Question: My husband and I have been matched with a mom expecting twins any day now. One topic that was a particular stress point for us that we found difficult finding resources on was the logistics of flying/traveling with a true newborn, let alone two, and handling the waiting period for ICPC (Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children). We're working with a national agency and in our particular case, we live in Texas and our twins are being born in New York. We have a lot of questions.
- Is it better to fly or drive?
- Weighing the risk of communicable disease in an airport vs the risk of driving cross-country while sleep deprived
- What the options if flying - carseat, plane bassinet, or carrying the infant?
- How to travel and feed the infant - powdered or pre-mixed formula?
- What is needed for the stay away from home while waiting for ICPC?
Resources:
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Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Welcome everyone to Weekend Wisdom by Creating a Family. I'm Dawn Davenport. I am going to be answering questions in our Weekend Wisdoms. We keep it to about five to ten minutes or that's the goal.
And we're answering your questions. So send us your questions. You can send them to info @creatingathamily .org. Today's question is from Brandon.
He says, "My husband and I have been matched with a mom expecting twins any day now. One top it that was particularly strong." stress point for us that we found difficult finding resources on was the logistics of flying,
traveling with a true newborn, let alone two, and handling the waiting period for ICPC, interstate compact for the placement of children. We're working with a national agency and in our particular case,
we live in Texas and our twins are being born in New York. We have a lot of questions and he lists a bunch. of questions that I'm going to answer. Brandon,
you are my type of dad. I read this and I thought, yeah, these are the same questions I would be asking and I smiled the whole time and I'm really looking forward to answering them.
I'm gonna answer them. There is no 100 % right way to do this. So I'm going to give you my opinion, okay? So that's what this is going to be. His first question is, is it better for you?
to fly or drive? And what distance does it make sense to do each? Good question. In my opinion, it is almost always better to fly. Driving with an infant,
a newborn can be stressful depending on where they are and how sleepy they are. And sometimes newborns will sleep a whole lot and they'll sleep while you're driving and it will be no problem at all.
Other times, they're not going to be and they're going to be awake and you're going to be struggling with them. But I have no fear of flying. I feel comfortable flying. So I think from my standpoint it's influenced by that.
Certainly if it's just a couple of hours by all means you would drive. What distance really kind of depends on where you're from. One of you can sit in the back seat in between the two car seats and you can drive that way.
So if it were me, if it was over probably about four or five hours, I would fly. And if it was under, I would probably drive. He also talks about the risk of communicable diseases in an airport versus the risk of driving across country while sleep deprived.
And he's going from Texas to New York. So for me, that would be a no -brainer. I would absolutely fly. And you're just going to have to work out your comfort level. You know, if you're flying, don't have people people getting in the face of the babies,
which most people, quite frankly, are not going to do. He asks, "What are your options for flying, whether to take a car seat, using the plane, bassinet, or carrying an infant?" I have flown a lot with infants,
and I just carry them. I find that to be the easiest. Also, I am a huge believer in baby wearing, especially when traveling, because your arms are free, so I would.
investigate what some of the baby pouches and slings, there are so many of them. I love most of them. You strap the baby on, you have the two of you, you would each have a baby.
You can then have your arms free. When you're sitting, you can have your arms free so you're not holding the baby. You take them out when you're feeding them. It allows you to pat their back and rub them when they're fussy.
So I think it's a great idea. And you also ask a question. using an infant carrier versus a car seat, navigating the airport, that it would also be a no -brainer for me. I would absolutely,
those car seats weigh a ton. And so I would not want to have to be carrying them all around. I would put the baby in a front pack. They have carriers that are specifically designed for newborns. They usually grow with the child as the child grows,
but it would well support their head. I get one that's comfortable for you and your husband and just... that's what I would do. Then he has a bunch of questions about feeding newborns in traveling.
He says powdered formula needs to be sterilized for infants under two months. Formula prepared at home is only safe at room temperature for a certain amount of time. Pre -mixed shelf -stable formula takes a decent amount of space.
So how would you handle this? I would absolutely go with the premixed shelf -stable. stable. I would not buy any for the flight up. I would wait till I got there, find out if the babies were born small.
They may have been in NICU and they'll have a specific formula. The hospital will usually send you home with some type of formula. You may want to try to get whatever formula the babies tolerated well at the hospital.
Then I would buy while you are waiting for the ICPC to be completed. you could just buy enough for the time you are there. And yes,
it's gonna be more expensive, but at this point, it's not for a particularly long period of time. And then I would buy enough for just the flight home with the assumption that you may have some unexpected layovers,
so I'd buy a bit extra, allocate room in your, not your check's luggage, but your carry -on luggage for this. That's how I would handle it. it. Would you check baby items on the flight?
Yes, I would, but keep in mind that you need far, far fewer items than you think for newborns. We're going to talk in a minute about where the baby's going to sleep, so I won't go into that,
but you would need to handle that. You would need change of clothes. Assuming how long you're going to be there, you would need some clothes, but you could also assume you're going to wash. I would buy diapers there.
You really don't need a whole lot of bottles, obviously, but you really don't need a whole lot of other stuff for newborns. We overestimate dramatically what's actually needed. I will say that for fly,
you didn't ask this question, but I would check with the airlines about flying with a newborn. I have heard that some airlines require a letter from a pediatrician saying it is okay to fly.
I will say that. personally, I have never had that experience. I've never had anybody look at me sideways or done anything. I just get on with the baby. I've heard from others that they did not have that experience, so you may want to check ahead of time.
Some additional questions from Brandon are how to navigate car seats in a rental car. Do you rent car seats or buy one? I'm assuming you meet when you are in New York.
Well, there's two ways to handle it. You can use the ones from the rental car or if you have not bought car seats for home, you can buy car seats there and don't buy them at home.
Buy them up there so you can use them while you're in New York and then you can check them on the flight home and then you would have them for your drive from the airport in Texas back to your house.
So you have two options for how to handle that. He said, where is the baby going to sleep while traveling? I would get... get a pack -and -play. They are easily packed up for travel.
They're intended to do that. And you are going to use those pack -and -plays so many times. When you go to grandparents, if you're going over to friends' houses and want to have to put the kids down over there because you're going to have an evening over there,
whatever, you will utilize the pack -and -plays a lot. And so you might as well buy them for this trip. Buy them in New York. so you only have to ship them home one way or buy them ahead of time and send them up there either way.
And his last question is how to pick a place to raise infants for the first few weeks when you're staying out of state for the interstate compact for the placement of children, which is the regulation that handles placement of children between states.
And it can last anywhere from a couple of days to a week or so. Your adoption agency will tell you. To me, that's a no -brainer for me. He says a hotel versus extended stay versus Airbnb.
I would go Airbnb 100 % of the time and I would look for one with a dishwasher and a washing machine, the dishwasher for sterilizing bottles and washing machines so you don't have to pack a bunch of clothes for yourselves or for the babies and you can wash them fairly easily.
And that's what I would do. Like I said, Brandon. Brandon, this was such a fun question for me because it's a type of things that I thought about and like thinking about. And so this was a lot of fun.
Thank you for sending in the questions. And do the rest of you guys, please, please keep those questions coming, send them to info @creatingathamily .org. And guys,
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Thanks, guys.