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October 2011 Moms
Scramblersmom
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Tell me about your longest car ride with your LO.
Scramblersmom
member
How long was your trip for? Did you make several stops for breaks or just drive as long as you could? Is there anything you wish you had done differently or are that certain things you did that worked great?
I have to travel on business again in 2 weeks and it will be a 10 hr ride by car one way. DH and DS will be coming with me. The trip going will be the roughest as we need to get to our destination within 1 day. The return trip will be a bit easier as we should have nearly 2.5 days to camp and fish our way back home. Any info you could offer would be greatly appreciated!
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Re: Tell me about your longest car ride with your LO.
Both DH's and my parents live about five hours away from us, in our hometown. So for holidays, we have to make the drive.
At Christmas, it was no big deal. DD was only eight weeks old and slept the whole time. We visited again over Memorial Day and it was a different story. She was about seven months.
The night we drove there, we just did DD's regular bedtime routine and put her in the car seat instead of the crib. It worked out really well. She slept the whole night. It was rough on us, though, because there was a lot of dark driving in the middle of nowhere.
The drive home we did during the day. It was way harder on DD. She took an hour long nap at the beginning of the trip and then go super fussy. One of us had to sit with her in the back seat for the next hour. We stopped for lunch and let DD play for a long time at the restaurant, changed her and let her stretch out on the grass for a bit. We got back in the car, she napped for a bit again, freaked out again and had two dirty diapers. It took us a little over seven hours. She's just too excited about being mobile to sit still that long.
We're trying the whole thing again for Labor Day. She'll be around 10 months, then. We'll see how it goes.
Burned by the Bear
We go to AZ a lot, and its a 5 hour car ride. DS does well in his regular convertible carseat, he usually sleeps the majority of the time, and we make one stop along the way, usually to change his diaper and let the dog do her business. I usually feed him either bottle or solids at the stop or while strapped in his seat. The last time we went up for Father's Day, he was in my Mom's convertible car seat. He did not like it at all. He was ok for the first 30 mins. but after that he was whining since he was too upright to sleep. He eventually fell asleep, but he looked so uncomfortable. He usually likes it when one of us is sitting in the back with him. By the way, my mom returned the car seat.
Oh yeah, bring lots of snacks, and some favorite toys.
Here's DS sleeping uncomfortably.
BFP Chart
OCT 2011 Moms Blog5 hours. We stopped once midway for a diaper change and a meal at a diner. She did great but we had brother and sister in back for entertainment.
In Jan/Feb we are driving from Minneapolis MN to southern TX. 23 hours! Our plan is to get a sitter for Violet on a Friday while the kids are in school. I will take some sleeping pills and sleep the day away(I do not sleep in cars). Then I will wake up around 5-6pm and we will get loaded up. We will leave around 7-9pm at night. MH will drive until he is tired I'm guessing 1-2am and then I will take over. I will drive until at least 7-8am. We will eat breakfast, change her diaper, and clothes. Then H will drive 9-3. I hope to be at least in Wichita by then if not Northern TX. We will get a hotel room and veg/sleep and then drive 11am-5pm/destination on Sat.
On the way home I think we will break the trip up into three days if this technique doesn't work.
We took DS to the Uk to meet the family when he was 6.5 months and did just over 800miles in 6 days.
The longest in the car was 5hrs . and he slept the whole way so it was easy. The times he was awake we just made sure he had a few favourite toys to hand. We attached them to his car seat so he didnt drop them.
We also made sure he had his water bottle so he cld drink whenever he wanted - and he drank quite alot.
I wasnt driving so was also able to hand him some of little snacks - Organix carrot sticks- to provide some variation.
I like the car temperature to be on the cool side - so he also had his bedtime blanket which I think helped him sleep well.
I wldnt go longer than 4-5hrs in one go tho. I think thats long enough for a babe to be strapped in to a car seat. besides thats about as long as DS goes between nappy changes and feeding anyway.
So Id stop least at half way thru your 10 hr trip. even if it?s just for 30mins to have a walk about, and some food and a fresh nappy for your boy.
good luck! hope the journey goes well for you
I drove about 450 miles with DD recently. The trip usually takes about 7 hours, but with three kids under 5 along for the ride, we took our sweet time (12 hours). We left at 5 am. DD unfortunately didn't go back to sleep right away after transferring to the car, but she fell asleep within an hour and slept until her usual 8 am. We stopped for her regular bottle times (8, 12, and 4), as well as around 10 am for the rest of us to eat. What really made the trip longer is that we didn't set any kind of time limit on breaks, which we should have done to keep to some kind of schedule. She didn't really cry or fuss unless it was getting close to nap or meal time. She actually napped around her regular nap times and for about as long as she regularly naps.
I was a lot more frustrated with the adults on the ride, really.
If we do it again, I want to try leaving around 1 am. H and I are good at pulling all-nighters, and I think she could sleep relatively normally. Then we would only have to stop a couple of times.
We've driven from southern to northern Ontario (about 8 hours) several times so far with DS. The first couple times were a breeze because he just slept the whole time. As time goes on we have to add more and more stops.
We usually stop 3-4 times, but only one is longer than just a few minutes. And we always make sure to get gas before we get too low so that we don't have to worry about needing to stop to fill up if DS is sleeping. Its pretty much guaranteed that if we stop, he'll wake up.
I always bring a bunch of different toys, but only give him a couple at a time so I can keep rotating them so he doesn't get bored too quickly. I also pack "toys" like tupperware containers, wooden spoons, and other household things that he always finds way more interesting than his real toys.
The only solids he has while we're on the road are usually when we stop for lunch or dinner (depending when we leave) because I don't want to give him snacks while he's in his carseat and when we do stop, its only long enough for him to BF.
Definitely count on your LO taking a huge poop at some point on your drive. They're usually pretty good at timing it when you are furthest from a gas station also.
Our longest trip was 14 hours in the car with LO. We drove from PA to GA in one day. Since DD sleeps pretty well in the car, we left at bedtime and drove through the night. She slept from about 8:00pm to about 6:00am int he car. During that time we just kept driving and only stopped to fill up the tank as necessary. Once she was awake, we stopped for breakfast to give her some time out of the car seat and a chance to eat some solids. (We just fed her bottles in the car while we drove We had a cooler bag that we kept bottles in).
When she was awake, one of us sat in the back with her and played with her. We had a bag of various toys on the backseat so that entertainment was easily accessible. We also had a few new toys (little teethers, etc.) that we broke out when she was tired of the toys she had.
Stop for meals. It gives LO a chance to be out of the carseat and stretch. Figure you have to stop every few hours for a diaper change. We would just get off to the side of the road and change it right in the car, so we made sure we had diapering supplies easily accessible.
We had a GREAT time on our road trip. We can (and will) do it again!
My biggest advice is just to try to time getting in the car with naps or bedtime...it helps a LOT if they sleep at least part of the way.
7lbs 13oz 20 inches long