Twin Flying List

So, since coming to the US was intended to be a surprise for our friends and family, we couldn't blog about our myriad preparations for coming to the US. Now that our vacation and family time is over, I'm looking forward to blogging about several aspects of our trip (not all in one post, though).

First off, I spent a fair bit of time researching lists for flying with twins. Almost all of the lists I've found are obviously not intended for really long international flights. This is our packing list for our trip from Delhi to the US and then from the US back to Delhi. Our travel time to the US was about 22 hours door-to-door. Our travel time coming back to Delhi was 30 hours due to a delay, a missed flight, and a rerouting through Frankfurt. Even with the additional 8 unanticipated hours, we had more than enough formula/diapers/outfits to make it to our destination.

I thought it'd be interesting to compare the list that we used going to the US and then the list that we used coming back to India (the quantities are listed as totals for both children: i.e., 32 diapers total, not 32 diapers per child):

Diaper Bag List (In the Cabin With Us)
Item	First Trip	Return Trip
Diapers	40	32
Wipes	1 travel pack	1 regular size pack
Receiving blankets	2	0
Fleece blankets	2	4
Onesies	8	4
Footed Pajamas	0	8
Socks	4	4
Formula	2 cans	1 can
Formula dispensers	2	2
Bottles	4	4
Travel size dish soap	1	1
Thermos for cold water	1	0
Thermos for hot water	1	1
Gas drops	1	1
Bag for dirty diaper	1	1
Bag for dirty clothes	1	1
Burp cloths	6	4
Hats	4	2
Extra nipples and bottle parts	4	2
Pacifiers	4	4
Pacifier covers	2	2
Pacifier bag	0	1
Facial tissues	0	1
Hand sanitizer	1	1
Extra Dad clothes	2	2
Moby	2	2
Decitin	1	1

You can see a few small changes between our first trip and our second trip. On the whole, we took way too many things for the first trip, and too many things for the second trip. I'm glad that we had everything that we took, but on the return trip we didn't use a third of the diapers, 2 of the blankets, half of the onesies, half of the socks, any of the dish soap, any of the extra bottle parts, the extra dad clothes, or the decitin. Maybe for our next trip across the ocean I'll be even more daring and cut down on our items even further. On second though, probably not! Our return trip list worked quite well.

I'm going to write more about the overall experience of our travel adventures, but let me say straight off that the cabin crews on the trans-Atlantic flights were phenomenal. Big kudos to Continental. They really took care of us by cleaning bottles, fetching hot water, carrying bags, and the occasionally refilling our wine glasses when we didn't even ask for it.

All in all, the trip was wonderful. There were many moments of bliss (and a few moments that were less blissful). I'm looking forward to telling the story of our trip over the next few posts.

Happy travels to all,
Douglas