Toddler outing on a bus

[tassis]

Ok, I'm new to toddler group outings and my group are going on a bus to a soft play place about an hours drive away. How would you feel about this? I have ds who's 24 months and his friend who's 14 months. Could I take their car seats on the bus?

Do you mean you have booked a coach or are we talking a public bus service here?

Coaches never seem to mind you bringing appropriate child car seats but obviously they need lap-diagonal belts to fix them to. And I guess you need to check with the bus provider that their insurance covers them for your seats being safe and sound while you are at the soft play place.

If you are talking about a public transport bus then none that I know of have car seat fixing facilities and will probably not be helpful about you wanting to bring seats.

This is a tricky one as we are committed public transport users and ds and dd have done many quite long London bus trips. But tbh the smaller child has always been in a buggy, parked back to direction of travel, with the brakes on and an adult close at hand to ensure stability.

Thanks, Marina. The toddler group have booked a coach.

I'm trying to decide whether it's madness to go. Both boys generally have a long lunchtime sleep and the coach isn't returning until 3pm...

Oh, good luck. FWIW ds and I had a gas on his two nursery outings at age 24 and 36 months, both involving a coach trip of about 1.5 hours each way. We really did enjoy ourselves and it was so nice seeing him with all his little pals and his nursery nurses.

BUT I only had him to look after and he was down to quite a short lunchtime nap at the age of two.