OT: Driving with a toddler...

[Karenj2]

This could be applicable to Disney, except that we usually fly down... My question is- what's a good average timeframe/mileage that we could be able to drive with a 1-2 year old? We'd like to do a road trip next year (maybe in Europe!) and I'm trying to figure out realistically how far we could drive each day without having a screaming child. (If we did the Europe trip, we'd drive to a location, stay & tour the next day, then leave the following morning to the next destination. We'd also have two friends we'd visit that we'd stay with in the beginning and end of the trip.

I'm used to driving 11 hours with only bathroom & food breaks, so I know it'll be an adjustment. I'm also a FTM (first-time mom), so I don't know much about youngsters.

 

[ilovesugar]

The only advice I can give is, be flexible. It is not an easy question because you cannot really say how many hours you will be able to drive. It is dependant on your child, on that very day, at that very moment. You could get in the car and they could be screaming 15 minutes into the trip, or they might fall asleep for 4 hours and you won't hear a peep out of them that whole time.

 

[Angeni11]

We took our 2.5 year old and 10 month old at the time in May to the UK (the little one turned 1 yesterday). We drove around a lot as hubby's family and friends are there (he moved to the US to marry me) and not all in the same area.

The kids did pretty well and slept quite a bit in the car which helped. I would recommend a portable DVD player with some child friendly movies/shows. We got one that would last 5 hours. You will need to take breaks and make sure you stop for food when they need it and have lots of snacks on hand. We were lucky as they both napped during the car trips over there so we didn't have to stop a lot other then to change diapers because they were probably so tired from not napping the other days.

We have also done 7 hour car trips to NC with them and all I can say is the DVD player was great and lots of snacks.

For our trip to Disney we have already gotten 2 movies that he hasn't seen yet and a 4 CD set of Curious George Show DVDs (he seems to love the show the few times he has watched it) to keep him entertained as well as some other little things. We are potty training so we know we will have to stop at least every 2 hours for potty breaks and also every 3-4 to let them run around a bit for 10-15 minutes and get rid of some of that energy.