Tips for car journey with newborn - should I try a dummy?

[eepie]

Hi there- FTM here with a lovely 8 week old baby, she is exclusively breastfed and have just started trying to get her to take a bottle so that in future my partner could give her some feeds with my milk but she's not having it quite yet...last time I tried she actually sucked on it a tiny bit but then quickly got upset !

We're going to visit my family soon which is a 3 hour car journey away (more if traffic though!) I am quite anxious about it as dreading getting stuck in traffic or stuck with her screaming on the motorway as she doesn't really like her car seat...the vibration of the engine doesn't seem to soothe her.

I was thinking maybe I would buy a NUK orthadontic dummy for 'emergencies' -- I also thought it might help her stay asleep in the pram as she wakes up crying in the pram often is we come off bumpy terrain or if the pram stops even if she was previously asleep.

Any tips would be most appreciated ! She sleeps really well at night (sleeps through) so I don't want to spoil the good thing we've got going with the night time sleep...but she often sucks her fist...or wants to comfort suck on my nipples.

We did a v long drive with dd1 (3.5yr) and dd2 (6 weeks) - would have been 5hr30min on clear run. My advice is to just expect to stop as much as you drive (eg allow 6 hours for your journey) and just meander there.

Look up services/big superstores on the way there (big superstores usually out of towns and have good nappy changing facilities/cafes). Then feed, nappy change and just see how far you can get before you need to stop again. We just looked for somewhere to stop at the first grizzle, you are unlikely to be more than 15mins from a junction if you need an emergency nappy change unless you are very unlucky with traffic, and you should probably manage at least a 40min drive between stops. Non driver can sit in the back with baby to clean up any sick/offer finger to suck etc.

Our dd2 loves loud rock/pop music in the car, sends her right off to sleep! She might be peculiar though

My DD once cried all the way from Cardiff to Reading, and the other one one cried all the way from Legoland to Cardiff.
The first time we were with DH. We stopped several times to try bottle, fresh air, anything we could think of but nothing worked so just ploughed on.
The second time was just me and both DDs. 1 was upset because 2's crying was making her ears hurt. I couldn't stop the baby crying, so again just carried on.

I will never forget either if those journeys!

milkjetmum and madrigals - thanks for advice ! very helpful ! And middleagedmotheroftwo - OH.DEAR.GOD.

IME dummies are no help in this situation as they fall out and screaming starts again. I wish I'd thought of tuning out the radio to white noise for my first baby. Its worked like magic for my second!

We did many long drives with our kids for a young age. My two tips would be

1. Make sure the sun is not shining in their eyes (we couldn't for life of us figure out why he was upset - the realised low sun was going straight into his eyes)

1. We found winding any window down an inch or so created a soothing sound which would stop hi crying (we couldn't believe it, so we did up-down with the window a few times and it was like having am on-off switch for a baby!)

I agree with regular stops and feeds. Good luck!