Would you drive to get your child to sleep? - Page 2

[FoxintheSnow]

Infant-yes
Preschooler-no

When ds was a baby I had to drive on brick roads so he would sleep. I cant imagine doing that nowadays though.

[Flor]

We did this for naps, but it was during the day and I could read or knit or something. I could never move ds out of the carseat, he had to stay there for a nap. It wasn't an unbreakable habit. It eventually stopped, I don't even remember when. It was a few months long phase.

[angelpie545]

I have done that occasionally, especially when I was pregnant with #2 (and single), plus a toddler, and was all by myself. I actually did that for the last couple months of my pregnancy :. It was just easier for me than fighting with an angry screaming dog-tired toddler, all with a belly the size of Chicago, and being dead tired myself.

Now that my kids are older, I would do it except for a last-ditch effort, which occurs more often for me because I suffer from a chronic illness, so I have less endurance than I had before.

[Momily]

No, because I don't have a car and my 8 year old is too big to carry anyway, but I "strolled" him for pretty much every nap when he was 2 or 3. If it wasn't a daycare day, I'd put him in the stroller after lunch and we'd go for a nice long walk, or run errands. Inevitably he'd fall asleep and I could get some exercise, go grocery shopping, head to the bookstore etc . . . I could also wheel him into the garage, and leave the door to the kitchen open while I cleaned up or started dinner.

We also had a summer ritual of going to the pool after daycare. We'd swim for a couple of hours, eat a picnic dinner and then brush teeth and put on jammies in the locker room (his jammies, not mine). The walk home was about a mile and a half and he'd be fast asleep by the time we got home.

It never interfered with his ability to fall asleep in the family bed, although he stopped napping at home without it. Then again, I know so many kids that gave up their naps at 2 that I think he might have stopped napping anyway.

I also have to say that even if it was an "addiction" it was a good one from my point of view because it's the only time in my life I can say I got an hour or more of exercise EVERY day. Looking back I was in much better shape then than ever before or after.

[StephandOwen]

I've done it, but not as an everyday thing. I use it as a "mom is at the end of her rope and things are going downhill very very fast and we need to take a break". DS loves car rides so it's never been a punishment. And sometimes, at the end of a long day, all I want is him asleep. I'll cuddle with him then, when he's not pinching/kicking/scratching/screaming, thank you very much!

[Drummer's Wife]

oh heck yeah. Not often but there are times when dh and I dread coming home and getting all four to sleep especially if it's late already and they are awake. We live in an apartment though and the people downstairs already hate us. So yeah, we've been known the drive on the highway towards to mountains until they all pass out then we struggle to carry them all up two flights of stairs without waking them. But seriously there are times when it's worth it for us.

[marieangela]

I have done this and still do sometimes with my almost 5 and 2 year old. My dh works late pretty much every night, so I often eat dinner at my parents' house. If I'm leaving there around bedtime, I put the boys in their pajamas, brush their teeth and head home. Sometimes I take a bit of the long way home if it seems like they're going to fall alseep. Ds1 will fall asleep in the car, with someone laying in bed with him, or sometimes even on his own. I don't think it has negatively effected him.

[mommy68]

I've done it in the past with two of my children but only because they fell asleep faster that way. I also would lay with them in their beds until they fell asleep sometimes as well, just depended on the time of day and circumstances. I usually didn't drive them around until I had errands to run anyway so I wasn't wasting time or gas.

[sweetpea333]

alot of times i put my babes in there pyjamas and put them in the car around bedtime and me and my hubby will do whatever errand we have to do.. (like one of us run into the store to grab milk or whatever) sometimes we save our errands for around there bedtime because they get cranky in the stores or pull everything off the shelf, they usually fall asleep before we even get to our destination.. and we go out for dinner at my mothers about 4 times a week and bring all there nite stuff and they fall asleep in the car on the way home... Me and dh were having some bedtime issues and it would take hours to get them to sleep and we weren't getting the time we needed to wind down and have alone time. I dont feel guilty about not snuggling them to sleep on most nites because they both get hugged all nite long when me and dh do go to bed and all throughout the day.. And on the nites we do put them to bed at home it doesnt take any longer than before we used the car.