Traveling by Car long distance?

[Stitch76]

We drove down from KY last year with a 8 and 6 year old. This is the plan we followed, and it worked like a charm.
The day we were to leave, we let the girls visit their Grandma, since they would not see her for a week, me and DH went home, closed the shades, and slept for about 4-5 hours.
We went and picked up the kids, grabbed a quick shower for everyone, and changed the girls into their new Disney pjs we had bought for the trip. We left the house at about 7:00 pm. The girls bedtime is 8:00, so that gave them some time to settle in and watch a DVD (small portable player), around 8:30 they both were getting sleepy, and were soon passed out in the back seat.
Me and DH took turns driving and sleeping, and when we got to the Florida line early the next morning, I awakend the girls, took them to the bathroom (Rest Area passing into Florida is very clean, and has been on the several occassions we have stopped by), to freshen up and change into their clothes. We had a small picnic breakfast and was on our way.
The girls did not tire of riding, because they slept most of the way, a 12-13 hour drive, was more like a 2-3 hour drive for them. It made it so much better, and because me and DH took a nap before leaving, and turns driving, neither one of us was over tired from the driving and lost sleep.

We however did not follow this plan going back home , and learned our lesson the hard way, never again will I drive that distance with an AWAKE child.

 

[mrsbornkuntry]

We've travelled cross country a couple times and alot of shorter trips. Some things that work for us are:

DVD player with dvd's they haven't seen or of their favorite shows.

For the older kids: Klutz has a road trip book, it's good for any reader really. It comes with a zipper pouch of accessories. My kids spent an entire day following the instructions in it trying to do "Cat in a cradle" with the included string.

I don't let my kids bring toys from home except one to sleep with. They don't play with them at all. This may not be budget, but instead of packing a picnic, we stop at fast food restaraunts because they love getting the new toy. If you did want to do a picnic meal you could include some new dollar store toys with it for fun.

Another Diser recommended this book to me called: The Next Exit. It tells what's off of each exit so it's easier to find places to eat, get gas, etc. When we travelled from the West coast to East coast this year we found it to only be wrong once (the gas station was out of business).
On one of our trips MIL sent each kid a roll of quarters. If a child acted up (yelling in the van, hurting a sibling, throwing anything, etc.) they would get one warning, if it happened again, they would lose a quarter. Whatever they had left when we arrived was theirs to spend how they wanted.

Let them get out and run around (play tag or something) at the rest areas.

I made up scavenger hunt lists of things for the kids to find, they had fun with that. Might want to offer prizes with it.

Allow extra time, if someone sees something that interests them we stop (within reason).

 

[mrsbornkuntry]

Has anyone travelled long distance with an infant? I am considering travelling from NJ with my 3 kids, ages 6, 3, and 8 months. Any thoughts on that? Thanks so much!

IMO, the infant is the easiest one to travel with! We always tried to time our rest area and meal breaks for when the baby would be hungry. Just remember to take the baby out to stretch, too.

Also, if you have a minivan or something with two back rows make sure you have someone sitting next to the baby so when they drop something you don't have to keep turning around to get it .

 

[figueroa4]

We are traveling 17 hrs and these are all great ideas! And we use the dvd and video games alot in car trips. Some have actually tried to make me feel bad about that. But hey, they are having fun and keeping them occuppied so it doesn't worry me one bit.

 

[DRS_Are_Best]

We are going to be driving 14hrs by the book with a nearly 4 year old and 26 month old twins. We are customizing some DVDs for the road with tv programs that all 3 kids enjoy that we have recorded for ourselves. By burning these disks ourselves, we can get enough on the disks to last up to 4 hours at a stretch. Now, we won't be watching tv that long, but it's nice to know that programming won't end before a driving shift does. We also have portable MagnaDoodles (or clone thereof) that 2 of the kids enjoy playing with (even if it's just to take away from brother).

We're putting in 10hrs that first day (Maryland to Savannah, GA) and then finish off the drive the second day. As we get closer we'll learn where we can stop on the way (McDonalds/Burger King type places) that have playgrounds to help the kids burn off the energy.

And of course, we're PRAYING that they nap and do so HARD!

 

[la79al]

Is it wierd that this thread has me excited about our next trip (over a year from now)? It's 18 hours for us and last time we did it with 2 kids in a car. Next time we will have 3 kids but a minivan . I'm getting excited about coming up with things to keep them busy. Our biggest challenges last time were keeping the car clean and the kids staying awake most of the night. They were really quite good, but awake. My goals for next trip are to create better vehicle organization and figure out what in the world to do with a 2 year old for 18 hours. She currently does not nap, does not sleep through the night, does not show any interest in TV and does not ride well in the car. I'm really hoping at least some of these things change in the next year.

 

[jtopp]

Remember Gods gift to traveling families; the portable DVD player. We have driven several times: sometimes over two days, sometimes straight through, sometimes overnight. One constant has been that when the crayons, toys, sleeping, finger snacks and drinks fail, a movie(try a disney movie they haven't seen before) will calm the masses for a while until they stop for a meal-fall asleep-etc.