How do you keep a 7 month old baby in rear facing car seat happy for 6hr long car journey?

[Holymoly321]

It'll be easy (fingers crossed) keeping 2.6 yr old DS happy for long drive to France, comics, DVD etc. But how do we keep 7 month old DS2 happy?

Can you travel at night time so it fits in with his bedtime?

time it so he sleeps most of the way?

I did a 12 hr car journey with DS at 6mth to be honest he just got bored and went to sleep woke up for feeds and went back to sleep again.

If anything like mine you can't. She'd sleep for about an hour, possibly two, then wake up and probably cry after about twenty minutes from boredom. Having her big sister next to her would help a bit but we would have to stop a lot. Can you do it at night?

I'd think your 7mo will sleep most of the way - the 2.6 yo will be your prob. (if he's anything like mine!)

You don't - if he's like my DS at his age. We had to do short (30 minute) hops or he would scream the car down and I couldn't concentrate to drive safely....

How would you like nothing to look at for hours on end than the back seat of a car?
We used to put ds1 in the front seat (no passenger airbag) and one of us sit in the back, could then talk to him and pull faces etc. Or in dps car with airbag we would take turns to sit in back with child so they have some company.

Now we have 2, when ds2 was rear facing we did the same but with ds1 always in the back of the car, or sometimes sat between them. Which was a bit squashed.

I think you are in for lots of screaming and crying from both children, lots of pitstops and the journey taking twice as long as you have planned. I'd go with the flow....

IMHO, the 7 month old will be fine. If your car seat set up is same as most, he can look out the window as well as at the back of the seat!

Get a (plastic) mirror though, and stick it to the back of the seat for him to gaze lovingly into

thanks all, have bought a mirror and toy type thing to go on the back seat so hopefully that will cut the boredom factor! Unfortunately we have a ferry booked so can't drive overnight, but wish us luck!

I had a play arc thingy that had dangly soft toys and you clipped it either side of the baby carrier and the toys dangled infront of their faces. Mothercare maybe?

We drove to Switzerland with DD when she was 7 months old. She was absolutely fine. She slept for around 2 hours at a time then we would stop for bottle/food and so she could have a bit of a stretch.

For the odd part I would go in the back and sit with her and just hold her hand - she liked that!

Good luck

L

Calpol night !!- am joking.

We did it last year. DS 8 months. Went to the south of France, stopping overnight en route. Drove in the daytime and kept to his routine of snack, milk, lunch etc. Even stopped to change his clothes into sleepsuit when it went past 7pm. Picked him up and into the cotbed at midnight. He was perfect. No problems whatsoever!!! We also had a CD of Baby Mozart to play to him if and when he got fed up.

Best of luck...

Buy 6 very different toys i.e. one noisy, one with mirror, one with squishy bits ... Every hour, throw a new one into the back.

Breadsticks and rice cakes have always seemed a fairly safe option, and at 7 months, are playable and chewable.

Break it into 3x two hour chunks (if possible).

Sit in the back for an hour, pulling stupid faces and singing.

Good luck. I've got to do an 8 hour journey this summer, on my own. Not looking forward to it!

Last time we made the journey, having mentioned it in passing to our GP, the GP gave us a prescription for piriton .