Road trip ideas needed!

[staceychev]

So, finally convinced DH to go to Disney next month, but it means a long car ride with a 5 year old and a 4 month old (long, like 2 days each way, about 16 hours drive time).

So, any seasoned road trippers have any advice? I'm thinking it might be good to leave at a ridiculously early time, so that we can capitalize on sleepy kids.

Also, I was wondering if I should buy our convertible car seat a little bit early... would DD be more comfortable in that than in the infant seat, even though we technically have several more months before we'd move her?

Finally, any brilliant ideas for tackling that length of road trip with a 5 year old without resorting to an endless stream of movies on my iPod? (Thinking of limiting iPod movies to one per day.)

[blessedwithboys]

how funny, i'm going from orlando to NJ this week i have done a few road trips with my kids...lets see...once from FL to ATL, then FL to ATL to NJ, then FL to NJ 3 times in one summer (once just me and then-7yo ds. that was the trip i had the hardest time staying awake!) then FL to ATL again and now another FL to NJ. not too impressive though. i had a friend who helped her sister get from FL to Alaska with her sisters two kids under 2yo. they took an RV and spent at least a week driving, if not more. now thats impressive! lol

we do all sorts of things. Color wonder is the bomb. that'll be good for the 5yo. kidzbop if you can stand it. 5yo might be too young for the license plate game, but you can for sure tally up cars by color. just use excel to make a chart of different colors you may expect to see, you can even break it down by car, truck, van, bus, etc. then the dc looks out the window and makes tally marks as the cars go by.

i found a travel version of hungry hungry hippos and connect four. a 5yo could play those games. i imagine the adults might be taking turns in the back seat for the infant? that would be a good time to play travel games with the older one.

oh, i dont know if you have a hotel picked out yet, but i was just on priceline. we usually stay in Lumberton and there is a decent looking place. atkinson's inn or something like that. looks really new and clean and not too spendy. LMK if you want btdt advice for orlando/lake buena vista/celebration hotels.

[BetsyS]

We went on a long (but not 2 days long) road trip when our second was 4 months old. For us, we postponed the move from bucket to convertible until after the trip was over.

It was nice to have the bucket with us--a place for baby to sit in restaurants, a place to carry into hotels for baby to sit (he wasn't sitting up yet) and possibly sleep, and just a nice "extra". We didn't have to bring any other pieces of baby gear (beyond a sling), so that one piece saved us a lot of room.

[StephandOwen]

I can't really answer for the infant since I've never done that long of a trip with one. But we went to Disney last year and we just got back from another trip on Sunday. It's about a 14 hour drive for us. Things that helped...

The first day we drove more than halfway. I think we drove 9 hours that day so that the next day we only had a 5 hour drive (really helps to cut down on the "are we there yet???" since ds knew sometime on that day we would be there).

Presents. Yes, I'm not above bribery This time I got 4 presents for him (3 books packed together, 1 big book, a color wonder thing and a toy story action figure set). Each day gets one present, saved for when he really starts to get bored

Music. DS has his own mp3 player (just a cheap thing) that we loaded some of his favorite songs on.

Leapster/ds. He almost never uses these items except on long car rides so I'm fine with not restricting their use during car rides. We don't have a dvd player in the car or an ipod to play them or anything like that so we didn't use any movies.

Giving him a job (usually looking for signs). If we knew we were a few miles away from a stop then we'd tell him what signs/numbers to look for. He loved this.

We loved the hotel we just stayed at. Last year we stayed on disney property at the all star sports resort. It was okay, but tiny and everything costs extra. This time we stayed at a Quality Suites on Palm Parkway. The. Best. Idea. Ever. The room was HUGE compared to the one on disney property. We had a separate bedroom, living room and a little kitchen (with a microwave, fridge, dishwasher and a 2 burner stove). Free high speed wireless internet (huge plus since I still had to do my online schooling and dp still needed to check in with work). This hotel actually cost quite a bit less than the all star resort on disney property. It literally was minutes away from disney too. There are 2 little grocery stores right by the hotel but they are mega expensive! If you keep driving down palm parkway (turns into Turkey Lane Road) there's a walmart.

We did not leave early in the hopes of a sleepy kid, but I've heard that works well for other families!

[staceychev]

Thanks for the input. Where are you going in Jersey, Blessed?

We actually won't be sitting in the back with the infant, because there's only two seats back there (minivan, but not bench seating) and DD1 is still in a carseat, so I don't think any games that require adult participation will work. I like the idea of printing up a car-counter on Excel. Have you ever done other kinds of scavenger hunts? Thanks for the clue on Lumberton, too! I've been wondering about where to stop over.

Betsy, we'll be in Disney parks for eating and won't be using the bucket at all, so I don't think we'll use it for restaurants. But, that's a really good point about bringing it so she has someplace to sit in the condo.

[Owen'nZoe]

We haven't done a road trip quite that long, but have done a full day of driving. Playing I-Spy works great for awhile - and we do a version with colors that works great for kids too young to play the license plate game, i.e. "Find something red." "Now something orange", etc.

Another vote for KidzBop - that will keep both our kids quiet and happy for quite awhile. Books on tape/CD from the library are also great.

I-Spy or Where's Waldo books are also great for a 5 year-old.

[momtoTnT]

We do a lot of road trips - but never when they were babies (we flew then) - we've found that it's ideal to leave in the middle of the night so the kids can sleep for a few hours and then nap in the car as well - nice dark sun shades help with that if you don't have them. We have also left at dinner and driven overnight - that works too, except it makes it hard on the adults (at least me and DH) to parent when we're exhausted and the kids want to be awake.

I also have done presents/toys (even if they are from home - unwrapping stuff is just fun when you're 5!). We play road trip bingo, count the (insert color) cars you see....the alphabet game, kids music, coloring books, etch-a-sketch, magnadoodle, pipe cleaners, lacing boards, books, word searches (my just turned 6 yo loves them).

The best thing we do is make sure we stop every few hours and everyone gets out - even if it is just to try to go potty. We like to play tag or hide and seek at rest areas - even if it's just for 15 minutes.

Have fun!

[marisa724]

We haven't roadtripped this long with my own kids, but when I was younger my family and I made this exact same excursion (though we lived in north Jersey, so we were technically in the car even longer! )

I think I must have been just about your DD1's age, since my little brother wasn't born yet and we're six years apart. We did leave at a ridiculously early hour, like 4-5 AM, I have a clear memory of being carried out to the car in the dark. By the time you're ready to stop for a proper breakfast you're through Maryland or something.

Looking at your route, try to plan "interesting" stops along the way, even if it adds an extra hour to the day. If there's something where your DD can get out and play or look around, it won't be such a drag to be on the road the rest of the time. In my case, we actually stopped for the first day in Va. Beach, where we got a hotel with a pool and played for the evening.

If your DD doesn't get carsick, another thing we did was make a 'book' of our trip. I drew pictures and my mom helped me make the words, and it was just things we saw or talked about on the way. I don't remember too much about it, but I do remember a funny picture my mom drew of me talking to an Indian chief about where the words "Kissimmee" and "Okeefenokee" came from. Get a blank book, a bunch of neat markers or colored pencils.

Make sure you bring the charger for the iPod! I don't like to rely on mine too heavily either, but you can get a little desperate as the hours drag on. We've only gone as far as Boston and back with the current family unit, but having videos on demand is a lifesaver

Oh, and our favorite car 'scavenger hunt' is the alphabet - we go back and forth picking out letters on signs/trucks/cars/etc. Even a non-reading 5-year-old can do that.

[maryeb]

So many great ideas. We just did a 3 day road trip from NC to IA. It actually went soo much better than I expected. I'm hoping the drive home goes as well. We did the longest day first, and each day after that wasn't so bad. Okay, we did buy them each a couple new toys, the favorite being the Bakugan. Some little toy my almost 5 yr old played with the entire first day. Not kidding. He transformed it several times, talked about it, etc. We had some new coloring books and special markers/crayons they hadn't seen in a while, and some new books. The highlight for them was the Bakugan. 5 bucks at Target.

We did at least two stops each day, either at a whole foods to eat or a rest stop. The rest stops ended up being great-a couple had a playground. That was really helpful. Music was awesome too, esp. the music together cd from our recent class. That saved us a couple times from my toddler freaking out.

I did not think I would get back there between them at all, but it ended up keeping the peace for awhile, and I would just do spurts. Read a couple books, snuggle the boys, esp. my toddler, and be up front again. It really helped. Snacks are awesome too. We got a couple new Sigg bottles for the kids so I would make/bring a yummy nut milk for them and they were set for a bit. I made sure to have lots of chocolate for me, as a sanity tool.

Good luck I'm sure it will be great! Mary

[velochic]

My dd (8) and I just got back from a week-long 1600 mile road trip. Obviously I did all the driving.

Honestly, I just let her veg out to videos when we were in the car. We seriously limit TV at home, but I relax SO many rules when we're on the road, especially in cases like this where it's just the two of us. It's part of what makes it so special. We also had several days during our trip that we just went out for big ice cream sundaes for dinner instead of eating "real" food and I am *very much* a stickler for eating healthy, homemade, from-scratch food.

So, my only real advice is for the 5 yo (I would never have made a trip like that when dd was 4 mos because she hated the car and we literally never went anywhere at that age unless it was on a plane) and that is to just throw the rules out the window and do whatever will keep him/her occupied, happy, and content for such a long trip, even if it does mean hours of screen time.