AHHHHHHHHhhh holiday travel? toddler? help!

[moma justice]

i do not want to spend 30 hrs in the car over my xmas break...

my parents live 7 hrs north east so we will go there for xmas (i love my family and love spending xmas there,
then
a few days after travel 7 hrs west to dh's family (have not gone there for the holiday's ever with dd...so i feel guilty)
then around the first, we will travel the last side of the triangle south east back to our city....!!!!!!

and with our dd (2yrs old) we will end up doing lots of bathroom and run around stops.....so we are talking a total of 30 hrs in the car

and it is all so that every one gets a turn to see her....
but i just can't help but wonder waht kind of shape she will be in at the end of htis holiday season????

anyone else having to spend too much time in the car for xmas...?
how are you prepping for that?

[velochic]

All I have to say is thank goodness all of your traveling is in the US... we're faced with the same but we're talking about 3 continents and lots of air-travel. No offense, but you got it easy.

[onlyzombiecat]

Maybe you could invite everyone to your house or at least one set of relatives... worth a try.

We have to travel to see everyone too because they won't come here but fortunately not quite as far.

Maybe drive at least part of the time when your child will be sleeping so you don't have to make as many stops and it won't be as hard to sit still.

Try to keep your dd's routine as normal as you can since you'll be staying different places. (bed the same time, eat the same times)

I know some people really like the dvd players in the car to keep the children occupied on long drives. We don't have that and do okay mostly. If we were doing 30 hours in the car we might consider one though.

When we had an 8 hour drive with dd we planned to stop every 2 1/2 hours. We planned where we would stop and looked up things to do there. We started driving really early- before sunrise so dd was still sleeping. She woke up mid morning and our first real stop was lunch. We gave dd some new small things to play with periodically throughout the drive. We stayed 2 nights at our destination and then drove home. The drive home was tough because dd had discovered part way home that she had left something at the hotel and we couldn't really turn back.

Good luck with all your driving.

[Lil'M]

With some good planning, it really can be feasible. We have done long 8-12 hours car trips on vacation with our kids and this is what helped:

Work around sleep times as much as possible. Start the drive before dinner, then stop to eat, then let dc sleep in the car for as long as you can stand to drive. We had our AAA books with us and would call cheap motels about a 1/2 hour before we wanted to stop. Then we could park in front of the room and carry the kids directly into the bed.

Also, like a previous poster said, we brought many new, cheap toys, coloring books, etc. that we could bring out one at a time. Dollar store was great for that.

Tons of music for the car.

Books on cd/tape.

Snacks!

Stop when dc is bored and too awake to sleep. Every town at least has a playground. The AAA books would give us ideas for other interesting things to do along the way. Then once well tired out, hopefully dc will nap and drive as far as you can before nap is over.

Approach the drive as an adventure.

It can be done!

[newmommy]

Originally Posted by onlyzombiecat

Maybe you could invite everyone to your house or at least one set of relatives...

Can you try that? Family members should understand it's not easy travelling with young kids.

[Evan&Anna's_Mom]

I think the best answer is to "just say no" and invite everyone to come to you. Its still stressful (and you have to clean the house!), but at least its stressful for you and not your child.

Alternate years with each family so you only have to do one of these legs this year? You don't HAVE to have everyone see her every year, though each set of grandparents will probably tell you otherwise. Remember that you are making a choice to do this and you can, really and truly, not bow to guilt or other pressure.

Barring that, can you fly instead of drive? What is an 8 hour trip in the car might be a lot shorter in a plane and there might be more excitement to keep your child happy. Of course, this might be a really bad idea for lots of reasons...

Or the train? Even though it doesn't save time, your child can get up and walk around, there is more space to play, bathroom stops don't mean stopping the actual travel. I find the train to be a whole lot easier and less stressful for everyone.

[moma justice]

i wish i coul dtake a train...thre is no service anywhere near our destinations...
but i agree train is much easier!

and i have thought about driving at night, but we are going to a northenr rural area.....

so i guess i am afraid of some yucky combo of snow, late at night, far from civilization, our car is not new.......

i guess i figured for xmas, day time driving is just safer.

and if we had a place to invite people to come stay we would....

our apt is SOOOOOOOOOOOOoo small.

anyway, thanks for the advice.
i guess i was just ranting....
feel free to join me:
anyone else not wanting to travel: rant away

[starlein26]

i think what saved us was a dvd player. ds *loved* it and it allowed us to do all of our 7 hour trip in one day with about a total of 1 1/2 hours of rest stops. i felt a little guilty but it really helped!