We recently took a road trip from Iowa to North Carolina, then to Tennessee and back to Iowa. We spent over 35 hours in the car (2300+ miles!) with our one year old and survived! I wanted to share what we tried, what we took and what we learned in case anyone else likes to be stuck in a car with a toddler for endless hours. 😀
You can check out the photos from our trip here.
If you want more travel tips, check out my Mom Life-Travel board over on Pinterest!
And now… How to (HAPPILY!) Survive a Road Trip with Your Toddler!
This post does contain affiliate links, which just means that if you purchase something through my link I get a small percentage.
Things to Take in the Car
- Calming music (we use Google Play, and my son’s favorite station to sleep to is “Epic EDM” – don’t ask)
- Extra blankets
- Any favorite toys, lovies, blankies
- Clip fan (Logan was so enthralled with his fan, and it kept him from getting too hot in his seat since he is a blankie kid. :D)
- Auto Mirror
- Ipad/tablet and tablet holder
- download Youtube videos for offline viewing
- download Netflix episodes and movies for offline viewing
- Toys for the road
- “new” (These can be toys you hid away for a few weeks prior or small new toys! We hit up the Target dollar spot!)
- household items (Because given the choice between a toy and a ladle… you know what they’ll choose!)
- games, discovery items, magnet board
- We used a small cookie sheet as a magnet board and an old plastic coffee tin with holes in the lid. Logan loved sticking straws into the tin more than the magnets, but he played with both.
- Bubbles!
- Boppy
- If you are nursing, the benefits are obvious. 😀
- We are no longer nursing, but it’s Logan’s favorite pillow to snuggle up with (even in his carseat, silly guy).
- I also used it as a travel pillow and it was great!
- Water, Milk/Formula, snacks, bottles, sippy cups, utensils
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- You never know what rest stops will have. 😀
- Encourage your child to drink water often. Kids can easily get dehydrated and/or constipated on long car rides.
- A few thoughts on snacks…we chose things that we easy for Logan to feed himself as well as were easily …dissolvable? 😉 Basically, think least amount of choking hazard. We went with cheerios, muffins, belvita-type crackers. Also – their carseat will be a disaster. Just be okay with it.
- Our favorite cups (that don’t leak unless thrown with excessive force #boymom) are both from Munchkin. The cups on the left have weighted straws, so the liquid is accessible no matter where you hold the cup. They come with a tiny straw sponge and you can buy replacement straws for $2 on their website. Only downside is that the plastic piece that flips up over the straw pops off very easily. The cup on the right is the 360 cup – it’s most like a typical cup but without the spillage. They were AH-mazing when Logan transitioned from the bottle, and he still loves them.
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Things to Pack
- Baby proofing items (Depending on where you are going and how long you’ll be spending there. Having items to baby proof are so nice and relatively easy to stash in a bag!)
- baby gate (We ended up purchasing one once we got the the cabin to keep Logan off the stairs to the loft in our cabin.)
- socket protectors
- door and cabinet locks
- portable sound machine
- plug in night light (We actually got ours from the hospital where we delivered Logan, but I linked one that looks so fun!)
- baby monitor (This is the monitor we used when Logan was an infant. So inexpensive and has GREAT sound – you can hear everything! We put him in a different room whenever possible because we all sleep better that way, so this was awesome to have.)
- bath supplies
- a few small toys, soap, tub drain stopper and possibly a bathtub mat
- Toys (Just keep it simple – they’ll be busy
terrorizingexploring the space so they won’t need ALL the toys.)- THINK small, easy to keep track of, favorites
- Logan’s match box cars, orange ball, and drumsticks made the cut.
- THINK small, easy to keep track of, favorites
Things to Try on the Trip
- Keep the seat next to your child open
- You can sit back there the entire time or hop back and forth like I did. 😉
- Play games, read books, get out activities – anything to keep them happy and entertained.
- Don’t get all the toys/activities out at once. Stage them so that they have a new thing every half hour or hour to keep them interested.
- Take your child out of their car seat at every. single. stop. – food, rest stop, gas station, side of the road when you’re switching drivers.
- Just a few minutes out of the seat helps!
- This isn’t the time to monitor screen time! (In my opinion, of course.) If watching Mickey on repeat keeps them happy for an hour or more, do it! Logan doesn’t get much screen time and I honestly didn’t think it would hold his attention, but it really did! It was a life saver.
- Know you’ll most likely add AT LEAST 2 hours to your drive time (not including stopping for food).
- Develop a rhythm.
- Ours looked something like PLAY (out of seat) –> EAT (out of seat if possible) –> CARSEAT PLAY (games/activities/books with mom or dad) –> MOVIE/SHOW –> SLEEP
- Each time he woke up, we tried to find a place to pull off so that we could start the cycle over. It didn’t work out perfectly, obviously but it definitely helped break up the drive and kept us all happy.
- PLAN AHEAD.
- Will you split the trip up and stay in a hotel or drive into the night and crash where you end up?
- Everyone’s budget and travel style is different. We chose to drive into the night, and Logan is typically a good car sleeper after dark (though he struggled on this trip).
- How far are you going to travel each day?
- Where will you be staying? Hotel (try to book a suite for more space), Air BNB (we loved ours – they even had toys!), with family (talk to them about the room(s) you’ll be staying in)?
- How will you divide up the day? Rest stops? Parks? Sight seeing? Restaurants?
- Have a plan when you start so that you can divide up your day accordingly and keep your child on some sort of schedule. No one wants a wide awake baby when it’s time to finally sleep at the hotel. 😀 😀 😀
- Will you split the trip up and stay in a hotel or drive into the night and crash where you end up?
- Keep a pool bag with everyone’s essentials packed separately from the other luggage in an easy to reach place. Just in case!
- Keep the diaper bag fully packed.
- This one seems obvious, but I almost chose not to fully pack it with extra clothes and diapers until we arrived (I’d packed a box of diapers in the luggage rack on top of the car.). It was really handy to have it all ready and packed. We also have a changing pad that unrolls and has sleeves for diapers and wipes that I keep under the car seat. That was awesome to have for roadside diaper changes!
- Pack your child an “overnight” bag.
- Pack 1-2 outfits, jammies and sleep diapers for your child in a separate bag (or in the diaper bag) so that when you get to the hotel on the way you don’t have to lug ALL your luggage inside. (lug your luggage…is that why it’s called luggage? or is that why it’s called lugging … ANYWAYS :D)
- I ended up packing Logan’s overnight stuff along with a change of clothes for myself in my toiletries bag. Then I only had to grab that bag and the pack n play on the way into the hotel. Which was awesome at 3am.
- Invest in a portable high chair.
- We use ours ALL. THE. TIME. This is the one we have and our only complaint is that the tray isn’t as level as we’d like, since it’s material. We love it though, and it was so nice to have on the drive, at the beach, at grandparents’, at the park, at hotels, at the cabin…
Overall, things went well! Logan didn’t sleep at night the way we thought, and having a budget that allowed stopping overnight more rather than driving so much would have been nice. But we made it and it was fine (which means you can too!). One thing we did talk about buying and taking along was actually a little portable vacuum. Because he ate in his carseat, was covered in sand from the beach and dirt from the lake his seat got dirty fast! BUT, I will say that I am in love with the Chicco Nextfit Zip Carseat we ended up with. It unzips in a snap, so you can shake it out and/or wash it. It is also much more breathable than his infant carseat, so that was awesome for such a long trip.
Have you ever taken a long road trip as a family? What tips do you have? Let me know in the comments or over on social media!
Happy Summer!
Anna