how much driving is realistic?

[Cie]

Advice on driving with 11 month old...We're planning a holiday to France in May (between La Rochelle and Bordeaux) and wondering how much driving a day / in one stretch is reasonable? Our baby will be 11 months then. We'd probably have 1-2 hr drive to the Tunnel and are thinking we'd be on the Eurotunnel mid-morning - how much driving is realistic for the rest of the day? We've had good and bad experiences in the car with our baby so far - couple of hours fine but after that we've had a couple of big screams. Given he'll be more active / mobile then, how much driving do people comfortably manage?

It's about 7 hours drive from Calais. Do you specifically want the tunnel? It is faster, but you're still cooped up, esp at 11 months. At least on the ferry the kids can crawl and play, esp on return journey, my preferred option. Will you be setting off for tunnel morning? Say leave at 9, tunnel at 11, add the hour, so you're leaving Calais more like 1 pm. It'll be night time even with no stops. So either consider overnight drive and dc can sleep, or stop every couple of hours, ut then you^ll probably have to spend the night somewhere en route.

At Christmas we drove up from Munich, about 9 hours.dc 6 months, 5, 7 & 9) On the way there we drove with only 2 quick breaks, but spent night in hotel near Calais and completed journey next day. Return journey we just drove the whole way. ALl kids fine, but is was long & boring., but imo preferable to stopping in hotel

I agree with ErnestTheBavarian. We've frequently done long trips (12 hours +) with our 3 and they've been fine.
When our twins were 4 months we drove to Bavaria with them and did it in one go but with frequent stops so they could stretch and move around. We usually take the Eurotunnel but when the children were tiny we took the ferry for the same reason as above.

We now often drive to the S of France and do this in one go but travel through the night sharing the driving so the children sleep a lot of the time.

I think it probably depends on how used your LO is to being in the car. My DCs have always been fine but have been brought up with long car drives.
French autoroute service stations are usually very good (much better than in UK).

Thanks for these - useful to know what others have done. We'll probably go for it and make sure we have decent breaks on the way.

Think seriously about doing it overnight.

We got the ferry about 10pm and drove through without stopping (apart from swapping drivers) and arrived before dd woke up for the morning.

I think once you start the journey you don't want to stop unless you really have to. One of you could also sit in the back with your ds if he needs some company.

Will he be in a forward facing seat by then do you think?

That's interesting - thanks for that. He'll be on teh threshold of changing to a forward facing seat at 11 months - what do you think is better? As he's quite big for his age at eht moment I guess we'd be seriously thinking about moving him up for the holiday. Thoguhts?

well, you need to decide if you want to stay the night in a hotel and break the journey. pros - 2 shorter drives, less stressful/boring, etc.

cons, cost, dragging journey out and in effect loose half a day holiday, possibly uncomfy night in shitty motelly type thing

I personally rather get the journey over with, but then mine are all v. good travelers, thank goodness, but probably because we've had to do lots of long journeys.

If you decide to get it over with, then an overnight drive would be best, which counting backwards, you'd be looking at leaving Calais about midnight, which would mean a tunnel crossing at about 10ish at night. Luckily it's winter so it will be drak, not so good in summer when sun's up at 4 or 5, so dc should remain sleeping all way there.

If you decide to break journey with overnight stay, I'd choose somewhere about 5 hours from Calais, so you have 2 x 2.5 hour drives, and aim to arrive at that place around 5 or 6 so you have plenty of time to unwind, have a play, have an evening meal in restaurant etc before bed at normalish time. YOu'll have to work out timings backwards form there, but these are the 2 senarios, up to you to work out pros and cons.

Still v. young, but if you have the forward seat by then, you could consider getting in car dvd player, ours is a godsend, but then my kids are older, but it really really makes a huge difference.

hth

You might want to think about doing the overnoght ferry from Portsmouth in to St Malo which leave at 8.30 ish and gets in abotut 7am depending on tides. I say this because it is then only about 3 hours to La Rochelle. We do the La Rochelle route about 5 times a year and I eaither do and early fast ferry to Caen from Portsmouth and get there about 6pm ish or do the overnight to St Malo and take it a bit more leisurely. Have been doing it since dd was 6 months old with out DH coming with us and its fine either way

Took us 8 hours from Vendee to Calais, and it felt a very long way with much older kids let along an 11 month old. I'd advise breaking the journey about half way down overnight, or taking an overnight ferry to Caen, otherwise you will arrive pretty late and rattled.

I don't put the kids through long drives, I drive the family flies in on Ryanair. Everybody wins

I have a drive without annoying kids kids being annoying because they are bored
Kids don't have to go through hell of a long drive and don't start the holiday tired and miserable.
I don't have to go through the hell of a Ryanair flight.
We can fit a lot more in the car for the kids to have a good time when we get there.

I suggested that to my dh as we went past nante airport after getting lost on the ringroad!

Sorry not to have replied - been ill for a couple of weeks so was just managing day to day essentials. Really interesting though to hear about others' experiences. We're likely to do this journey again so will probably break it half way this time but have some alternatives to try out in future now!

if you are W of London def get the express ferry from Portsmouth to Cherbourg rtaher than the tunnel

did it last year with 11mo dd:
packed everything in the car the night before
put dd into car asleep in her pyjamas and left home 5am
caught 8am ferry, dd woke up, had breakfast etc
3h crossing
back into car, dd napped
less than 300 miles to the Vendee (stopped twice to change drivers and nappies)
there in time for tea

would def do it again

Look at the cost of the overnight ferry - for the difference in price you might be better of doing Dover/Calais and then overnighting somewhere a 2 hour drive from Calais, then setting off fresh in the morning.

We drove to Switzlerand when DD was 7 months, so a bit better in age, and did ferry to Boulogne, drove to Reims, overnighted in Accor hotel, pooped in to supermarket to stock up on bread and cheese, then drove the Berne next day via Germany and Basel stopping every couple of hours for bottle/toilet/food. I sat in the back of the car with DD when she was awake to try to keep her amused.

On the way back, we drove straight from Berne to Boulogne, again stopping every 2 hours and overnighted in Boulogne

we went to the vendee with a 10mo.
got the early tunnel (6am) from Leatherhead (stayed with PIL) so about an hour drive.
drove all the way the other side, got there late afternoon.

Did pretty much the same a few years later with 4yo and 8mo, but drove from home to chunnel, so just under 2 hrs.