Driving long distances with a baby is definitely different than flying with baby. There are different challenges but also some aspects of traveling by car that make traveling with a baby a bit easier. (For those who will be flying with a baby for the first time in the near future, this post may be of interest: Traveling with a Baby for the First Time.) I’m pretty sure you will never hear me say driving long distances or flying with a baby is a breeze, but there are a few things we did that I think made driving all the way to Sarasota, Florida from Charlotte, North Carolina with a baby a little less stressful.
I hope these tips help those of you who may be new at this whole parenting thing (like me!) and, as always, I’d absolutely love for those with more experience to weigh in and share their go-to tips for easier travel in the comments section of this post. Some of the tips you see below that we implemented came from you guys already!
Road Trip Tips For Traveling With A Baby
- Pack A Change Of Clothes For Your Baby In A Large Ziploc Bag
This is my number one tip! There is something about the angle of a baby’s booty in a car seat that seems to be perfect for blowouts. If a baby poops in a car seat, I am convinced it will find a way to explode out every side of a diaper and cause quite a mess. That’s where the spare onesie in a Ziploc bag comes in handy! You can easily strip the soiled clothes off your little one and toss them into the Ziploc bag so poopy clothes are now sealed off away from everything else. A fresh onesie is also easily accessible to you so you’re not left rummaging through duffle bags or suitcases during a time when your baby is covered in poop! We relied on this tip twice during our travels to Florida and I was very grateful for the ability to quickly change Chase and keep his dirty clothes away from everything else until we were able to wash them.
- Have Your Diaper Caddy Ready
You can definitely pack your diaper bag but I honestly felt like bringing Chase’s diaper caddy along and having it easily accessible in the backseat made everything a little easier for us. When we wanted to change his diaper, we had everything we needed at our fingertips and didn’t have to dig through his diaper bag to find anything. This definitely isn’t necessary, but it was really nice to have Chase’s diaper caddy with us during our trip for all of his diaper changes as well.
- Pack Snacks For You
This is another BIG one for me! If your baby is anything like Chase, they tend to sleep much better when the car is moving and will immediately wake up the minute the car slows or stops. This means that if the baby is sleeping and you happen to be hungry, the thought of stopping for food becomes risky. Do you chance waking up your little one to quell your hunger? (The answer for us is a big NO because a sleeping baby during a 6-hour road trip is something you do NOT want to mess up!) Having a bunch of snacks on hand to tide us over between meals was important for us so we could keep stops to a minimum, especially when Chase was sleeping. Trail mix, turkey jerky, dried or fresh fruit and nut butter packets are very portable and work well!
As little ones get bigger, I’ve also heard moms swear by packing snacks for their children to distract them in the car as well, but we aren’t at that point with Chase just yet.
- Time The Start Of Your Trip With Your Baby’s Naptime
We were not able to do this on Wednesday night on our way to Jacksonville and it made the drive a little painful, but for the other drives ahead of us to Sarasota and Clearwater and back to Jacksonville and Charlotte, we timed our departure with Chase’s naptime and everything went much smoother. Playing with Chase and tiring him out before loading him in the car worked really well for us, since he was already sleepy and ready for a nap. For the most part, this allowed him to rest and sleep for 90 minutes to two hours which was phenomenal!
- Plan To Sit Next To Your Baby (Sometimes/All The Time)
Back in October, when we drove to the mountains with a three-month-old baby, I sat next to Chase the whole time. Now, at nearly eight months old, Chase is much better about chillin’ in his car seat without the need for company but when we drove four to six hours almost every day for five days in a row, Chase definitely needed a playmate to entertain him. I flip-flopped back and forth between riding shotgun and riding next to Chase. Sometimes just having me next to him helped calm his fussiness, though I would typically need to engage him with silly faces, songs, toys, etc. to keep him happy during some of the longer stretches.
- Pack A Variety Of Toys (And Space Them Out)
I packed a bunch of toys to entertain Chase during our drive to Florida and found that when I gave him one toy at a time, he seemed to do best. At first, I loaded him up with three toys, thinking the more toys he had, the more entertained he would be, but found that swapping out a toy when he got fussy for a new toy seemed to help prolong his entertainment. I tried saving the light up/electronic toys for when he was starting to go downhill and needed us to pull out the big guns when it came to baby entertainment! The toys that worked best at entertaining Chase during our road trip were the Baby Einstein Take Along Tunes Toy, Sesame Street Silly Sounds Remote (my mother-in-law gave this to us while we were in Sarasota and it was an instant hit!), the Oball and the Taggies Soft Monkey stuffed animal.
- Plan To Stop… A Lot
Having a baby means you’ll be stopping more than you did before. As someone who likes to push through on road trips and stop at little as possible, I tried to adjust my expectations going into our long drives. On one of our four-hour drives we lucked out and only needed to stop once, but be prepared to stop for a myriad of reasons. We stopped to feed Chase. We stopped to change a poopy diaper. We stopped because Chase clearly needed to stretch his legs and just be out of his car seat for a little while. For the most part, we tried to do as much as possible during a stop (feeding/changing/fresh air and playtime outside) and knowing a drive that used to take you six hours might take more like seven hours just seems to be the way it goes with a little one sometimes!
Also, if you can break up SUPER long distances and stay overnight somewhere in between the long drives, I think this might make the drive a little less daunting. We choose to break up what would’ve been an eleven (plus)-hour drive to Sarasota into two drives by staying one night in Jacksonville which was less intimidating.
- What About Breastfeeding?
I am still nursing Chase so I wore nursing-friendly clothes and we pulled over and I fed him whenever he needed to eat while we were driving. I packed my Boppy pillow to make things more comfortable and would just feed him in the backseat whenever we stopped. I even nursed him in his car seat when we pulled off for a bathroom break at a rest stop one time when he just needed a little “snack” to drift back to sleep and we didn’t want to take him out of his car seat and get him all excited and awake again. (I leaned over his car seat when we were parked which was all kinds of awkward. Hey, whatever works, right!?)
Question of the Day
- Have you ever gone on a long road trip with a little one? Do you have any tips to share that made your travels a little easier?
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Smart tips that I’ll be sure to use in the future!! Thanks for posting.
I’m so not a road trip person, so taking a rod trip with a baby / toddler does not sound fun haha but it sounds like you all did great and chase was a champ!
Great tips! One thing I found with the diaper so we don’t have a mess anymore is to go up a size in diapers. This really saved us from any additional mess. Also, at 6 months we changed our little guy into a bigger car seat out of the infant seat. He was much longer then average babies and he seemed so uncomfortable in the infant seat. We purchased the rear facing Britax Marathon that can be changed to front facing when he gets bigger. He seemed to be so much happier in the bigger car seat with more room.
Totally agree with this. That many blowouts in the car seat sounds like it’s time to size up or change to a different diaper. Blowouts happen slightly more frequently in car seats because it compresses poop up the back/sides, but a larger diaper can help (so long as the legs fit properly and you dont get leaks there).
Great tips! Thank you so much!
Great tips! Just curious… is it easier to drive or fly? Now that you’ve done both a few times.
They both definitely have their challenges. When I think about driving or flying in the future, the thought of flying still stresses me out more, so I guess that’s your answer! I DO like that flying is usually shorter (a 1.5 hr flight to NYC was nicer than a 6 hr drive to Jacksonville), but I tend to let other people stress me out a bit which can make flying a bit more difficult, especially when I did it alone. Factor in nursing around strangers, bringing a bunch of stuff onto the plane, etc. and driving seems a little easier to me!
My 5 month old has flown with my husband and I at 2.5 months, then with just me at 4 months, and will again be with just me in a couple weeks. I couldn’t agree with you more!! My lil man has also been on several longer road trips. Both can be stressful and require lots of patience, but with flying, there are a lot of variables we can’t control which gives me anxiety. ? I also stress about nursing by strangers and being able to tote around all the things while carrying a baby too. When it’s all done, you definitely feel like an all star though!! Lol
You sound like a pro! Love the tips Julie (:
Ziplock bags are a godsend! We use the larger ones like you do for extra clothes and the sandwich ones to keep medicine/lotion/powder contained. We also have a stash in our diaper bag for when we have a big poopy diaper when we’re out in public or at a friends house. It takes a little practice to get the thing folded up, but if you stash a dirty diaper in a sealed bag, it’s less offensive in your friends trash can 🙂
“Lean over the car seat and pop a boob in baby’s mouth” to avoid getting them out of the carseat might be my favorite trick to date! Gotta do what you gotta do.
Thanks for the tips!
Thank you so much for posting these tips! I’m due with our first baby in early May and we are facing a big move within the next 6 months so I’m trying to prepare for a long car ride with a newborn. I’ll definitely be using these! How would you compare flying versus driving with a baby?
How did traveling with Sadie and Chase go? We want to start our family soon and I wonder how I will fit 2 dogs and a baby..plus all of our stuff in a car! I think I’ll need to upgrade to a car with a 3rd row.
The worst part was honestly making Sadie wait to get out of the car during our stops since she tends to jump around like a crazy person and whine when one person leaves. This made feeding Chase in the backseat when Ryan would leave to go to the bathroom a challenge because she would whine and really distract Chase from his feeding. We started to take Sadie out and Ryan would walk her around while I fed Chase and that worked a little better!
Thank you!! 🙂
Thank you for all the tips! We have a six hour drive on the agenda in the near future with our 3 month old. She tends to sleep whenever she is in her car seat but I definitely was wondering about breastfeeding. I’ve had a number of women tell me to feed her while in her car seat and I just couldn’t figure out how to do that. I guess I will just have to give it a try and be awkward!
A tip that I received is to bring a breast pump with a car charger/power adapter and pump directly into a bottle to feed on the go…hope that helps!
This is great. My son is just a few weeks younger than yours, so it’s nice to follow a long with someone in the same boat. I haven’t had to do a road trip yet with my son, but we have flown a few times to visit my dad in Florida from Ohio. I know road trips are in our future, so love the tips. Check out my flying tips on my blog if you ever have to fly with your son.
Sarah
http://www.mysimplemomblog.com/
I’ll have to remember these for the future! I love any and all road trips so it definitely sounds like an adjustment! Thanks for sharing these:)
Great tips!!
Me and the hubs are TTC in 2017 and I am cracking myself up because I don’t even have a baby yet and loving these posts! I am such a planner and already trying to educate myself to be the best mommy!
You are a great Mom! Soooo many good ideas. I literally was like “Ok, I have to remember the ziplock bag trick,”
Thank you!!! And it sounds like your future little one will be so loved! <3
Will you comment on what products you have handy in the diaper caddy? Other then the obvious diapers and wipes 🙂
Hi Julie, I would also love to know your go-to products in the diaper caddy. I’m expecting next month and am trying to get my caddy organized. Thank you!
My baby hasn’t arrived yet (just a few more weeks!!!!) but these are awesome tips I’ll definitely be referring back to!
We’re headed on a 6 hour road trip for Easter this coming weekend with a 5 week old…yikes! The tip that I got that I hope will help us is to bring a breast pump and car charger/power adapter so you can pump into a bottle and feed in the car without stopping. Hoping that helps us, as we will also have a Labrador! Luckily at only 5 weeks old, he still sleeps a lot!
I have traveled many hours in the car with my little girl since she was brand new and I couldn’t agree more with these tips! More than anything you have to be patient and willing to work around your baby’s schedule. 🙂
These were awesome tips! Traveling with two kids is even more “fun” haha 😉 I swear their stuff is like quadruple what we bring.
On our last long road trip I leaned over (it was so awkward and painful but worked!) to nurse my baby on both sides. We were both happy to have that done and not need to stop! High five for awkward wins 😉
Oh yes, the awkward leaning over the car seat to nurse move! I did it while we were stopped in a traffic jam on a road trip once ? You’re not alone!
As a child, we would drive from Pennsylvania to Florida (21 hours) straight through without stopping overnight every year to visit my grandparents. My mom or grandma (whoever we were with) would pull out a very small gift every 100 miles (the drive was about 1,000 miles total) whether it was a coloring book, a small game, or a snack, it kept our attention and made us look forward to the drive!
Hahha! The leaning over the car seat to nurse. Been there too! Just the fact that you wrote that in your post made me like you (and your blog) that much more. I was already a big fan as a longtime reader, but the honesty you have when write about being a mom and just in general in your posts makes you so likable and relatable. Thank you so much! It’s nice that you can be upbeat but still be a real person! Thank you again! Keep it up!
We have taken my 5 month old on 5 hour road trips twice- once when he was 4 months and once when he was 2 months. The key for us is leaving immediately after he’s been fed to extend the time before we take a break. We also really love stopping at Starbucks or McDonald’s because they seem to be the cleanest. I agree on the one toy at a time thing and also having everything you’ll need accessible and ready to go. We usually tag team at stops- it works well!
I literally just got home from a road trip with my 5.5 month old! I am planning to do a similar post. The two things that worked best for us were leaving for the long drives early (like 4:45 am early) and expecting to stop for longer. Our longest stretch was about 8.5 hours of driving which took us about 12 hours including stops!
Oh my! I know this is so dangerous and I am not advising it at all – but, when my son was just a few weeks old (back in ’08), we went on an 8 hour road trip, which turned into ten hours., and momma had to do what she had to do….when nothing else worked i leaned over his seat and nursed him while we were driving : /
i couldnt help but laugh out loud reading you did the same (more safely though).
It was painful trip to say the least. But we survived. I would def do it a lot differently next time, and be more prepared with a wonderful trip tip post like this, thanks!
Back in October we drove from Boston to Dayton (14 hour drive) with our 11 month old and we are gearing up for another trip end of this week! Biggest tip I can provide is driving thru the night (or during your little ones sleep time). Our little one slept from about 8pm until 7am (if he got fussy during his sleep I gave him a bottle w/ water and he soothed right back down)- we stopped at 2am for a stretch and bathroom break and then again at 7am. But other than that he got in his 12 hours of sleep. For the remaining 3 or so hours when he was awake we read books, ate breakfast/snacks, and played with a few toys. We also have a dog and we were so surprised that we made record timing!
This time around I have packed alot of snacks, new books, new toys (all wrapped in tissue paper to make it even more fun!) and I even bought him a leap frog laptop (it was only $25, haha). I’m hoping that these new items will keep him entertained during he waking hours. “Plan for the worst and pray for the best”!
Where I am not a big advocate of “screen time” for our son, the portable DVD player mounted to the head rest has been a Godsend on my many 5+ hour car trips I have had to do without help. Our little guy has been obsessed with Finding Nemo since he was 5 months old – he is now two and I can do a one woman show of Finding Nemo because I have had to listen to it conservatively 150 times. But a happy baby in the car makes for a calm mommy!
Good tips! I have a car road trip coming up with my baby. I always forget to pack food for myself so baby girl is happy and I’m miserable and hungry 🙁 haha
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