Taking a road trip with a baby is no easy task. Heck, leaving the house with a baby is no easy task. I remember one of the first doctor’s appointments with Leah when she was days old — it took us seemingly an entire hour just to pack our diaper bag.
We now have a few road trips under our belt, and we have found a rhythm that works well for us. I’m sharing our most helpful tips here. We have had plenty of tears and sad eyes staring back at us as if to say, “why aren’t you picking me up and holding me right now?” BUT — *fingers crossed* the last few road trips have been fairly stress and meltdown free.
We are preparing for our first flight with a baby later this month, so I’ll take copious notes on what we loved and what we wish we would have known on a flight. We have been camping three times with our daughter (currently 5 months), but I’m not sure we have that quite down yet. I do think I could share a few of our favorite things that help making camping fun. We’ll see!
Here are our tips for traveling by car with a baby — assuming your final destination is a hotel, airbnb, or cabin with electricity.
- Start out your trip right before nap time. This has been the most ideal timing for us to get the trip started. It may take a little help by having one of us sitting in the back with her to fall asleep, but once she falls asleep, we can generally get a good start out on the trip.
- Take breaks every two hours or so. We have found that the baby does not do well when being in the car for more than two hours. We like to find hikes, coffee shops, lunch spots around every two hours to get out, put on a fresh diaper, and play around for a bit before heading back in the car.
- Bring extra baby clothes. This is most likely already in your diaper bag, but for some reason, car rides tend to bring out the blowouts for us. In case of accidents, its always nice to have a fresh outfit easily accessible.
- If you’re feeling awake, travel some of your long stretches after bed time. On occasion, it has helped to do a long stretch of the drive after the baby has fallen asleep for the night. This is only a good idea when you’re feeling wide awake! Knowing how tired we can get, it’s not worth risking it if we fear we may be too sleeping.
- Bring a sound machine or download ocean sounds onto your phone. Ocean sounds magically have calmed our baby down in the midst of some heavy tears. It also is a familiar noise to her nap times/bed times, so I think that helps too.
These are our favorite tips that seem to help make our trips more enjoyable and our expectations are not too high on getting to our destination too quickly. We love traveling and we are so glad we are able to continue doing so as our family of three. Here are a few of our favorite places to visit!
