Navigate the journey of infant travel as I learn the way I do best- trial and error! I took the liberty of scouring books, blogs, and online groups to learn the ins and outs of infant travel and then tried for myself.
To get a US Passport you’ll need to bring the following:
- Legal parents of baby and baby
- Birth Certificate (not copy)
- Identification of parents that show both citizenship status and photo identification. Your Passport (and a copy) works or if you are also applying for one then a Driver’s license/government ID and a social security card or actual birth certificate (not copies) works.
- A check or money order made out to the US Department of State.
- Car seat for baby and white sheet
- DS 11 form filled out (you can also fill it out there- but you’ll need your baby’s social security number)
Baby Picture Rules
Eyes can be closed but baby must be facing the camera, no “exaggerated facial expressions” which include big laughs and cries, and hands can’t cover the face. The face also has to be within the guidelines of the frame. It’s easier said than done!
The best way to get the picture taken is with bringing a carseat and putting a white sheet around it. Otherwise the baby can go on the floor or be held by a parent but hands must be behind the sheet since they can’t be in the picture and the sheet must not be too crinkled in the background.
You can take pictures yourself at home and print them out in 2 X 2 dimensions but it’s quite hard. Our attempts were not accepted, and we opted to pay the $10 to get them done there professionally. See below for some of our failed attempts taking a picture at home!
To expedite or not to expedite?
We had plenty of time to get our passport prior to our first international trip and so we opted not to expedite. Generally I recommend getting it 2 months prior to your trip to be safe, however 4-6 weeks you can probably get away with if you live in a metropolitan area. Ours arrived in about 3.5 weeks. There are centers where you can get your passports the next day, and companies that will do next day passports for you but that’s best in case of emergency since it’s pretty expensive and you need to have immediate travel plans!