PH parents- 18m old toddler and long car journeys?

[PugwasHDJ80]

We need to drive to the south of france in June with our daughter who will be 18m old. She is already running around, and will I'm sure be talking.

How the hell do you manage a 600 mile car trip?

We will be splitting it into 2 days, but is this the best approach?

Apart from books and sleeping, and frequent stops, how do you keep them entertained?

Any tips to make our lives easier?

[Mave]

DVD player and lots of toys. Might also be worth planning to have one of you in the back for some of the journey, also consider driving at night.

[OwenK]

Cheap portable DVD player.
Saved my sanity on many a long drive with kids especially when they were younger. I don't have the DVD player anymore, but they're now used to driving enough that I can do a 2 hour plus journey with nothing to entertain them besides a couple of toy cars and the window.

[surveyor]

DVD player. We took our Daughter at that age to mid-France and even though she could not use the headphones, the 8veight year old's Simpsons were enough to amuse her visually.

Helps if they can see out of the window also.

[Big Rod]

Drive overnight.

Depart about the same time as the nipper would usually go to sleep and just drive.

Done it dozens of times and it's the only way as far as I'm concerned.

Edited by Big Rod on Friday 21st February 14:54

[staceyb]

Travel at night, give her a bath, jammies on with a blanket and she'll sleep through.

[Slidingpillar]

surveyor said:

Helps if they can see out of the window also.

Very much. Seeing where you are going is part of the process for avoiding travel sickness.

[jamieduff1981]

We drive during the day. We drive from just north of Aberdeen to SW Wales and/or Cambridgeshire a couple of times a year. When they're not sleeping we just talk to them. Ours are 4 and 2 just this month. They're both well used to travelling and they look forward to a hotel around Carlisle-ish to break up the journey, which they've self-named "bedtime houses".

No problems at all...

[trumptriple]

First time we drove 1000 miles to Spain with our son he was 6 months old, did it over two days. We've since driven there with him a further four times (he's almost 4 now) and it's been fine. Always over two days.

We don't have a portable dvd player, but I would consider one. We just shared the driving and the other one of us sat in the back with him. Read books, sing songs, look out the window, play angry birds on your mobile, sleep, eat biscuits, etc.

Stop every two hours, unless he's sleeping when we plough on for as long as possible.

[_Neal_]

Travelling at night (basically putting them down to sleep in the car) is a good shout, and another vote here for having one person in the back during daytime stints, so they can more easily play games/provide food etc.

I'd also say letting them have a properly good run-around when you stop for meals is a good idea - seems to keep our 2-year old happy anyway.

ETA - As above, we aim to stop roughly every 2 hours.

[PugwasHDJ80]

thanks for the interesting ideas- I had thought about driving overnight as i'd be happy to do that, but i do wonder if i would be totally wrecked the next day, and presumably you'd want to actually get where you are going.....

dvd player is interesting- can the same thing be done with an ipad?

[dirty_dog]

Forget buying the DVD player if you already have a tablet! I bought a cover for our Google Nexus 10 which attaches to a velcro wrap around the headrest so it doesn't get in the way of feet etc.
Did 600 miles in 2 days in the states when our daughter was 15 months old, partly through the night though.

WARNING: the noise that comes out of a 2 hour Pingu compilation can get a bit annoying!

[dirty_dog]

also take plenty of breaks even if its just to get them out the seat for a while.

[anonymous-user]

PugwasHDJ80 said:

We need to drive to the south of france in June with our daughter who will be 18m old. She is already running around, and will I'm sure be talking.

How the hell do you manage a 600 mile car trip?

We will be splitting it into 2 days, but is this the best approach?

Apart from books and sleeping, and frequent stops, how do you keep them entertained?

Any tips to make our lives easier?

It will probably be a nightmare whatever you try to do! We're doing the same sort of trip next year to see relatives but ours will be 2 by then.

[Devil2575]

I've never driven that far with any of my kids but we did drive my eldest 300 miles to London when he was about 18 months old. It was quite difficult especially towards the end when we were stuck in traffic and he was hungry and tired. The only way to stop him crying was for us to sing to him. Sitting in a traffic jam singing nursery rhymes for about 45 minutes was fun!

[Mr Gearchange]

Drive overnight in one hit.

[J4CKO]

Our Ford Galaxy came with integrated screens in the rear and wireless headphones, absolute god end when we used to cart all three on long journeys, all you can hear is silence and the odd laugh at the film instead of "Are We there yet ?" and general bhing and fighting, most films are long enough for our South Manchester -> Anglessey trips. I used to be of the mind that we had to amuse ourselves an shut up so why indulge them, but it was brilliant.

[Spyder3400]

Already touched on but just hammer it as long as they are asleep/snoozing, pit stops every few hrs when awake, prepare for the worst and it can only be an improvement! Good luck!

[C.A.R.]

Agree with the night time thing, introduce a TV and you're just going to present yourself with more issues further down the line if the damn thing should stop working or give up and die an electrical death. The child will then want it back - but not if they didn't have it in the first place!

Our little girl was 13 months when we did a 400 mile journey twice in one weekend, she was fine. Regular stops so they can stretch their tiny legs and it's a doddle.

We never had TV screens in the back as kids - it's a modern-day cop-out.

[Impasse]

Get the boat to north Spain and drive back up.