how long did it REALLY take for your baby's first passport to arrive

[DuelingFanjo]

The passport/gov site says 'a minimum of six weeks' we fly in 6 weeks time.
Am I really going to have to fast track it or waddaya recon? can I risk it if I pop itinto the post today? (we have a passport office locally)

Well I just did 'check and send' at the post office for DS2's on Wednesday. We go abroad 3 weeks tomorrow.

Mine took about a week (not fast tracked). That was in February I think. None of ours have taken that long...but maybe we have been lucky.

were these your baby's first passports or renewals?

good luck Alibaba, let me know if it comes. DH is favouring fast-tracking so we may do this but if it were just my decision I would probably risk it.

First passport.

When we did DS1's we used check and send, and it only took just over a week - so i've got my fingers crossed!

A week.

This is probably quite good time as the peak flying times i.e. school holidays are a couple of months off yet.

Each time ours has taken less than 2 weeks, with the normal postal service.

If you do the passport check and send service it's quicker. We did our baby DS's passport about a month ago - it took a litlle less than 2 weeks.

DEFINITELY do check and send or Fast Track.

The Post Office will OK the photo or not - otherwise it could take 10 days before the whole thing comes back because the photo isn't OK. Baby's photos are tricky...

DS's renewal took 2 weeks, check and send.

The holiday season is coming up so the service could get slower.

Just got ours back the other week. Took just over 2 weeks, that was without check and send. We also had to retake a photo.

Mine arrived yesterday morning and it took 10 days.

I used the Post Office Check and Send Service and really checked that the photo ticked all the right boxes.

Ours just arrived!!!! Yippee holiday time!
Send it last Tuesday - no check and send no fast track - tight we are!!!

I used the paspic site which checks the photo is of the right quality and so on so hoping this is a guarantee that the photo is ok, anyone else used them here

Ours both took about a week, that was without any check and send.

Our first ones took about about 2 weeks just dones renewals for mine and my girls and they only took 2 weeks. I would do check and send as it the first one just in case

I just got my two back this week -one renewal and one babies first passport.
They took about 10 days.
I took both photos myself , baby photos are less strict as don't have to be directly facing camera etc but I just sat my baby in a bumbo against a White wall and got a face on shot no probs (she did smile though !!)
My 5 year old was the same -just stood her against a White wall .
I don't use check and send as last time I did my sons renewal I did check and send and something was missing and the post office hadn't even noticed. Best get someone else to double check everything for you but not sure there is a point to paying someone at the post office for checking it over.

Thanks all, we sent it off today using check and send. I am a bit annoyed because the post office woman told my DH we need to send off our wedding Certificate because i don't have the same name as him but I KNOW this isn't true. Meh. I think the post office people don't really have a clue half the time.

was it a replacement? I was under the impression that they can't do the fast track for a first pass-port.

about 2 weeks & that was over Xmas too - I was very impressed.