Traveling with a toddler

[wesleysmom0604]

We are going to North Carolina in a few weeks. It is a 12 hour drive. We are breaking it up into two days though. We have traveled this far with Wesley last year, but now that he is 2, he doesn't sleep as much so I was hoping for some tips. We have one of those portable DVD players, but I don't want him to watch movies the whole time.

[ThreeRedheads]

Hi Julie!
We took our DD to Canada a few years back (at age 2 1/2). She did great! It was a five hour trip. Here are some things that helped us break up the trip. We bought NEW snacks that she hadn't had before. They now have those 100 calorie snack packs..cool for kids! I also made up trail mix in little baggies that she could eat. It had things like apple cheerios, kix, m&m's...etc...any type of snack that is different!
Another thing we did was give her a pack of post-it sticky notes! She stuck them to the window..her car seat..where ever she could get them. They come off easy! Unlike stickers, which we did not want to get stuck all over our car! Ok, what else..we played kids music, gave her new small trinkets when she got antsy. I had gone to the dollar store and picked up a few little toys, these kept her busy and distracted from the long trip. We did stop a few times and we let her run around for awhile at rest areas. My husband seemed to have a weak bladder..we were stopping for him more!!
We made it the whole trip without a DVD player! I had the bag of goodies up front with me and when she got cranky or fussy, it helped. Last year we took our TWO kids to Bar Harbor, Maine which was a 6 hour trip. We got a DVD player for that. We put a movie in, when it was over we did "snack time" and then stopped for "potty time", the we actually told the kids it was "nap time" and they took naps!! It will work out..you will be surprised. Have a bunch of things on hand and have fun! Sing songs, play peek-a-boo..and make some memories!
Well, that's enough for today..

[NZMummy]

Great tips Tracy! I must keep them in mind for when we next travel with our 2 year old.

We find pointing interesting stuff out of the car window helps.

Travel packs with new stuff in it. Snacks.

Also we purchased one of those older disney music tapes and we found the twins were engaged and facinated by the different expressive voices singing on the tape.

[breezykc2]

we got the window clings...and let our 2 year old put them on the car windows, we found train ones and that's his favorite....we also bought a tray that is adaptable to hook to all carseats and let him color with those "only colors on certain paper" books! ...and took LOTS of books and read to him since he loves being read to!

[mom n luv]

On our 8 -9 hour trip to Denver we use alot of the tips that were already given but another thing that works well for our little guy is that we leave about 1 1/2 -2 hours before he normally wakes up in the morning. We just pick him up from his bed and put him in the car seat and drive till breakfast time somtimes he goes right back to sleep and sometimes he just dazes off. Then we stop at a truckstop change and eat a sit down breakfast( Village Inn or something like that) and let him tear around a little bit. Then he is content to ride in the car till lunchtime and then he takes a nap after lunch time. At about hour 8 he fizzles out but we generally can see Denver by then so we just power though it. :roll:


I love the post it idea, we had been giving him stickers because that really entertains him for along time but I am still picking them off things, we will most definitely be using post it next time :wink:

[Bekah]

Oh man!! Just a couple weeks ago we had to take a 14 hour, ( we didn't have the money to stop and stay over, half way there) trip to Indiana unexpectedly...

So.. unfortunately we did movies because our dd HATES the car... it was the only thing that kept her quiet unless she was asleep....

Originally it had been my plan to give her little bags every couple hundred of miles with goodies and things to do in it... but we left with less than 24 hours notice and I didn't get to do that...

so I guess I don't have much advice... although we did drive at night on the way out there which was much nicer than driving during the day on the way home...

Maybe you could drive during his normal sleeping times.

I know they are kinda expensive, but mine love their Leap Pad books. My oldest ds has the kind for older kids and my youngest ds has the Leap Pad for babies. They are great for trips. Besides, the older kid's one has a place for headphones :wink: .

Angela did good when she was 2 on our 12hr move back from Florida..We just had a baby bag of small toys within her reach and lots of board books...She did fine as far as I can remember..

[7thHeaven]

When we traveled with our dd to florida (8-9 hour trip) we took her favorite toys (her piano and her learning doggie) and music cd's, she loves to dance!!

[cjropher]

My now 4 year old has always been a pretty good traveller. I bought one of these tables that attaches under the carseat so that he can have a table. It has a little spot for a drink and another that could keep anything... snacks, crayons, both at once :roll: ! Then I let him pack his bag. He takes his leap pad and books for that, a few stories, a magnet book , those colouring books that only use the one marker and colours them for you (usually I would say that they do nothing for creativity but in the van, it's fewer crayons that can drop) and some other little toys usually. We also take his special blanket and his pillow as well as his special stuffed animal. Then off we go. Ds is really good about travelling and knows how it works. Now we can tell him what we expect and he does it. So when we drove 15 hours last weekend, he would play with his leap pad or look at his books, talk to us, or sleep. He doesn't complain at all.

My 10 month old on the other hand... well he's not so good. He will sleep a little but hates to be confined other than that. I found that music helped for him, as well as playing peek a boo or something like that. He also loved his big brother's toys, so we would give him some that were safe for him. Sitting beside kids helps, you don't really have to do anything, they just like that.

I refuse to get a DVD player for the vehicle. It's just me, I didn't have one growing up and we travelled lots. So my kids won't either!

Hope you have a good trip.

Edited to add, I also keep some stuff that he only gets when we go on long trips so it's new each time.

[love2bmom]

These are excellent ideas.. :D :D

[wesleysmom0604]

I know they are kinda expensive, but mine love their Leap Pad books. My oldest ds has the kind for older kids and my youngest ds has the Leap Pad for babies. They are great for trips. Besides, the older kid's one has a place for headphones :wink: .

We have one of those that Wes got for Christmas that we have never even used so I will bring it. Thanks for all your tips. I think we are going to get up and let him play and do his normal morning routine. Maybe even take him to the park real quick (it is just down the street) and wear himself out. Then about his nap time, we will leave and hopefully we will sleep for the first few hours. Then when we stop to eat, we will maybe stop at a McDonalds or somewhere with one of those play areas so he can run and get some energy out. I am glad we are able to break it up into two days. We are going to try to get the halfway point at a early enough time that we can let him play and burn off more energy. Maybe if the motel we stay in has a pool, that would be great. We did take him with us to Gulf Shores last year at 14 months old and thanks to the DVD player, he did great, but I really don't want to do that the whole trip! I am trying to teach him to wear the headphones so we don't have to listen to Elmo and Thomas the Train. When I was a kid, we never took long car trips till I was much older (around 7 ) and we played the license plate game and I was a huge bookworm and would read a lot. How this car trip goes will determine if we want to fly next time. Of course, that will be a whole new set of worries! LOL!

[PianoMama]

what about an etch-a-sketch? i know they are 'old school' but i went to walmart to look for a few things for our upcoming 3 hour plane ride and saw a mini one and grabbed it for my 15 mo. ds. i'm not showing him the things i got until we get on the plane. hope it works!

[wesleysmom0604]

That is a good idea. I have used one of those in years!