Would you travel 10 hrs with an infant?
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Anonymous
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7 months old? Yes, def. I’d fly, but whichever sounds most appealing to you is fine.
Particularly if she’s still on three naps, and sleeps well in the car seat, that’s a good age for driving. Leave before first nap, drive during each nap, plus a smidge before/after, that prob gets you 6 hours during the day, then you can do the last four hours after bedtime. At that age, my son was still doing a dreamfeed, so i could have just fed him when we arrived at our destination while my husband setup the room. Would have been really smooth. |
Anonymous
| Nope. BTDT. NOPE. I wish I could write that in a bigger font. NOOOOOOOOPE. Traveling that long with babies or toddlers is just hellish. |
Anonymous
I should add that we’ve done both long car trips and extensive air travel. COVID has been a gift because there hasn’t been any pressure to fly to see fragile relatives who can’t come to see us. I should add that our trips are longer, so that may be coloring my opinion a bit. Still team Nope. |
Anonymous
| 10 hours of driving is far less safe than flying are you crazy?! People’s risk assessment of car trips is so wildly off. |
Anonymous
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I would do it, but I'd break up the trip into two days each way. Leave after dinner, put baby in pajamas, and check into a hotel late after about 4-5 hours of driving. Be sure to pack one suitcase with everything you need just for the hotel. One adult goes in and gets the room keys/travel crib set up and gets the baby's sleep sack ready for transfer. Then you bring the baby inside (in the car seat with the cover shielding baby's eyes!) with lights off in the room to transfer baby to the crib. Then finish the drive the rest of the way the next day after breakfast. That way the baby is not in the car seat for too long in one day. Pack a picnic lunch (or stop for sandwiches), bring a picnic blanket with you, and find a park to eat lunch in along the route to let the baby stretch her legs and roll around. (Finding the parks is pretty easy--I just look at major towns along the route, look for green space on the map and then read reviews.) We just did a trip like this in August (with a toddler and a pre-schooler) and it worked great. Everyone was happier after an hour in a park than a terrible service station or fast food along the route. I plan to continue this even when the pandemic is over.
If your baby is eating solids, I highly recommend a travel high chair like this Fisher Price one. I've brought it to many a picnic lunches with my kid and to relative's houses. I like that it has a cover and a built-in tray that goes in the dishwasher (and when I'm on the road, I just shake off the trash, wipe it down and put the cover on until I get to my destination to actually wash it). The back folds down so it's more compact. https://www.target.com/p/fisher-price-healthy-care-deluxe-booster-seat/-/A-79926201?ref=tgt_adv_XS000000&AFID=google_pla_df_free_online&CPNG=Baby&adgroup=30-9 Friends have this Hiccapop one too, and like it. It's more portable, but the tray is less useful: https://www.amazon.com/hiccapop-Omniboost-Portable-Grandmas-Tip-Free/dp/B078K1W9B3/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=portable+high+chair&qid=1633531381&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzTkc4RzQxMk04NkpVJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNzAzNTA5MVFTQ01XRlowNUNXWSZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNzUyNzY2MzBKMTVTRUdEVE9QSyZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU= |
Anonymous
| Do not fly. My kids are now 17 and 19, but one of the top two worst memories I have of parenting was a 12 hour transatlantic flight with my 1 year old daughter. |
Anonymous
How is a 10-hour road trip going to be longer than a 12-hour flight? |
Anonymous
Eh, we did a similar drive when DS was 13 mos. Depends a bit on the kid, but they are adaptable. Older DD was potty-training, so we did take a couple small breaks...but it was NBD. I also did a 14 hour flight alone with DS when he was 7 mos old. |
Anonymous
| Op this is totally baby dependent. My friends have done multiple 8 hour trips in the last months to spend time with family between the ages for 4 months to baby is now 8 months. From her reports it has been mostly totally fine. As long as you don’t hve a car screamer (like ALWAYS screams in the car) it’s totally doable. Just take breaks at rest stops and take baby out on a blanket in a grassy area every few hours. People are being seriously dramatic. My friend also did a lot of night driving as baby slept well in the car and that made it faster. Pre-covid we flew cross country to Seattle, then road tripped up through British Columbia about 4-5 hours away with our 5 month old. Had a blast and we didn’t have a particularly easy baby. You can totally do this if you want to. It’s a limited period of time, you just have to prep a little and go for it |
Anonymous
Pp here who did British Columbia trip and this is what I would do too. Make it a two day drive and it will likely be no big deal |
Anonymous
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I would just fly.
If you are set on driving, then I would leave right before afternoon nap and hope for a long nap in the car, and then taking a few breaks. Then basically plan on driving as long as you can late at night so your baby will be asleep anyway. I had an infant who scream cried in the car, and I could never, ever have done this and stayed sane. But your baby may be chiller! |
Anonymous
+1. For what it's worth, I have an 11-month old and we have flown with him three times. I talked to my pediatrician and blessed it. Obviously there is risk but she said the biggest risk is to babies under 4 months, and that after that the risk to an otherwise healthy infant is very low. |
Anonymous
| I'd probably just plan to wait a few months until there's a pediatric vaccine and fly. Maybe reassess if the timeline gets pushed back. I know people are saying fly now, but I would not be comfortable taking an unvaccinated family member on a plane to then go visit a newborn. Plus if you go a little later they'll be out of the fourth trimester. |
Anonymous
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We've been doing 10-11 hour road trips with our kids since my oldest was about 2 months old. It's fine. We planned stops every 2-3 ours or so depending on nap schedules. During the stops we'd get them out of the carseat to move around, feed them, change diapers, etc.
My kids were good sleepers as infants so we would leave really early in the morning (5 or 6am) and drive during the day. As they each hit 18mo or so, it became harder for them to be in the car so long so we switched to traveling at night while they were asleep. That was really difficult on us so we switched back to daytime traveling as soon as we could. We still do long road trips every year to visit family. My kids, now 8 and 6, are great in the car. That said, if it was a short trip, I'd consider flying. I don't mind long road trips when we are going for 2 weeks at a stretch (which is what my family does) but it's awful driving for 10 hours and having to turn around and do it again 3 days later. |
Anonymous
The idea of driving overnight when the adults (and the other drivers on the road) are sleepy as a way to avoid COVID exposure is just too much. The risk of a serious accident in 20 hours of driving in the daytime is probably greater than the risk to the infant from COVID, let alone driving at night. |