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Driving overnight (road trip)

peachypearpeachypear
in Toddlers: 12 - 24 Months

Has anyone driven overnight for long trips?

We?ll be heading to DH?s family for Christmas. It is 8 hours of solid driving, 9 hours with minimal gas/potty breaks, and 12 hours with DD. We?ve made the trip with DD twice in summer and only survived by making leisurely stops at parks along the way. However, the weather will not allow us to do that this time, so we?re strongly considering doing the drive overnight.

Did your LO?s sleep well? DD doesn?t nap well in the car, so I?m worried that she won?t sleep.

Did you trade off driving? We?re debating whether it?s better for one of us to try to sleep so they can feel somewhat normal the next day or whether we should trade off driving.

Did you get a hotel for part of the night? We?re considering driving from about 8 pm to 2 am and crashing at a cheap motel so we can both get some sleep. Then we?d just have about three hours of driving the next day. I?m wondering whether that?s a good idea or too disruptive for DD?s sleep.

TIA

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Re: Driving overnight (road trip)

  • 1SwtWld1SwtWld member
    We have a 7 hour drive to get to family. Driving overnight is a disaster for us. G won't sleep. She screams the entire time. She does much better driving during the day. We also picked up a dvd player for the car which seems to really help. I really think g just loves her bed. So, if it were me in your situation, I'd get a hotel room overnight. I don't know how tour dd is so it's hard to give a recommendation. If we ever drive to ohio again, it won't be at night. That does not work for us. Good luck!
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  • ashgusashgus
    When DS was three weeks old we drove from western Oregon to Central California.  When he was 9 months old we drove from western Oregon to Northern Utah, both through the night.  That seems to work best for us as we drove just four hours during the day for Thanksgiving and it was a disaster, DVD player, snacks, toys and all.

    Did your LO?s sleep well? He slept just like he did through the night.  He doesn't STTN so this was nothing different.

    Did you trade off driving? DH drove the whole time and I slept in the back next to LO because he was going to be up and ready to go the next morning so one of us needed rest.  This worked really well for us.

    Did you get a hotel for part of the night? Nope we didnt.  It wasn't great sleep for me, and we just wanted to get there, so this wasn't really an option for us.

     

    HTH 

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  • kimberlyk921kimberlyk921
    imagepeachypear:

    Has anyone driven overnight for long trips?

    We?ll be heading to DH?s family for Christmas. It is 8 hours of solid driving, 9 hours with minimal gas/potty breaks, and 12 hours with DD. We?ve made the trip with DD twice in summer and only survived by making leisurely stops at parks along the way. However, the weather will not allow us to do that this time, so we?re strongly considering doing the drive overnight.

    Did your LO?s sleep well? DD doesn?t nap well in the car, so I?m worried that she won?t sleep.

    Did you trade off driving? We?re debating whether it?s better for one of us to try to sleep so they can feel somewhat normal the next day or whether we should trade off driving.

    Did you get a hotel for part of the night? We?re considering driving from about 8 pm to 2 am and crashing at a cheap motel so we can both get some sleep. Then we?d just have about three hours of driving the next day. I?m wondering whether that?s a good idea or too disruptive for DD?s sleep.

    TIA

    we just did a 12 hour road trip to FL for thanksgiving...

    1) our DS slept pretty well in the car, a few times he would cry in his sleep because he just wanted to get out and lay down in a bed. But we would just stop at a rest stop and change his diaper and he would be fine again after 5 or 10 minutes.

    2) we traded off driving, my DH was off the day we were leaving so my mom watched LO while he got some sleep during the day. He drove the first few hours, I took over around 3am for about 2 hrs. Then he drove again, then I finished off the trip at about 8am.

    3) If you can afford the hotel route thats a pretty good option. My husband likes to just get to where he is going so we didn't stop for the night.

    GL! 

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  • lwrigley2000lwrigley2000
    We did 16 hrs when DS was 14 mo old. We left around 3 pm and stopped around 6 for dinner and put his overnight diaper on him. I expected him to fall asleep but since it was still sunny out until 8 pm at the time he stayed awake until then and did fine. I drove for a few hours and DH did the rest. We stopped for gas and pee breaks and took a few cat naps at rest stops along the way. By the time we got to our destination DS was just getting up for the day but DH and I were BEAT UP!!! Thank goodness my MIL was able to watch DS while DH and I took a nap. On the way back we left at 9am and made longer stops so DS could run around and stopped at a hotel for the night. Left after breakfast the next day and got home around 4:30 after a day with longer stops again. DS did better then I could have ever imagined. GL!
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  • ablouablou member

    We've done two long car trips with Bean. One was Austin to Pensacola when he was 3 months old.  The other was Austin to Chicago when he was 6 months old.  Both were done overnight

    He is a good sleeper, and we did used to take Bean for a drive to get him to go to sleep.

    This is how we did the Chicago trip:

    My husband "went into training" a couple of days beforehand.  He stayed up late and took long naps in the middle of the day before the trip.  

    We left right after Bean went to sleep, and my husband drove through the night.

    In the morning (northeast Oklahoma.  And, yes, we listened to Oklahoma! and sang along with it), we stopped for breakfast, and my husband went to sleep in the car, and I drove.

    I drove diagonally across Missouri, and we stopped in Illinois between St. Louis & Springfield for the evening in a hotel. 

    The next day, we drove leisurely to Chicago.  We stopped and saw some sights (Abe Lincoln museum in Springfield!).

    We weren't as leisurely on our way home.  We left northeast Indiana at Bean's bedtime again, and switched off somewhere in Arkansas, and I think we switched off again somewhere in Texas. Drove straight thru; we wanted to get home. 

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  • dottymobodottymobo member

    We're doing 18 hours (under non-baby conditions) very soon.  Plan to leave at roughly bedtime, switch off DH and I driving as needed, and make some stops after DS is up for the day for him to walk around and get a bit of a break. 

    We take 2-3 hour trips fairly frequently, and time for naptime, which has gone fairly well.  He can get rough once he wakes up, but he will sleep. I don't envision all of our trip being pleasant, but no driving while he's awake would be, so the hotel scenario wouldn't do us much good.  Unless we paid at least 1500, flying would involve at least four hours of driving and a different set of hassles, so we're giving this a try!

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