Eight hour car ride with 15 month old
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Anonymous
| I’m shocked to see so many posters saying they wouldn’t do the drive or they would only do it at night. We take 7-8hour drives twice a year, starting when my kids were about a year old. We leave in the morning, cause I’m not a good night driver and didn’t want my husband to be stuck with the whole drive himself. We leave around 8am and only stop 2-3x. The biggest thing to remember is that every time you take a baby/toddler out of the car seat they won’t want to go back in. They will cry and it will be difficult toward the end of the drive. Once I have set my expectations low, the drive goes better. Some tips: only give the tablet when they start fussing/crying. If they are content, let them be. Keep toys up front and pass back one at a time so they aren’t bored by hour 3 of your drive. Bring LOTS of snacks. Find a soundtrack of favorite show, baby shark, nursery rhymes…anything familiar and play it on the car stereo if the baby starts to cry the last hour and you just want to get there. We have tried breaking up our drive by staying in a hotel and it just didn’t work for us. Our baby couldn’t get settled in the hotel and the next day he didn’t want to get back in the car. It works better for us to drive straight through. |
Anonymous
| We live 8+ hours away from one side of the family and have done long car trips since our kids were very young. We always leave at the crack of dawn and are at my in-laws around noon/early afternoon. Neither of us likes to drive at night and didn’t want to arrive with our kids ready to go and us exhausted. It’s different for everyone but we were lucky that ours would sleep until we were over halfway there and generally good car travelers. |
Anonymous
My 5 year old would not have agreed to put it on. And she definitely wouldn’t want to pee or poop in her pants in the car. There would be a lot of crying about how it’s gross and asking to stop in a bathroom. My 3 year old would put on pull-ups without issue but would still be asking to go potty when he had to go. I just can’t imagine kids (without SN) tolerating a diaper full of urine and feeces. |
Anonymous
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For a long drive like this, I prefer to leave early in the morning. Driving all night would just leave us wrecked the next day… with a toddler who is raring to go.
Pack the car as much as you can the night before. Start with a full tank of gas. Leave whenever kid wakes up — go straight into the car after a diaper change. Do not change clothes, do not serve breakfast. If kid settles and dozes, great. If not, start doling out car breakfast bit by bit: Cheerios, pieces of salami, toast fingers, slices of fruit, a pouch of yogurt. (My kids were early and enthusiastic self-feeders with good tongue and palate control. For those who were late to leave the purée party, adjust as necessary.) From there, it’s a game of never stopping unless you have to. And if you have to, combine activities. You don’t just get gas — you let the kid run around, the adults go the bathroom, and ideally you combine with a meal or snack. DHs who opt to exit a quiet car off the highway “because I want to get another coffee” are taken out and shot. We generally get a good 3-hour stretch between stops. Pack entertaining novelties like painter’s tape, magnets and a cookie sheet, new board books with flaps, and some sort of busy box with levers, latches, Velcro, etc. |
Anonymous
| Expect it to take 11 hours |
Anonymous
My kids get car sick, so long drives like this stress me out. We need to take breaks, and driving when they're sleeping at night make things so much easier for us. |
Anonymous
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We’ve done this at that age and it went fairly smooth. We try to keep the drive aligned with their schedule as much as possible. So we leave in the morning, they eat breakfast in the car. I usually sit in the back and read to and otherwise entertain and make sure they stay awake. Me in the back is enough of a novelty that things usually go well. We stop to eat lunch if they’re restless but if they’re pretty chill they eat lunch in the car. We stop and eat outside if they’re very fussy, and let them play outside and run around either way. Then back to the car and they usually fall right to sleep. We stop after nap for a snack and more running around. Then back to the car and it either goes well or that’s when they get a video, a new interesting toy, and all the snacks they want. We usually need to add in an extra diaper change stop or two, and always let them run around for about 15-20 min when we do.
For an 8 hour drive it usually ends up taking us 10ish hours, and sometimes longer because we’ll stop for a play break to avoid rush hour traffic depending on where we are. We try never to have to rush, because I think for us play breaks are key. |
Anonymous
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We drove from NYC to Maine when my daughter was 12 weeks. With traffic, it was close to 12 hours coming back. We also had two dogs. You'll survive. Get sun blocking screens for your windows (you can get them on amazon), have extra formula or breast milk within easy reach as well as diapers and wipes. If you're nursing, be prepared to nurse in the car and if you are pumping, make sure that you have a pump that doesn't need to be plugged in.
My husband and I have always gone places with "our traveling circus" - dogs and kids. I find the longer you delay and build up travel the less you do it, because it comes so scary. We have friends with a 3 year old and 6 year old and they have only traveled 2 hours from home ONCE since having their first. |
Anonymous
This is what we do too- my parents are around 7hrs away as well (well, really more like 9hrs with the kids). We've driven around twice per year to them since they were each around 3 months old. I'm not a huge fan of night driving, but our route to get there is not all major highway so not many places to stop that would be open 24hrs, plus parts of the route are not well lit and prone to deer. I would think about these things before committing to a night drive. My sister once fell asleep at the wheel at night and crashed into a tree (was fine, thankfully) so that always makes me a bit wary too. I drove back from Cape Cod one time at night on my own, and it was super miserable- thought I'd be avoiding the CT traffic only they were doing night construction on I-95 so there were tons of lane closures and it still took forever. |
Anonymous
I want kids to get their energy out. Being strapped into a car seat for 8 hours and only getting out 2-3 times for an unspecified time (likely shorter than 45 minute) won't work. |
Anonymous
To each their own. I've done several long distance trips through the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. The animals are present night and day, but the traffic is next to non-existent at night. I've also done numerous trips up and down the eastern seaboard and looped to the Mississippi. Again, I prefer the back roads during day time and the freeways at night, but I use Waze to plan around construction. |
Anonymous
NP. I have 3 young and very energetic kids. Going on a car trip with them once or twice a year is not a big deal. I agree with the pp, just bring lots of snacks, stop at playgrounds, and download some music your kid likes. |
Anonymous
This is so funny! And so true.... |
Anonymous
PP here- just pointing out that OP should consider the circumstances of the route and comfort driving at a time when they’d normally be sleeping. It may not always make sense for every driver and every route. |