Prior to our trip, I had searched Pinterest for some tips, and found some great ones that worked well for us, so I thought I'd compile OUR list in hopes it might help another momma on the go! :)
Let's get to it! Tip #1 - don't road trip with a toddler. KIDDING! LOL!! You guys, I was super anxious about how 7+ hours might go with our girl in the car, but it was way better than I had anticipated. Okay, for real, here we go...
1. SNACKS! All. The. Snacks. We packed a cooler with beverages (water, milk, etc), go-gurt tubes, items for sandwiches, cheese sticks, and fruit. Then also packed a tote with bread, crackers, peanut butter, puffs, yogurt bites, some easy food pouches, fig bars, and a few other random snacks. We all know "hanger" well, and it turns out toddlers are no different LOL! I have a hard rule of no eating in the vehicle when we are going about our normal routine, but we let that fly out the window for a road trip. Cleaning up cracker crumbs and spilled milk are a small price to pay for a happy rider.
2. New Toys! A friend mentioned this one to me, and it was the perfect excuse for me to buy a new toy set I'd been drooling over. I got this combo set of wooden lacing toys and they were a HUGE hit! I always keep a small tote in the vehicle with a few board books, a stuffed animal, a puzzle of sorts, and a toy. For this trip I simply rotated all the items so they were "new" to her, and then added in the new wooden lacing toys. I kept the apple in the tote, and the cheese in our restaurant kit.... which leads me to my next tip.
3. Make a restaurant kit!! So what the heck is a restaurant kit?! I had never even heard of one until I stumbled across this post on Pinterest. Check it out! I pretty much duplicated it! I ordered a tin lunch box online, and then filled it with a handful of magnets, some crayons, a magnetic drawing pad, the wooden cheese lacing toy, and a book. Guys. This idea is MONEY! It allowed us to eat out for dinner each night on our trip, and our girl was entertained without needing to play with all the condiments on the table haha!!
4. Pack your child's favorite stuffy or lovey. This seems like a no brainer, but I almost forgot it myself, and am glad we remembered it. It helped comfort her during our hotel stays, and I'm guessing made it feel a little bit more like home.
5. A tablet. This one was iffy for me. We don't do a ton of screen time and we are trying to raise a child who appreciates and enjoys the outdoors, physical activity, and learning through hands on experiences. BUT...my BFF has three little boys and travels all. the. time. and she told me I needed to take one as a back up or last resort in case we can't make headway on our trip. She also limits screen time, so I knew that coming from her and her experiences, I better go ahead and just do it. I have an old iPad mini that's literally ancient in the technology world (won it at an event in 2013), but I was able to find it, it took a charge (shocking LOL since it hasn't been used in who knows how long), and my husband downloaded the Amazon Prime Video app so we could download a few episodes of some of the PBS shows we do allow during screen time. We downloaded one episode of Sesame Street and one episode of Daniel Tiger. That's it. So our first leg of the journey was a 7+ hour drive and I figured it would go just like any of our other drives....you know...the 20 minute ones we take. Sheesh...where's the face palm emoji LOL?! What should have been the first two hours, took over FOUR hours...and I was getting frustrated and realized we could NOT do 14 hours in one day...especially when the destination was only seven hours away LOL! After exhausting all options, I pulled out the iPad. Happy little clam and we sailed right into our destination with lots of time to explore and go to the beach, find a spot for dinner, etc. Long story, well...long...it saved us our sanity while driving and helped keep her entertained, but is something we will reserve for vacation / road trips only.
6. Look for roadside parks WITH playgrounds on your route! We stopped at so many wonderful roadside parks! It allows everyone to stretch their legs, your toddler to expel some energy, and work up an appetite. What we found to work best for our family, was having Mom and Dad take turns eating while our girl played, and then feed her either right before loading back up, or if it was just snack time, then allowing her to eat her snack in her carseat after we got back on the road. After playing hard for awhile, she was usually ready to sit down and eat, and much more content to get back in the carseat if food was involved haha!!
7. Regardless of what time of year you are traveling, or what the weather is like, bring a light swaddle blanket that can be used to cover your child's legs in the carseat, AND double as an extra window shade if the sun is in their eyes. We have tinted windows WITH extra sun shades installed, and sometimes the sun still is just at the right spot that it's blinding her. A few different times I had to roll the swaddle blanket up in window and that did the trick!
8. All of these tips above are helpful, and great but really...we made the best headway when our girl was napping or sleeping. Traveling during sleeping hours makes it much easier on everyone. We traveled through almost every nap, and then on our way home, traveled through a chunk of the night (our drive home was nearly 12 hours, so we had to break it up into two days).
9. Something I had not been told, but learned quickly....pack ONE bag for hotels. We all had our own luggage pieces per usual...and when you're going to just one destination, that's no big deal. However, when you're road tripping, and moving hotels every night or every other night, NO one wants to haul in 3 bags, a pack n play, the cooler, the snack tote, etc in and out of the car every night at check in and every morning at check out. I wised up and used our beach bag (which is actually one of the smaller thirty-one totes) and threw in our consolidated toiletries bag (I use a ziplock for this), then one outfit for each person, and our jammies. That's it. So I took in one small bag, then made sure to grab a few diapers and a pack of wipes, and the milk. We can never be caught without our milk LOL!
10. My last tip really only applies if you're visiting sandy destinations LOL, but man it's THE BEST ONE! Seriously! I read somewhere on Pinterest to throw in a small travel size bottle of baby powder to use to get the sand off your body. What? This sounds dumb...I don't even keep baby powder in the house (you know, because now a days it causes cancer or something..).. Well, what do I have to lose, I hate cleaning up sand. I'll grab a bottle. GUYS! This was SUCH a lifesaver! We visited beaches every single day of our trip, so we had sand everywhere. When you're done and ready to get back in the car, just sprinkle a little bit of baby powder on the area that still has sand (usually the ankles and feet because it's inevitable to get off the beach without sand) and then just brush it right off. We were blown away by how efficient this little tip worked. So...next time you're visiting a sandy destination, throw in a small thing of baby powder. You can thank me later ;)
Alright guys...that wraps up what I learned this time around, and I seriously hope it was helpful for someone! I'm off to finally catch some zzzz's and hope my kid sleeps through the night in her crib now that we're back home LOL!
Happy Road Tripping!
XO,
Holly
P.S. If you'd like to see some more highlights from our trip, you can find it pinned in my IG Highlights :)
