9hr flight with twins - carseats on flight?

[Bellabellaaa]

Hi - We are moving to E Africa with our 19 mo twins and taking car seats with us (lightweight kiddy pro seats). I can't decide if taking the seats on the flight will make life easier or harder. On the plus side, they will be restrained, hopefully sleep in them, and less stress on my back (which is bad). On the down side, they will be so cumbersome to take through security etc plus double buggy and everything else. My husband is convinced we should put them in the hold, which raises another concern - will they get damaged there and how to protect them? Any advice much appreciated. We are flying with BA. Thanks.

Have you paid for seats for the children? Even if you have you will need to have them on your lap for take off and landing and when the seatbelt sign is on.

BA have strict rules on what car seats they will allow on board - have you checked that yours would be acceptable?

I've put car seats in the hold and not had any problems - wrap well in plastic.

Thanks for that, and the tip on wrapping in plastic. Yes, we've got paid seats for the children. I'm gong to ring BA and get their advice.

We recently travelled to Australia and in the check in queue we were behind a family with twins (same age as yours). They put the double buggy and their car seats in the hold and had no problems with them at the other end.

When I travelled long haul with DS1 (18mths at the time), he had to sit on my lap for take off and landing, but found sleeping with his head/feet on my lap comfortable.

BA should be very helpful though. Just make sure the car seats are wrapped well in plastic Cwutches said.

Good luck

Just taken one and put in the hold on a BA flight. It was fine, but wrap them really well. Wrapped in plastic would be really good, (we didn't do this, but wished we had), beg or borrow big plastic bags with a zip around i.e. duvet one.

We did enquire at check in if they did that 'cling film' wrap thing, but Terminal 5 don't. Good luck!

We have one of these and it's great. Makes it easier to carry a car seat through the airport as well.

Agree with other posters, check with the airline as only certain car seats will be allowed (need to be able to be secured with a lap belt iirc).

You need to have a CE marked 5 point forward facing car seat. We have travelled BA with DS on a car seat and it was easy peasy in flight. Without (virgin ) not so much.

It can be a pain to drag through the terminal but worth it on board. We also har the sunshine kids bag and we or a foldable trolly to lash it to so we could pull it.

I know an Australian lady who flies long haul a lot and does this. Makes sense to have them somewhere they can be restrained!! You also know they won't get damaged that way.

I would put them in the hold. You will have enough on your plate without having to deal with car seats as well.

They will sit on your lap during landing and take off. But in between its better to have them mobile and able to move around freely.

Also you will have two seats for each adult and DT, o you can spread yourself about in a way that you couldn't with a car seating the way.

My DTs clocked 12 countries by the the time they were 2 and we never took car seats on the plane.

Actually, I've changed my mind!

If you can get a night flight then definitely car seats and they can sleep though the whole flight.

But if a day flight, I don't think you can keep them restrained for 9 hours!