When my twins were younger, a lot of the trips outside the house were avoidable just because of the logistics. However, one unavoidable trip was grocery shopping with 2 infants. THAT required some planning and major thinking outside the box. So here are all the possible configurations that I tried
- One baby in carseat in cart + one baby in carrier: This works when one baby is asleep and needs to stay sleeping in the carseat. I kept the seat inside the stroller so this limited the size and amount of things I could pick. As the babies grew older and bigger, this configuration also limited the time of the trip to how long I could sustain the whole big baby in carrier business
- One baby in single stroller + one baby in carrier: Same as number one except this time I'm limited by the size of the stroller basket. I got a mommy hook (thanks to Melissa's post) and reusable shopping bags which allowed me to hang some bags off the stroller and increase the number of groceries I could get for the trip
- Both babies in double stroller: This worked for a trip where I wanted to browse the aisles leisurely and wasn't getting anything bigger than the stroller basket. The mommy hook was also a bonus for this
- One baby sitting in shopping cart + one in carseat in shopping cart: This works from when the babies can sit up unassisted but one was asleep when the trip started. Groceries limited by space left in cart. Shopping time limited by attention span of baby sitting in cart
- One baby sitting in shopping cart + one in baby carrier: Good for when both babies can sit up and both are awake. The whole shopping cart is available for the groceries but shopping time is limited by the comfort of the baby carrier
Both babies sitting in shopping cart: I loved it when I could finally do this. Felt like I added a little red medal on my Super-Mommy uniform. This works for when both babies can sit up. The only stores I know that can accomodate 2 kids in the cart are Sam's Club and Costco. I hear some new Target carts can do this as well but have not seen them yet.- Both babies at home with daddy: :)
Buying Tips
- The carriers, mommy hook and cart covers can be purchased from Amazon
- Etsy has a wide selection of double cart covers which can be personalized, but I confess to finding them a bit pricy.
- The cart cover in the picture is an out of stock one from BabeEase which was cheaper at $37. I had to email them to get a warehouse leftover
- The Baby Bjorn carrier is good for an awake baby as the baby can face out and observe the goings on while the Infantino Ergonomic carrier was better for the sleepy baby as it offered good head and neck support.
