Road Trips with the boys

Tomorrow the boys are going on their first family road trip. I live in Georgia and heading to North Carolina, its a 8 hour trip. The longest the boys have been in the car is an hour and half. They are 5 months old. Does anyone have any advice? Normally they do great in the car but I don't know what to expect. How often do we need to stop? Since they can't sleep in their cribs what can I do to help them nap comfortably?

 

Tomorrow the boys are going on their first family road trip. I live in Georgia and heading to North Carolina, its a 8 hour trip. The longest the boys have been in the car is an hour and half. They are 5 months old. Does anyone have any advice? Normally they do great in the car but I don't know what to expect. How often do we need to stop? Since they can't sleep in their cribs what can I do to help them nap comfortably?

 

They should sleep a good portion of that ride. I would definitely stop a few times to stretch yourselves, change them and get them feed up... have some stuff available for them to play with in their hands too. Some puffs and things would be good to have them try...

Are you staying somewhere where they are have a PNP? Are they sleeping together? or separately? I would have them sleep the same as at home and I would bring blankets and anything else they live (mobiles etc) so that they feel like most things are normal. Have a good time!

 

They have their own portacribs and I am packing every toy my dh will let me pack.

 

We just returned from a trip from NC to PA and back to NC. My little ones are 7 months and do well. I suggest packing several of their favorite toys for them to play with in the car. My DS napped fine in the carseat; however, DD got fussy because she wanted to lay down. I felt really bad for her. I ended up getting her out of her carseat for about 5 minutes and putting her on my chest in the back of the minivan. She was out and transitioned easily back to the carseat. Of course, this was after trying everything first. This was our second road trip. I'm normally not a great passenger; however, the twins kept me entertained. Good luck and have fun!

 

We took a 10 hour road trip when the babies were 5 months old (it would have been an 8 hour road trip, but we took our time)! We packed our meals and stopped at parks to get some fresh air. We stopped at two parks, and each time we stayed for an hour. We had a large blanket in the back so that they could lay on it and "play" for a bit. By the time we were ready to get back in the car, they were tired again!

Fortunately our kids took binkies, so we had a million of them ready to go if we needed too. We also put up those mirrors on the headrests, so that we could see the kids.

We left really early in the morning, so that they would still sleep. And as long as they were sleeping we DID NOT stop.

They are so little at that age, that you just have to roll with the punches. Be prepared to stop a lot. We were pleasantly surprised and did not have to stop too often!

 

We have done a trip to NC from NJ that normally takes about 8 hrs. When we did it with our girls at 4 months it took us 11 hrs!!! By the end of the trip they were screaming their heads off b/c they were bored and were just sick of sitting in their car seats. To be honest, it was absolute ****.

I am not sure if you would want to do this, but the second time we took that same trip we drove through the middle of the night. They slept the ENTIRE time. It took us 7hrs and 45min. We are going to make that trip again next week (all of our family is in NC) and we are going to do the same thing. They are almost 8 months old now.

We did their bedtime routine the same, but put them down in their carseats instead of their cribs. Then we packed up the car (which took about an hour) and high-tailed it to NC. We kept blankets draped over their carseats and kept the radio on low volume. We got to NC around 3:45am and put them in a darkened room still in their carseats. They woke up at about 7:10am - the normal time that they wake up. Now, we have family in NC and so they were able to help take care of the babies the next day so that my husband and I could catch up on sleep.

If you decide to do this and have any questions, please feel free to PM me.....

 

They will do fine. If the weather is nice, stop at a few rest stops, and get them out in the stroller, for some fresh air every once in a while.

I took mine on a 5 hour road trip when they were 6 months old, and they did just fine, they slept for half of it.

 

We took a trip from CA to OR and back at that age. Like pp's, it took alot longer than normal, but we weren't in a hurry. I sat in the back between the girls, so that helped. They did sleep alot, but definitely were DONE being in the car by the end. We actually pulled our travel trailer so we could take them back there for diaper changes, stretch out, etc. I also took several books to show them, and even propped big colorful board books up so they could look at them when they wanted to. Good luck!

 

I just come back from a road trip on Monday. I took a six hour drive to visit my mom. I left at the twin’s bed time and they slept the whole way down. They woke up briefly when I stopped for gas but they went right back to sleep. I would suggest traveling at night (if it’s possible) because they will probably sleep the whole time.

 

When my 7 year old was about 3 months we went on a huge road trip (I think it ended up taking us 6 days driving about 8 hrs per day , what were we thinking???). Like someone else said, driving into the night was great, I didn't feel quite as guilty about having them strapped into the car for so long. We also took long breaks during the drive, an hour or two at a time. For sleep, the best thing was a lullabye tape or cd that we could play in the van. We would just turn up the music a bit and before long they would all be asleep.

 

I've done this trip many many times and just did it by myself with all three of them. I think the big thing is to LOWER your expectations in terms of time it will take. Add a stop every 2-3 hours of being in the car, leave at a nap time, stops should be at least 45 min of out of the car seat time usually up to an hour and a half. What would take us 7.5 hrs without kids usually takes 10.5 with them. Take your time, allow lots of time, plan to have to stop on the side of the road to give snacks, and enjoy your trip.