Best way to do a six hour journey with a three month old?

[newmachar]

Wanting to Travel to Edinburgh for anniversary weekend in January, DS will be 3 months old. By car it will take us 5 hours (if no traffic), by train 4 hours. Is this a really silly idea? First time parents perhaps underestimating the amount of stuff we will need/ how many times we would have to stop if driving

I think train too and also second the recommendation to get a family railcard so you have an extra seat and cheaper tickets. In fact you could even take your carseat on the train if you need it when you get there...

If you are travelling with lots of stuff you might be able to get it put in the luggage car. (Or whatever it's called!)

When we travelled Kings Cross to Edinburgh by Virgin trains we were able to put our massive cases in the luggage car.

I don't know if all lines to this. And it wasn't the best service at the other end - despite giving us a ticket to return our luggage in fact they just dumped everyone's luggage in a big pile the platform at Edinburgh and left us to sort it out ourselves. It was dark and raining so DP rushed getting all our massive piles of stuff onto the trolly.

Later realised we were missing a bag and had to pay £20 to get it back from lost property.

I'd use it again but with low expectations this time!

We’ve done loads of long drives with small dc. That age is perfect because they sleep so much. As they get older they get more pissed off with spending their awake time in their car seat, and once they’re toddlers you don’t want them to sleep that much in the day so you have to drive at night or entertain them. 3 month olds aren’t newborns - it’s fine to keep them in the car seat for longer than 30mins!

Yeah, definitely doable. We've travelled loads with DD (now 2) including long car drives and I would take the train in a heartbeat. You can walk around, feed as needed, neither of you needs to concentrate if you've had a crap night, passing strangers will tell you your child is adorable (although they may follow it up with a comment that they should/shouldn't be wearing a hat/feeding to sleep/etc...!) and you can drink a coffee / go pee / have lunch without stopping progress. I would take the train over flying as the time will be about the same when you add in getting to the airport and security.

My DD hated being in the car (just screamed) until she went into a forward facing seat though. If you've got the kind of baby that will fall asleep in the car then do that, but do you even know yet if your DS will only be 3 months in 2-3 months?

However you go, if you're staying with/near family get them to pick up/borrow as much stuff for you as you can e.g. travel cot, nappies & wipes. If you can borrow a travel cot, you can do the rest with just a backpack per adult and a few bits under the buggy. Tinies don't need much (says the person who took clean towels to her mothers the first time

We fly to Scotland

We did that journey when ds was 10 weeks. We put him in a sling and he was easy to manage. Nappy change wasn't so easy. We then hired a car from edinburgh airport with a car seat to get to our final destination. We couldn't fly as he didn't have a passport and birth certificate had an error.

Mine were easy in car at that age. What's the worst that can happen?

It'll be fine. The motion of the train and a sling might help them sleep. If there's no cot where you're going, you could get a koo-di pop up cot. They're really lightweight and small, much easier to travel with.