Long car trip with an infant?

[Anonymous]

At what age can you start taking a child on a long car trip, and how do you make it tolerable? While my family is local, my husband's family lives in another state. Our baby is 9 months old and has never been to his dad's hometown. Pressure is mounting for a visit, particularly since we missed Christmas due to Covid. I love my in-laws, but it's at least a 7-hour drive without traffic. I realize we will have to stop to feed our son, plus I've read that babies can't shouldn't stay in a car seat more than 2 hours, so I feel like this drive will take forever. How have others managed this? (And yes, we're working on convincing my in-laws to come here instead, but I know we will have to make this trip eventually.)

[Anonymous]

We drive to Florida to see my parents when ds was 9months. His sister did the trip when she was 4 months. The first trip was to Fort Lauderdale, so we drove to Savannah and spent the night there. With the second trip, we did it in one long, painful drive. Everyone was in tears. 😂

You leave as early as you can, like it’s dark out. You plan for stops where you can nurse, stretch and change diapers. We packed food and use rest stops so as not to waste time. A 7 hour trip would be a non-issue for us. If you left at 6am, you could easily be there by 3pm with frequent stops.

[Anonymous]

I drive to CT regularly with my now 22 month old and have been since he was 6 months. we try to mimic bedtime and start the drive around 6pm so he's basically just going to bed

[Anonymous]

What about traveling during the night?

We did this a few times. DH was the driver and he slept during the day. He woke at 5 pm and we had dinner. We put the baby to sleep and then carefully transferred him to the car. I think we pulled out at around 8 pm.

He slept 4 hours straight of 8 hour trip. I had also napped a bit during the day and ended up dozing off in the car for a few hours, woke when the baby did, we stopped and fed him. He was awake for maybe 30 mins and dozed back off. He had another stretch of 3 or 4 hours of sleep where I slept as well. He woke when we were about 45 mins from our destination and we did a final stop to feed. I think we arrived at our destination at around 6 am. DH and I slept for a few hours and MIL & FIL had baby duty.

My Ped said you can relax about the 2-hour rule once their necks are stronger and they have good head control. She still recommended checking on their head position and breathing every hour.

[Anonymous]

7 hours is totally doable! We did an 18-hour trip when DS was 12 months old. We broke it up into 3 days of about 6-7 hours of actual driving per day. We'd leave around 8 and stop 3-4 times over the course of the day for nursing/diaper changes/eating/carseat breaks, usually reaching our destination at around 4 or 5 pm. We made sure that we were always on the road during normal nap times, and he definitely took naps during most of those windows. We had an adult in the backseat with them to read books, sing songs, play with toys, etc. DS got antsy at the end of each driving day but otherwise did great.

[Anonymous]

I have two kids. Older gets horrifically carsick so ages 1 to 2 were horrific for travel in general, but our best plan was leaving mid morning and stopping every hour so she didn’t throw up all over everything. This does not vibe with my younger who is happy to zonk out in his car seat for 3ish hours if we let him but does not want to be stuck in contractions for more than 6-8 hours (honestly can’t blame him). If you get one like my younger, head out when they’re tired and try to do the trip with one long stop in the middle where they can get out and play properly. If you have one like my older, line the carseat with puppy pads and be ready to stop every 30-45 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Do it asap!! It gets sooooo much a harder once they’re mobile - then they don’t want to sit that long!

You’ll have to play with it a bit to see what works for your kid. My kids napped well in the car seat at that age, so I would probably have left in the morning, about 20 mins before 1st nap. Have one parent sit in the back and keep baby awake a few minutes, then at nap time, lower the shade on the seat and hope she naps for two hours. Then, see if you can vamp a little more. If she’s bottle fed, you can feed her in the car seat. See if you can get 3+ hours in the car. Then stop for a long lunch. Find a place you can lay out a blanket do she can wiggle, feed her, hold her. You guys eat. Back in the car, again 15 mins before nap time, repeat. If you get 3 hrs under your belt for each nap, you can do a shorter pit stop and then power through the last hour. That’d be my approach for the first one, anyway.

You’ll figure it out, but the only way it’ll get less intimidating is to try it!

The hardest time for car travel, IMHO, is 10-18 months. Get a visit under your belts now!