Longish car trip with 8 month old crawler... any tips??

[TyBean]

Hi...

Next month we are travelling down south for my FIL's surprise 50th party. MIL is picking us up on her way down... and bringing us back!

We have to travel from Brissie to down below Sydney... round the Woolongong region.... (in a tiny car.... eeek.. much prefer it to be our commodore.. but anyway)...

He is a crawler and walker... along things etc... so having him locked in a seatbelt for a while could be an interesting and trying time....

Does anyone have any tips or ideas or anything about how to survive the trip and not make it a nightmare!...

Any advice will be greatly appreciated!!! TIA

[outdoormummy]

Hi!

Hope you have a great trip! It seems really scary at first but the most important thing is to think it through in advance.

Anything you can do to keep him occupied in the car seat will be an advantage, i had a thing that you hang on the back of the seat that when you kick it it plays music and laughs, my son loved it!! Have also put one of those stroller string toys accross the car seat and that was good.

Keeping everything in reach for you makes it so much easier!! It's hard if your in someone elses car but try and take a bag to have at your feet or at least somewhere you can get it without stopping. Food, Dummy (if you have one), and all that stuff should make it better.

I would suggest if he's active (like my son really is) try and stop where there are grassy areas! Bitumen roadsidse stops have been a nightmare for us because he wanted to crawl on stuff i didn't want him too and because no matter what I did he got really dirty!

Sorry I wrote so much but there's hundreds of things to think of! It won't be as bad as you think though (or hasn't been so far!)

[TeamAwesome]

Great tips ^^^

Also if you are able to have any say, try to leave around nap time as that should make things easier as he should sleep for part of the long trip.

[jamb]

we do the trip reguarly, well tweed down.

good tips above.

leave early early, so they sleep.

stop in the towns rather than the rest stops, nice parks, take a rubber backed picnic matt.

places we like best are coffs, go to park beach, little bit of sand, heaps of grass etc nice area.

kempsey, the park on the southside of town is a big grassy area with loo's.

I think taking picnic food is easier than trying to juggle buying something with a bub, one stop rather than shops then park.

if bub is unsettled/bored i find it easier to have one of us sit in the back, drives me batty turning constantly.

TBH, if you leave enough time for stops you can exhaust them during one and they go back for another sleep!

have fun

[TyBean]

Hi girls..

Thanks for the tips!!... We are all squeezing into a Yaris.... so I will be in the back with my legs round my knees... fun fun lol Maybe I will join in with Tlers whining!! lol

I'm getting DF to ring the MIL and ask her to do most of the driving at night and perhaps even leave early Thursday morning so he's asleep for the most of it!! hopefully....

Once again thanks for the tips!!.. Hopefully it goes smoothly... I'd much prefer to be going in our own car as its much roomier and its ours so I can do what I want... but oh well I guess...

[Opaque]

With you sitting in the back he should be pretty good.

Also, if you have a portable DVD Player - these are great!!!!

I can drive 5 hours straight with my son (12 months old very active etc).

Also keep some bikkies etc on hand to give him if he whinges.

And a bag of different toys so that you can give him different toys throughout the trip.

Good Luck!