Driving to Melb with 15.5month old todler

[workin'mumof2]

Yes you can say im crazy haha.

Ok were moving to Melb in Late Jan Early feb so it will be summer but our car has air con. We are prepared to make stops along the way as long as we get to our final stop around 7pm to sleep for the night b4 continuing the next day to the final destination. So im asking you

What activities can you prepare for a 15.5 month old boy?
Will he be interested in pencils ect or stickers?

Trying to think of things to keep him entertained. If we need to we would make the trip longer.. as in stopping more frequent if needed to have him out the car.

Will he sleep alot in the car? because at the moment he loves going in the car but most of the time after a while falls asleep like anything.
With a long trip im worried he wont get enough milk,food ect. Thats why im willing to make it 2-3days if needed so he wouldnt sleep that much. Would that be better.

At the moment we can do it in 1 and a bit days and thats with hardly stoping, 1 sleep stop and then finish the next day at lunch. We have 2 drivers lol.

If u have any questions for me i will answer tomorrow arvo i have to work very early and really wanted to get this posted and hopefully i will have some great ideas ready for when i get home :fingerscrossed:

Thanks in advance

p.s we are moving permantly and really want to take our car with minimal stuff we are selling up everything else. If u wanted to know lol

[nugglyboysmum]

The only thing i can suggest is plan your trip to be longer tahn you expect, that way you wont get stressed and impatient when bub gets upset and bored and you can have frequent stops to get in the fresh air and have food and a run around for a while. Thats probably really abvious to you already though

GL i hope he enjoys the trip

[tazzystone]

Hi there

well I think I am quite experienced in this!!! We travelled to NSW (from Townsville) when DS was 14 months, 15 months, 18 months and 25 months - with his 6 months old sister and that last trip was 2 weeks ago . It is about 1700km and took us 23hrs. We would stop every 2 hrs roughly and inbetween for nappy changes and a quick run around. It is easier now that he is older but the first trip I was with my parents so was in the back with him. It was very constant - giving him toys/snacks and singing songs over and over again with hand actions!! he did have his 2 naps each day in the car. My DS had a dummy so we attached it to one of those neck chain thing that shop people have to put their phones/keys on etc and hung it over the front seat so if he dropped it he could get it again. For the next trip we did the same thing but he mostly liked the singing! It took me weeks to get those songs out of my head!! Then for the 18 month old trip we bought a DVD player and lots of ABC DVDS. we only had to use it twice on that trip cause he was fine. But it was soooo worth the $$

The last trip was the best cause we drove through the night and he had the dvd player on twice again. and our baby slept most of the time too!It was very hard on us though and my DH had just come off night shift so it was easier for him to do the night driving. On our way back though we did a day trip and it was terrible with our youngest!! So we stopped overnight. It did take us and extra hour than what we had though cause one child would need a nappy change and we would dive 20min and then the other would too so we felt we were forever stopping. I would do the night drive again. I'm just glad we dont have to do it for another year :smiliedance:

And he didnt eat very much but he did snack a lot I guess. I did up some quiches which he loved, took my own cereal for breaky. His snacks were bread sticks/dried organic apple, sultanas etc. You could use one of those mesh things if you are worried about him choking in the car. We had a car esky that plugged into the cigarete (sp ? - can you tell I'm not a smoker and never have been :D ) lighter. That way we had his milk etc in there, along with sandwiches and fruit.

I would buy plenty of kids CDs - wheels on the bus was the fav for my DS!!

Good luck with the move. Hope this has helped. Feel free to PM me if you want to know anything else.
:wave:

[workin'mumof2]

omg thank you both of you for your advice, its very much appreaciated. Seth however doesnt take a mesh thing or a dummy so i wouldnt mind us stopping to eat. i think it will be best for him and us to stay sane if we do stop more often and with songs i love that idea well for the baby anyway lol

i will keep this thread subscribed so i can look back to it closer to the time.

Any other comments are most welcome :yes:

[punkbaby]

I think if you can take your time and plan around bubs needs ie give them a break get them out the car etc then it should be ok! A portable dvd player might come in handy so bubs can watch something like wiggles or whatever they like the most

My kids hate the car and we struggle with an hour of driving let alone 25 hours LOL hopefully all goes smoothly for you though. Have a look around though i am sure there are some great toys that bubs would love to play with why in the car, just get a few things lots of singing why driving etc might help,

otherwise travel at night when bubs sleep :)