tips for 3hr car journey with 20mth old?

[milkyman]

We are timing with nap but anyone got any other tips?

In car DVD player or I pad with their fave programmes downloaded on it. 3 hrs is not too bad a journey.
A snooze and a DVD and you will be there.

Last year we did Cumbria to St Ives with a 7 month old !!!
Never want to watch Madagascar or baby bloody jake again !!!

3 hrs not too long. we've sometimes left about 30/40 mins before his nap is due, then he usually naps a lot longer in the car, and then he's ok for another 40/45 mins once he's awake.

is the problem that he hates being in the car when awake? A bit of bordeom/looking out of the window is good for them ;)

we had a rear facing carseat but it made DS sick EVERY SINGLE journey, so we've swopped to a forward facing and he's so much happier now, and travelling by car is not the stress it was.

We're going to Canada next week for a family wedding and will be doing a 8 hrs car journey. DS only has one nap a day now, so I think a lot of the journey he'll be awake. Might play "spot the moose.."?!

3 hours isn't too bad.

Now mine are older they watch TV a lot in the car but at that age we took toys along such as
Books
Etch a Sketch
Finger puppets
Toy phone
Trains/cars
Teddy

I had some plastic links that we could use to attach some of the toys to the carseat, to avoid the trauma of dropping them. Another tip is to very loosely wrap each toy up so your toddler has the fun of unwrapping them which kills a couple more minutes

Add in some singing/music CD, a drink and a snack and looking out of the window (I remember once being saved by M1 roadworks and all the diggers on a particularly fractious journey!) and you should be fine.

The other thing we used to do was travel at bedtime wherever possible, then fingers crossed they sleep the whole way.