Travelling with 13 month old

[rainmac80]

Hi all,
We're due to visit family over Easter weekend but they live about 5 hours away and I'm not sure what time to leave! Do I plan to travel during day when DS is having a nap but know that he won't sleep for full journey or when it's his bedtime and then hope he sleeps whole way and deal with him possibly not wanting to sleep when we get there?
Any tips?
Thanks
Lorraine

Are you driving? I've always gone during the day and added an hour to the expected journey time to compensate for unscheduled nappy changes etc (once, twenty minutes from our destination, DS nappy exploded all over him, we changed him in the boot at the side of a busy A-road in the rain and the seat cover had to be washed). Never again. Next time we will allow extra stoppage time for scheduled changes.

I've never tried a night journey. Maybe someone will come along with some experience.

I've never tried a night journey either, but then I was so sleep deprived when they were that age that I doubt I could have managed one if I'd wanted to.

Agree with Pascha, but I'd be tempted to add a little more extra time.

Yeah I thought that too but DH is out all day, not getting home til 6 so thinking we'll try that on the way there and then try during day on way back, just really difficult cos when DS is awake he wants to get up and play and walk now and wouldn't just go back to sleep again straight after so would need to break half way and make it a good couple of hours I think! Glad this is the trial run with DH cos I'm then doing it on my own next month so I'll know then which works best for DS :)
Thanks

We've tried lots of different approaches for the same length journey.

Leaving at 6pm seemed like a good idea until DS stayed awake until almost 10pm . We never tried that again, he nodded off when we were about an hour away and then hated being disturbed when we arrived, needed to assemble travel cot etc.

In the end it worked out better to leave around 10am. Drive for a couple of hours and stop for lunch (just as DS getting fed up). After lunch he tended to sleep for a couple of hours and was awake for the last hour (probably made another stop when he woke to change nappy). Arrived about 5pm but enough time for DS to have some 'active' time before bath and bed.

You almost need to accept that you lose a day each way travelling, it gets better as they get older.

Thanks, yeah I'm guessing that too - am bit stuck for tomorrow cos that's the only time we can leave so gonna have to just deal with the consequences of the journey regardless and then try to plan the return a bit better :) Have purchased a back of seat toy thing for DS to play with if we get desperate but he has a very short attention span at the best of times lol
x

DH was all set to get a dvd player for DS when we travelled at about the same age as we thought we might have trouble if DS became bored so we borrowed his sisters one. Actually it never got used, DS was happy just to look out the window. What we did find very useful was audiobooks on the iPod played in the car. All the Julia Donaldson ones went down well.

It's a bit of a difficult age as they can't entertain themselves very well yet in the car seat. I'd go in the morning and break the journey in two. Stop halfway at a service station for food, fresh air and stimulation.

At that age my DS would still get lulled to sleep quite easily in the car, so would probably sleep about 3 or 4 out of 5 hours. What also worked was sitting next to him to keep him company or if you have to sit in the front, pack a bag with lots of little toys that you can just keep handing to him if he gets bored/chucks the previous one on the floor.

For reference, around that age we drove to Holland which was about an 8 hour journey iirc (including chunnel & a break) and although there were a few bits where he got whiney it wasn't too bad.