Surviving New York With Twins: An Albee Baby Survival Guide

Dear Tom of six months ago,

You're currently standing outside a Pret A Manger in Heathrow Terminal 5, confidently holding two passports covered in a sticky, mysterious residue. Florence is attempting to dismantle a display of stale croissants with the grim determination of a demolition expert, while Matilda is screaming at a frequency that has just caused a business-class passenger to drop his espresso. You think you're prepared for this transatlantic flight to New York. You think the six bags of luggage, the oversized side-by-side double pram, and your naive optimism will see you through.

I'm writing from the future to tell you that you're an absolute idiot.

Put the croissants down, wipe the drool off your jacket (try to maintain some shred of dignity, man), and listen to me very carefully. The next ten days in Manhattan will break you down and rebuild you as a hollow shell of a man who knows far too much about the turning radius of high-end urban strollers. I'm writing this to save you a bit of suffering, a lot of money, and whatever remains of your lower back.

The catastrophic pram miscalculation

Let's talk about the giant double pram you're currently pushing toward the departure gate. You bought it because it looked brilliant on a wide, flat path in Richmond Park. It's a lovely bit of engineering. It's also roughly the width of a small tractor.

When you get to New York, you'll discover a horrifying architectural truth: Manhattan brownstones and 19th-century doorways weren't designed for modern British side-by-side prams. You will spend your first 48 hours in the city attempting to ram a luxury double stroller through cafe doors like a medieval battering ram, apologizing profusely to angry locals in your most pathetic, self-effacing British accent. You will try to take it on the subway. Don't take it on the subway. The subway smells like hot metal and despair, and there are no lifts, which means you'll end up carrying the entire contraption up three flights of stairs while Florence actively tries to throw her dummy onto the tracks.

By day three, you'll be so desperate that you'll Google "where to buy a pram that actually fits through a door in this godforsaken city." Which brings me to your salvation.

Finding sanctuary on Amsterdam Avenue

You will drag your broken spirit and two sweaty toddlers into a shop called albee baby nyc on the Upper West Side. It has apparently been there since 1933, surviving the Great Depression, the Second World War, and presumably millions of people just like you who underestimated the sheer logistical nightmare of urban parenting.

It doesn't look like our sterile high street shops in the UK. It's packed to the rafters with gear you didn't know existed. A lovely store manager named Selina will take one look at your defeated posture, your milk-stained shirt, and the fact that Matilda is trying to eat a price tag, and she will gently suggest you need multi-functional gear.

She will show you things like the UPPAbaby Vista (which stacks the children like bunk beds rather than sitting them side-by-side like a very wide, aggressive police patrol) and the Doona car seat that magically drops its wheels and turns into a stroller. You will stare at these inventions with the slack-jawed wonder of a caveman discovering fire. You will want to buy all of it. Oh, and by the way, if you do buy a pram there, make sure you actually want it before you open the box because returning unboxed gear will cost you a $40 shipping fee, so just make up your bloody mind before you rip into the cardboard.

A 3am descent into internet discounts

Because you're stubborn and cheap, you won't buy the new pram right there in the shop. Instead, you'll go back to the hotel, wait until 3am when jetlag kicks in and the twins are doing gymnastics on your bladder, and you'll attempt to buy it on your phone in the dark.

You will spend forty-five minutes on dodgy, virus-laden coupon websites searching for an "albee baby coupon" hoping to magically knock fifty quid off a premium luxury item. I'm telling you now, give it up. High-end baby brands practically guard their pricing with snipers, so traditional promo codes don't work. What you'll eventually figure out, through squinting at their massive e baby commerce site while Florence pulls your leg hair, is that they've a loyalty program called Albee Rewards. It gives you money back in store credit, which you'll immediately use to buy cup holders, because holding a scalding American coffee while wrangling twins is a surefire way to end up in an emergency room.

Medical advice I vaguely remember about strapping children to my chest

Since the double pram is useless for quick trips to the bodega (that's American for a corner shop that sells surprisingly good sandwiches), you'll end up buying two baby carriers at Albee Baby. One for you, one for your wife.

Now, Dr. Evans at our local NHS clinic muttered something to us months ago about hip dysplasia and "frog legs," which I mostly ignored at the time because I was functioning on four minutes of sleep. But apparently, when you shove a two-year-old into a carrier, you've to be careful about their joints. A pamphlet I read at 4am claimed that babies need to sit in an "M shape" to keep their hips developing properly, which sounds like something a yoga instructor made up, but the pediatricians seem quite intense about it.

They also bang on about the T.I.C.K.S. rule, which I had to look up while standing on a crowded pavement in Times Square. As far as I can tell, you just need to make sure the carrier is agonizingly tight, you can actually see their face so you know they're still breathing, you can awkwardly lean down and kiss their forehead without breaking your own neck, their chin isn't jammed into their own chest cutting off their oxygen, and their back looks a bit like a cooked prawn. Supposedly, wearing them like this releases oxytocin, the bonding hormone, though I'm fairly certain my oxytocin receptors completely burned out during the great teething crisis of last November.

What you honestly need to pack (and what to burn)

Since I've your attention, let's talk about the luggage. You packed completely the wrong things.

You thought bringing the Wooden Baby Gym | Rainbow Play Gym Set with Animal Toys to the hotel would be a stroke of genius to keep them entertained. It's a lovely, sustainable Montessori item when it sits in our living room in London, but dragging a wooden A-frame through JFK customs makes you look like a confused medieval carpenter. Leave it at home. They won't look at it anyway; they'll be too busy playing with the hotel room phone and ordering room-service chips.

What you desperately need to pack more of is the Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit Sleeveless Infant Onesie. You packed two. You're an idiot. On day four, Florence will experience a biological event in the middle of Central Park that defies the laws of physics. It will bypass the nappy entirely. Because the humidity in New York feels like walking through a bowl of warm soup, these breathable organic cotton things are the only garments stopping the girls from breaking out in heat rash. The fact that they stretch over their giant, squirming heads without getting stuck is the only reason I didn't lose my temper in a public park. Buy six more before you get on that plane.

But the single most important thing you're forgetting right now is the teething gear. The air pressure on the flight is going to agitate Matilda's gums, and she will attempt to chew on the aeroplane armrest, which is coated in decades of bacterial horror.

Please tell me you packed the Panda Teether Silicone Baby Bamboo Chew Toy Soothing Gum Relief. I know it has a ridiculously long name, but that little flat silicone panda is the only reason we didn't get kicked off the return flight. It’s small enough that she can hold it herself, and it genuinely reaches those back molars that are currently pushing through her skull like tectonic plates. At one point in an American diner, you'll order a glass of ice water just to dunk the panda in it to get it cold, which will provide exactly fourteen minutes of blissful, miraculous silence.

The absurd things Americans buy (that I secretly want)

While wandering the aisles in New York, you'll notice cultural differences. American parenting books always seem to suggest you remain calm and "center your breathing" when your child throws a tantrum, which I found deeply unhelpful when Florence threw a shoe at a pigeon in Battery Park.

They also have gadgets that we simply don't have on the NHS side of the pond. Selina at Albee Baby will ask if you've registered for a wipe warmer. A wipe warmer! In Britain, we use freezing cold wet wipes straight out of the plastic packet, and we assume the shock builds character. But looking at the heated, glowing box in the shop, I admit I felt a pang of jealousy. We live in a damp, drafty Victorian house in London. A warm wipe at 4am sounds like a luxury reserved for royalty.

So, Tom of six months ago, do yourself a favor. Abandon the giant pram in the hallway, strap a screaming child to your front like a tactical vest, and accept that you'll be drinking lukewarm coffee and apologizing to strangers for the next ten days.

You’ll survive it. Mostly because you don't have a choice.

Yours wearily,

Tom

Questions I frantically Googled at 4am in a New York hotel

Is it honestly worth going to the physical Albee Baby store?

If you're in New York, yes, entirely because the staff seriously know what they're talking about and will stop you from buying a pram that won't fit in your own hallway. It’s crammed and a bit chaotic, but seeing how narrow a double stroller really is in person before dropping a grand on it's worth the taxi fare up to Amsterdam Ave.

How do I get the military or teacher discount there?

They call it the Albee Heroes discount. If you happen to be a teacher, first responder, or medical professional, they'll knock up to 20% off certain items. You have to verify your status through a third-party thing at checkout online. Sadly, "exhausted former journalist" doesn't qualify as a hero in their system, much to my annoyance.

Can I take my massive UK double pram to New York?

You can, but you'll hate your life. New York pavements are crowded, the shop aisles are tiny, and subway turnstiles are actively hostile to anything wider than a single human. Get something that stacks the kids vertically, or just use a lightweight travel buggy and a chest carrier.

What happens if I order gear to the hotel and need to return it?

Unless it's damaged, think very carefully before opening the box. They charge a flat $40 return shipping fee for heavy gear, and if you’ve taken a stroller out and wheeled it around the hotel lobby to test it, they usually won't accept the return at all. It’s not like buying a jumper on Amazon; baby gear returns are brutal.

Is babywearing genuinely bad for my back?

My GP always says it depends entirely on how badly you put the thing on. If you let the baby hang down by your belly button, your lower back will scream within ten minutes. If you hike them up high and tight so you can easily kiss their head (that T.I.C.K.S rule thing), the weight distributes across your shoulders. Either way, after carrying twins all day, you'll definitely need a hot bath and some ibuprofen.