We’ve lived in Colorado for a month and a half now, and it feels like a milestone.

No more airplanes. Not for awhile, at least. It’s actually not at all true, now that I think about it, as we have a big trip around the country and then to England planned for sometime in the next year—but we have no tickets booked so travel feels farther off than it has for a long time.

The kids and I have flown from NC to New Mexico once and Colorado three times in the past eight months, and I finally feel like I have the hang of traveling with both of them together.

Mostly alone.

Yep—fun stuff. But also, it was easier than it ever was with one kid for one simple reason: once my daughter was born and my son turned 2, I was required to buy him his own plane ticket, and that changed everything.

Prior to this legal requirement, I was too cheap to buy my tiny toddler his own ticket; he sat on my lap and squirmed and fought me and you can read all about the trip that made me never want to travel again here. He was miserable; I was miserable; everyone around us was gracious and kind and did a fantastic job of hiding the fact my psychotic one year old with his inability to stop moving was driving them crazy.

How was this insanity going to compound with two children?

The car seat on the airplane + how they entertained each other + my perfectly behaved angel daughter’s constant reminder that I was still an okay mom = there was no compounding.

It was easier in every aspect except for how much I had to carry.

I have since been on seven planes alone with both kids (my daughter was between 5 months and 1 year and my son was 2) and I’ve got this.

You’ve got this too, anxious mama, and I’m going to share with you what I learned so you can garner all the wisdom without any of the pain of learning via mistakes.

IMPORTANT: This list pertains specifically to traveling with two kids but you can check out my lists for traveling with baby here and traveling with toddler here—the two posts linked prior are the basic helpful tricks for traveling with any child, such as what snacks to pack and how to stay confident while your kid is losing their crap at 30,000 feet.

I know you want to get to the part where you read the tips and decide for yourself whether the trip you’ve been debating is manageable or if you’re insane for even considering it, so without further ado…

Tips and tricks for traveling alone with two kids:

1. Double strollers get you priority. Airline regulations say you cannot bring a stroller of a certain size, such as a jogging stroller, to the gate so I always assumed our double stroller was a no go. Then I spotted another genius mom with her double stroller, brilliantly checked at the gate. The next trip, I, too, brought my double stroller and they sent me to the special assistance line because “double strollers are so hard to navigate!” If you have any doubts about your particular stroller being too large, ask the airline beforehand–I have the Britax B-agile double stroller for reference.
2. Bring a car seat on the plane. As long as the child with their own seat is still car seat-aged and the car seat meets airline regulations, you can bring it on the airplane and put it in the seat you bought for your child. My toddler never stops moving but he knows once he’s strapped in his car seat he’s not getting out—so he didn’t even try. Game changer.
3. Ask if there are any empty seats. Usually, if there are empty seats on your flight and you’re alone with two kids, flight attendants will do what they can to help you out, including moving the person in the third seat next to you somewhere else (also helping that person out.) Ask if there’s an empty seat you can be next to and if you need a break, you can put baby in car seat and toddler in empty seat just to switch it up. If there is an empty seat and you have your second car seat with you, see if you can bring both seats on the plane. Baby can also sleep in extra seat with creativity—see captions on two pictures of sleeping kids below.
4. Before you go through security, check car seats you don’t need for the plane. It’s free, and then do you don’t have to drag it through the airport. You have enough to carry already. Make sure to remove any loose pieces beforehand so they don’t get lost. Tip: car seats and strollers usually come out at oversized baggage, not the regular luggage carousel.
5. Let people help you. I am always a sad sight traveling alone with my two kids. People want to help and I want to be able to do it myself so I don’t want help, but really—I need lots of help. People have held by baby, carried my bags, held my toddler’s hand so he didn’t run off, chased him down when he did run off. Remember kind lady in my previous post who I left my son with as I sprinted through the airport? A flight attendant on our last trip pushed my stroller all the way through the massive Denver airport to arrivals. I couldn’t have done it without them. Don’t be scared; don’t be proud. Help is good.
6. Pre-board. I never pre-boarded with one kid because then it was just extra time to make him sit still. With two kids, multiple carry ons, and the need to strap in my toddler’s car seat, I have to pre-board while there aren’t a million people around or I’ll knock someone out with a bag/kid as I try to maneuver down the aisles. And with the car seat, I don’t have much of a problem getting my toddler to sit still anyway. Problem solved.
7. If at all possible, do not overpack what you take on the plane. You have enough to take care of between both kids–but if you’re like me and and you don’t like to pay (or wait) for checked baggage, most airlines will allow you to take one carry on and one personal item per traveler. Frontier makes you pay for carry ons but you can take a personal item on for each traveler and a diaper bag for each child so that comes out to five free bags with you and two small kids. Pack wisely.
8. If acting as a pack mule is inevitable, do it wisely. I have a system: toddler in one side of the double stroller, convertible car balanced in the other. You can rig it to stay by tying straps together—trust me, it’s awkward but possible. Heaviest carry on bag placed in car seat in stroller. Other bag/diaper bags hung around stroller handle. Everything else piled on top or placed underneath. Backpack on back, baby in front, and hopefully your baby’s car seat was checked before you went through security or else you can fit that on top of the convertible car seat too. It’s precarious and incredibly heavy (not to mention a pain to take it all apart to go through security) but when you only have two hands, you do what you gotta do.

When you’re with your husband, it pretty much stays the same except you have four hands instead of two and no one feels sorry for you being by yourself. Also your husband might get stressed about traveling with kids and then you’ll have two kids and a grump of a husband—all in all, it can be even better to travel alone.

My dear friend, you can totally do this, and if you try and it’s a disaster, allow yourself to walk with me as I reminisce from my first plane trip with both kids from NC to NM. Feel free to use my misfortune as a basis of comparison to make you feel better about yourself–check out the post here.

You’ll do better than me, I promise—and if you don’t, you’ll be the super mom who by some miracle managed to get her psychotic kids on the plane and she survived!

But you will really do better than me because you now know the secret sauce.

Take the trip. It will not be a walk in the park but it will bring so much more goodness. Your kids will grow from traveling and you can conquer this just as you’ve conquered every other hard thing in your time as a mother.

You, mama, are brave to do this. You can do this. Take the trip.

Check out my tips for traveling with a baby and why it’s a fantastic idea here.

And tips for traveling with a toddler here, because it’s totally different and a million times harder.

And finally, the prerequisite–how not to travel with two kids.