Traveling with LOs

[hannahl201477]

This may be discussed somewhere else but I dont remember it. We are going to the beach in a week and half it will be a 7.5 hour trip. What are the best ways to travel with little ones? Drive at night? I feel the trip isn't long enough to break it up but we would if we needed to.

[mrsmonogrammed]

We have a 12hr drive coming up in June and are planning on leaving around midnight so DD will sleep for a good stretch of it. After that I'm planning on loading a few baby shows on the iPad and keeping a bag of new toys (aka birthday presents) to hand her as she gets bored. We'll make frequent stops and plan to let her out to stretch her legs for a little bit too:) and snacks! Lots of snacks!

[Deleted]

We've had the best luck traveling with our kids early in the morning. So we usually leave at 630 or 7am. Fill up you're gas tank the day before. Don't stop under any circumstance (wink wink) if your baby is sleeping! Just enjoy it for as long as possible.

I've had nightmare trips traveling w kids at night. They get scared not being in their bed and scream in the car forever. Also it's safer to drive during the day. Nighttime equals tired drivers or drunk drivers

[Deleted]

The longest drive I have done is 11 hours. You should be fine doing a 7 hour.

[erbear]

We did six hours to jersey. It went fine! we stopped for breaks when she was awake and had snacks and toys for her. I read books to her and had them for her to play with. She only got frustrated during the last hour-half hour or so when we were in more stop and go traffic.

We left around 9 am there and back. With breaks, we got there and home around 5:30-6, so we had a few hours to account for breaks and lunch and stuff.

[jillywilly]

Our trip was 13 hours each way. On the way down, we left at bedtime, drove for about 5 hours until midnight, just before we were going to get into the mountains, and then stopped at a hotel for the night. The next day we left I think somewhere around 7 or 8, and made it by about 5:30 with stops. He did really well on the way down doing this. On the way back, we left at 5:30 a.m., made it home around 9, and that was probably the worst day of parenting to date - he slept a total of mayyyybe two hours in the car that entire time, and was DONE by the time we got home. The real breakdown happened the last couple hours though, so your drive time should be ok.

Our cardinal rule was, if DS is sleeping, do not stop unless you're literally going to run out of gas. Whoever wasn't driving was in the back seat to help entertain DS, rotate toys, and hand out snacks. We also bought him a couple new small toys/books that we saved for the trip so he had some new things to keep him entertained. Also, his favorite thing naturally wound up being empty water bottles we would give him once we were finished with them.

[Widget123]

PP have good suggestions. If you are in the back seat to entertain him, you may be pleasantly surprised. As long as he is fine, keep going, and save the stops for when it is absolutely necessary.

[sabrinaml]

Just got back from a 8-9 hour drive. Going there we left around 6:45. He played in the car for a while. We stopped to feed and change him. Then he slept from 8:45 until we got there and went back to sleep right away.
Coming home we left at 9am. He was due for a nap around 10:30. He played until he fell asleep around 10. Slept until just before we stopped for lunch. Stopped for about 30 minutes. Then he played again until around 2. Fell asleep. We stopped again around 4. Diaper and bottle. (Bottle was given in the car seat)
Lots of snacks and sippy cups ready. Toys- some of his favorites and several new ones. We watched the Elmo slide on my phone several times. I crawled into the back and sat with him twice. 1st time for about 30 minutes (until just before he fell asleep for his second nap) and the second time when he was really over being in the car about an hour from home. But even then he did really good with me sitting back there.

[billyhorrible]

I'm a huge fan of traveling after dinner/ bath so the kids sleep in the car, but that's not always feasible after a full day of work.

On our most recent car trips (8 hours and 15 hours) we left in the morning and then just stopped every 2-3 hours to eat, stretch or legs, etc. The 8 hour trip BH pretty much screamed the whole way there and half the time back, but the 15 hour trip he slept most of the way there and back.

Bring lots of snacks. That seems to keep my kids happy.

[musicfrk2002]

Jun 3, 2016 13:04:50 GMT -5 @akwild said:

We are leaving for our trip in about two weeks. M is a great car traveler but we have never been on a plane. I plan to bring toys and snacks. But my question is are pouches ok past tsa? I don't want to bring some just for them to take them away.

It doesn't say anything regarding pouches, but I would imagine sealed ones would be considered the same as canned/jarred baby food. Maybe call and ask? Or bring one or two and see what happens?

[tatersalad]

Just had a chance to check in here. I've never had trouble with pouches while flying. Drove 12 hours with kids a few weeks ago and leaving at 4am worked best for us. Great suggestions from PP and safe travels!