Flying With Toddler Twins? Alone?

It's possible! And it's not completely awful and stressful either. Well, I didn't find it to be anyways! Cohen and Kason are 16-months old and they had been on six flights before I took them alone, and they had been awesome on every one of those, so I wasn't hugely worried. To be honest, the part that was worrying me the most was getting through Customs.


My top tips for flying alone with toddler twins:

• Try to take only one carry-on bag onboard
  
  • The less you have to carry, the better! Especially if you can't be guaranteed a stroller through the airport.
    
• Take lots of snacks
  
  • They are awesome to distract kids! I took lots of fruit and some sandwiches. Just don't forget to dispose of any uneaten fruit before leaving the plane - you don't want to be getting any fines!
    
• Call the airline before you fly and request ground assistance
  
  • Seriously, I would consider this essential. The ground assistance we got was absolutely fantastic, and if we hadn't of had it, our trips would have been HARD.
    
• Purchase at least one CARES harness
  
  • This was awesome. It meant that I didn't have to deal with the bulkiness of a big carseat onboard the plane, and the boys squirmed much less when strapped in with this than just sitting on my lap with the infant lap belt. I will definitely be getting a second one before we fly again.
    
• Use backpack harnesses in the airports
  
  • I ended up tucking the tail of one boy's backpack up and holding the other one. That meant that I only had to watch the boy whom I wasn't holding onto as I knew the one I was holding onto couldn't get far enough to get into mischief!
    
• New toys and books and 'new' toys and books
  
  • We bought Cohen and Kason a few new toys and books which I wrapped up and gave them on the flights. These kept them entertained for a decent amount of time! I also hid away some of their favourite toys and books in the months leading up the trip so they were 'new' again to them! I highly recommend medium-sized cars – both the boys enjoyed rolling them on the tray tables.
    
• If you can choose your seats, the second-to-back ones are the best.
  
  • These are the seats we had on our flight back, and meant that we could get the CARES harness over the back of the seat (I don't know if you can on the very back seats), and, most importantly, the boys could walk to the bathroom when I needed to change their nappies. That way I didn't need to bother another passenger or a crew member to watch the other boy while I changed his brother.
    
• Don't stress about it!
  
• Just make sure you are as organised as you can be, accept all offers of help. The less stressed you are, the less stressed the kids will be!
  

Flying alone with the boys is definitely something that I would tackle again if I needed to. It was nowhere near as stressful as a lot of people make it out to be!
xxx

I have a good excuse!

I've been majorly slacking on the posts this month. I do have a pretty good excuse though! At the beginning of the month, I took Kason and Cohen back to New Zealand for three weeks. It was my Mum's 60th birthday, and she had NO idea that we were coming over! She knew that there was no way that Simon could get time off work, and she just didn't think that I might come by myself with the boys. My Dad knew we were coming and picked us up from the airport after telling Mum that he had a meeting in Auckland. When we got to their place in Hamilton, Dad carried both of the boys inside and I snuck in another door and videoed her reaction! Two of my brothers and their families were there for Mum's party too, although she knew they were going to be there. They didn't know I was going to be there either until my Uncle spilled the beans on Facebook...I was able to delete the message before Mum saw it, but not before my sisters-in-law discovered it!

Anyways, we had a (mostly) great time, but we all missed Simon something chronic. The boys faces when he picked us up on Sunday morning were just priceless, they both had huge grins for most of the rest of the day.
While we were there, Cohen got an eye tooth (strange, I know!) and a massive molar. Kason's are pretty close. Kase did, however, get a pretty nasty throat infection. He had a temperature of 39.2C which we could not get down, so we rushed him to A & E. It was a Friday night and there was a Rugby World Cup game on in the city. We weren't looking forward to the wait, but thought we might get taken through fairly quickly considering Kason's age. We got there and there was no-one else there! The only wait was while I filled in the form. Anyways, after a few days on antibiotics, he was feeling much better.

Got lots to do tonight, so I better go and get things sorted. I still have to sort out and upload my pics, so when they're done, I'll write more about our trip!

xxx