy, but the babies might like sitting in the car seat and being pulled around. It's either that or I bring the umbrella strollers with car seats. I need hands traveling with twins so that's why the umbrella strollers will be checked with our bags and this will be our make shift stroller through the airport.
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@bluestriped bee: Yea, though we only have to bring 1 car seat for now. We have a super-light Cosco Scenera for travel that we either carry or attach to our rolling carry-on if we have to walk a long way. I could definitely see this being worth it for 2 babies if you don't have someone to help babywear.
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@peachykeen: Yeah, I considered getting the one that attaches to your carryon but I'm not sure if we'll have any carryons. Less bags is better with twins. If we bring anything, it will be backpacks so our hands are free.
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