20 hour car drive: possible?

1MusicMaker · August 2009

We are thinking of driving home to the east coast for Xmas since plane tickets are so expensive right now (I know they may go down later, so we are going to keep looking). It's also gotten very difficult to fly with P at this age--it was so easy when he was a baby!

Is this even possible? Our plan was to drive about 6 hours in the evening to MO, where we used to live, and spend the night and visit friends the next day. Then we would head out around P's bed time (8 that night) and switch off driving through the night so he would sleep the rest of the trip.

He is a wonderful traveler; he has done an 8-hour car trip beautifully both ways and sleeps well in his car seat. Is this really possible/practical/insane? Any tips if we decide to do it?

stephm0188 · August 2009

I think it's doable. We made the trip to NJ in one day, and he was in the car for 13 hours. He never made a peep. Just give him lots of things to play with!

CEO1197 · August 2009

I think it's doable. I haven't done it personally, but my sister drove to Albequerque last month with her LO. It was a two day trip. They left in the evening to maximize the amount of time her DD would be asleep for the ride (rationalizing that she'd be less likely to be wound up if she was sleeping!). Then during the day they took their time, stopping frequently, and stopping early for the night.

She said her DD was unbelieveably good the entire trip. She hardly fussed or cried at all. I think the trick is just to not push them too much and stop frequently.

jenifairies · August 2009

with your child, possible. with mine, shoot me please. lol

last trip we took to texas (a 3 hour drive) it took almost 5 hours and she complained/screeched half that.

Mrs.Donkey · August 2009

This is my life. Since K was 8 weeks old we have been taking him on LONG car trips. His first was three days of driving from VA to TX. That, frankly, was a nightmare but for various reasons. Now it's really not that bad. We drive about 15 hours to St. Louis quite often. He tends to nap a lot more in the car, and I sit back there with him when he's awake and sing songs, play peekaboo, read books, and I have some finger puppets we play with.

We try to get him out about every two hours, even if just to let him run around for a minute while we take bathroom break turns. I would say it's very doable.

DelGrecoBride · August 2009

you can do it! our move from sc to texas was 20 hours. we drove during the day for two days and stayed the night at a mid point in Alabama. Brock did awesome. Only got fussy the last hour. we had lots of new toys and lots of new books for him and lots of snacks. This may be bad but we didn't even take him out to stretch...only to change his diaper. we were so afraid if we stopped every few hours tog et him out it would be tough to get him back in happy. for the most part somone was sitting with him the whole time...unless he slept. The DVD player was awesome...he loved it. its totally doable