Traveling and LO's sleep (please forgive me..a little long and I'm irritated w/DH)

kbeach82

DH wants to go to NY this weekend to see his parents (it takes us about 4 hours to drive there...IF traffic cooperates). I am irritated that he sprang this on me last night because he knows how long it takes me to get all of my stuff and all of V's stuff ready for a trip, but that's another story.

Originally he wanted to leave this afternoon, but it looks like he'll be too tied up at work to leave at a decent time. So now he's decided he wants to leave tomorrow morning (and still come back on Sunday...seems like a lot of hassle to me for one night, but whatever). V has just recently started STTN (for those of you with LOs that are not STTN yet, I swear I know how lucky I am). He goes to sleep at 10:00, wakes up between 5:00 and 6:00 to eat and get his diaper changed, and then goes back to sleep for another 3 - 4 hours before being up for the day.

DH wants to leave tomorrow morning after V wakes up for the first time in the morning. I know that most likely he will fall asleep in the car once we get on the road, but I feel like we would still be disturbing his sleep schedule. I would rather wait to leave until he's up for the day. What do you think?

Kmhsswim

I am all for the sleeping in the car thing.  But that is because my LO actually does fall asleep in the car.  We just did a 7 hour trip last weekend and we ended up getting up, feeding her, giving her some play time and then when she was ready for her first nap, we got in the car and drove.  She napped for just over 3 hours which gave us a good chunk of the ride down.  We pulled over so she could eat, gave her some time to kick around and got back on the road.  She hung out awake and happy til it was time for her to eat again.  Hope you have a fun trip! 

ITGurl0626

Like pp my LO falls asleep in the car pretty easily.  If it were me, I would leave after the 5am feeding.  Pack everything up the night before & put it in the car.  Then right after the 5am feeding, put LO in his car seat & be on your way.  That way when you arrive your LO is getting up for the day, refreshed to see his family.  But that's just me because I know my LO likes to sleep in the car. 

ManiacMcGee

You will probably screw with his sleep schedule, but really that is unavoidable at some point. I say do it. You can't stay home forever planning things around his naptime

sarahbeth827

We just did this same thing. We drove 7 hours to Idaho. I fed LO when he woke up for the 1st time and then he went back to sleep in the car. It took him about 30 minutes to fall asleep in the car because he was super excited at the change.

kbeach82

Thanks ladies. We packed last night, LO woke up at 5:45 this morning, and we've been on the road for about an hour now. He was definitely excited about the change, but has been sleeping on and off. He's been fine for trips in the past, but we've always left in the afternoon before. Hopefully he'll get some good sleep throughout the rest of the drive. Otherwise he may be cranky for the in-laws who will somehow manage to make it seem like my fault that he didn't get enough sleep. Ah family. Blah!

weelass24

Get as much of it done as you can while LO usually sleeps.