Traveling with Infant?

[Pearl1]

I'm looking for some advice from those who have travelled with your baby already. Our daughter will be 7 weeks old at Christmas. My DP wants to travel to her family's gathering for the holiday - an 8 hour drive before having a baby.

To me this seems like a horrible idea - I'm imagining the 8 hour drive turning into a 12+ hour drive (I'm breastfeeding every few hours) and it breaks my heart to think about strapping the baby into a carseat for that long.

What do ya'll think? Is this manageable, or insane...?

Thanks in advance,
Sarah

(x-posted in Parenting/Life with a Babe)

[treegardner]

Does she do well in the car? I agree, the drive will take a lot longer with a little one. My son always slept well in the car, so I never felt guilty about long drives.

[TIFF4NY]

We are doing the (before baby) 10hr drive to my parents the day after X-mas. Throw in our two large dogs and we've got quite the trip ahead of us. We're used to stopping for the dogs and DD passes out in the car so I am not too stressed over it. It'll be long and we'll have to stop more but I think it will be fine.

Good luck if you go!!

[coastielu]

We have done a number of longish (3-5 hour) drives with the baby since the week he was born. Two things that have really helped us is to leave the seat next to the car seat open, so I can sit with him if he gets fussy while husband drives. A lot of the time he just gets lonely. I also bring a hand pump and several bottles, so if he gets hungry at a time/ place that is inconvenient to stop, I can pump in the car (again, with husband driving) and feed him fresh, warm milk. These two things don't always help, but they solve about 70% of the issues. Can be a real help.


good luck!

[Serenyd]

We just took Kara out of town for Thanksgiving, she was 5 weeks. She slept most of the way, and we made it there in 5 hours. We ended up stopping 1/2 hour from our destination. We stopped a couple of times on the way back, but it was later in the day. Try to leave around the baby's sleepiest time of day. I made the same trip with my first son when he was six weeks, and I pumped in the car and fed him a bottle when he was hungry, because we couldn't stop (last time I ride with my dad ).

[TIFF4NY]

Regarding pumping in the car: I actually asked DH if there was an adapter we could buy that would allow me to bring our electric pump in the car. lol... If I can get away with that then I'm all for it!

[pjs]

Personally, I wouldn't do it. Sure it can be done, but that is a crazy long ride requiring a lot of effort. I'd imagine that if the people I wanted to see were worth that much effort, they'd be willing to come see me this year