Travel
/ October 2017

5 Tricks for Surviving a Road Trip with Kids

Believe me, I am not complaining, but I just have to say it. My life is SO crazy right now. In the last few weeks we have traveled to Detroit and Orlando. Tomorrow we are getting on a plane to go across the country to the West Coast of Canada. From Canada we are heading to Seattle for a few days. After that, on to Ohio for an interview for Kris. From there we head up to Yonkers, New York and NYC for three weeks. After Yonkers we are going to the Hamptons for a little mini vacay, and then back to Erie for a few weeks before Christmas. Also, we don’t have anything scheduled yet, but we want to go to Las Vegas to see my parents for Christmas. So my guess is we will be traveling from now, till sometime next year.

The excitement of being busy and traveling to new places is so fun to me. I love planning trips! Exploring new places is so exciting for me. I even love bunking up with my family in a cozy hotel room at night. However, it’s not always all fun and excitement. The things that can be hard about traveling with kids is sleep, and keeping them happy on long road trips. I have already written about how to keep a sleep schedule while traveling. So today I am going to talk about how to survive long road trips with little ones.

My ideas do require some shopping. But you can get all your shopping done at one place. It doesn’t have to take that much time.

With all that in mind it is time for me to share how I survive a road trip with a baby and a toddler.

5 Ways to Survive a Road Trip with a Baby and a Toddler

1. Small toys every hour!

This works great if you are going on a road trip with a toddler. Have a small inexpensive toy for each hour you are driving. Kid’s love new toys. Every hour pass your kid a new toy to play with. They will be thrilled and stay entertained!

2. Lots of snacks.

We buy way more snacks than we think we will need every time we go on a road trip. I tend to worry less about health and more about keeping my kids happy on the drive.

3. Get organized before you leave.

I alway organize our car meticulously before we leave on a road trip with our baby and toddler in tow. I put a trash bag in my side door to collect trash. The diaper bag goes behind the driver seat where I can reach it, the cooler or snack bag goes between Zoey and Zander in the back seat. I have the dashboard stocked with hand sanitizer, lotion (my hands get dry on road trips!), wipes and diapers. Water bottles are in Kris’s side door and in the cup holders. Everything I need is within reach and totally organized.

4. Fill up on gas right before you leave!

We like to have a full tank of gas right when we head out. That way we don’t interrupt what is usually the most peaceful part of the trip, the beginning. The kids are calm for the first couple hours of the drive, so we like to drive as far as we can during that time.

5. Stop and stretch along the way!

Every few hours stop for gas and get the kids out to stretch too. Sometimes it can be easy to just leave a baby in their carseat the whole road trip. They get out for a diaper change and go straight back in. But imagine how you would feel strapped in the same position for hours on end! It would make you sore and uncomfortable. Zander is way happier when we take ten minutes to let him run around inside of the gas station before we head back out on the road. When he was really little and couldn’t walk I would get him out and do ‘exercises’ with him, move his legs in a running motion and help him stretch his arms. It made him giggle and helped get his muscles moving and blood flowing after being confined to a carseat.

Even with all these things in place we still have difficult moments when we got on a road trip with a baby and a toddler. Zoey gets carsick sometimes, which is sad for her and not super fun to clean up on the road… Zander doesn’t like it when he can’t see us and cheerios and Trolls music only get him so far. But over all the trip is way more enjoyable for everybody when I prepare with these five survival tips!