Monday, March 11, 2013

Tips for: traveling (by car) with a little one

Here are a few tips that we've discovered to make traveling (by car) with a little one less burdensome.

Our king suite w/ divider for Enoch's pack n play
  • Try to drive around their sleep schedule when possible (meaning, plan to drive your long stretches when they should be sleeping)
  • Pack a few "favorite" toys and save the best ones for the inevitable meltdown that happens when you aren't able to stop (keep them where you can grab them easily and pass them back).
  • Book your hotel strategically.  For us, this means looking for a king suite that has a divider between the bed & living area (see photo) so that we can set up Enoch's pack and play in the living area without him being able to see us (he really does best at falling asleep when he can't see anyone and it's darkish).  Depending on how you've trained your little one to fall asleep though, your preferred hotel arrangements might differ from ours.  I've found TripAdvisor to be a fairly reliable tool for finding just the right hotel (at the right price).  
  • Bring plenty of healthy snacks because let's just be honest, eating on the road is less than healthy... (We really like fruit cups and/or apples & oranges because they travel well... bananas, not so much...  And Cheerios are always a good staple to have with you as well because they're not too messy for the carseat.)
  • Remember that your little one is more important than your schedule.  Stopping to work through a meltdown (or two... or three...) is okay, even if it makes you late (I have to remind myself of this whenever I end up making more stops than expected with Enoch!).  
Any tips that you want to share about traveling (by car) with your little ones?

2 comments:

Love ya, Mom! said...

My little girl got car sick a lot. Bring extra towels and wet ones : )

Unknown said...

Haha, that's right! I don't remember it as a wee one, but I do remember needing to stop a lot as a young girl... especially on curvy roads! Glad you brought the extra towels & wet wipes, Mom. :)

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