Car Journey with young baby

[WITW7]

Currently pregnant with my first child and live near London. I’m my family all live in Edinburgh and whilst I’ve been in England a long time and have a partner and close support network here I realistically want to visit my family with the baby quite a bit during my maternity leave.

When is too soon for a long car journey with a baby? Thinking more from a safety perspective of them in a car seat a long period rather than the impractical side of just travelling with a child. Has anyone done something similar when your kids were young? I can’t fly up as navigating the airport with a pram, luggage etc alone might be too much at the start.

Please no judging. If it’s not do-able I won’t do it but if anyone has experience I’d be grateful for your thoughts

I'd fly - sling for baby, rucksack as changing bag and wheely case. Get a car seat, buggy and travel cot for your parents/whoever you stay with. They can easily pick up nappies and wipes in the supermarket for you.

Don't underestimate the tiredness factor, especially if you're driving by yourself and doing the night wakes. My youngest is a car seat screamer - we did 8 hours to get to holiday and my nerves were completely gone by the end, and that's with DH and eldest on entertaining duty. It's hard listening to your baby scream and cry when there's nothing you can do about it.

Where do people spout this rubbish from?! “Official guidance” that baby can’t be in a car seat for anymore than 30mins at one time is not only inaccurate but also completely unrealistic.
OP, tough one- you’d have to do loads of stops but definitely easier with all the “stuff”. I think I’d do the train. You could just take a hold-all and I’ve seen lots of people take pushchairs on the east coast trains. Maybe if it’s a regular trip you want to make you could leave some bits at your family’s hone so that you could fly for future trips. Good luck

P.S. and breatsfeeding the baby on the train was not too awful, although I breastfed in public pretty much from the start (was quite militant about it!) so didn't mind it.

Whichever way you do it will be a complete faff but it's important to see your family, so absolutey do it!

If you drive, plan your route to make regular stops. Every 30 minutes or so is recommended and I wouldn't like to do more than an hour without getting them out for a break.

If it were me, I would choose a train or flight. I know you're concerned about luggage but with a carrier and being extremely minimal, I think on balance it would be a lot less stressful than hours and hours on the motorway and stopping. Are there baby things that your family could have there so that you don't have to take them? Mumsnet will be really useful in helping you decide what luggage is essential and what could be left out.

You'll be fine in the car if you stop every 2h or so for a break. However, flying will be much easier! You can ask your family to pick up a second hand pram, nappies etc so you don't need to take too much up with you. Baby in the sling, a backpack with some changes of clothes, is all you need.

Agree with flying or train but really family should be coming to you fkr a good few months.
The SIDS risk is real when driving and given that babies tend to sleep in the car, it can be quite scary when you're driving and they're so little, you don't know they're still breathing. We did a (what should have been) 90 minute drive when ds was 5 weeks old. We stopped 3 times (remember you'll also need to do feeds and nappy changes) so it pretty much doubled the journey time. Not sure I could do a longer drive than that with a very little baby.

@ezrascatcus

Please don't fly for that little journey on a regular basis, it's so awful for the environment. My family live a similar distance away and I always took DS by train fight from a tiny baby.

You didn't consider your tiny baby would one be an adult and worry about his carbon footprint and choose not to contribute to an over populated world?

Just fly OP

If you have the opportunity it would be much easier to travel by train or plane. Tiny babies hardly need any props .I would have them in a sling and have a back pack or wheely case. I did long car journeys a few times when mine were tiny but the stopping and worrying about the baby makes it more stressful and like a pp not all babies sleep well in the car. My DC1 slept in the light but would go berserk if we were driving at night and DC3 screamed in the car until he was old enough to properly distract with nursery rhymes . If you choose to drive my advice would be to take it as it comes and not to put pressure on yourself with goals and deadlines.

We found that if we could be flexible with when we flew it was cheaper than the fuel for driving. (The train was always £££)
You can take your buggy right up to the gate (although we found the sling easier).

I'd fly or go on the train while they are little. I probably wouldn't bother with the pram when small and just take a sling. We used to travel pretty light when the babies were under 6 months (made easier by exclusively breastfeeding so no need for feeding stuff).

My youngest HATED the car seat until he was about 18 months so long car journeys were miserable. Just endless screaming with nothing to placate him.

Guidance for young babies in car seats is up to 30 min stretches for the first 4 weeks and up to 2 hour stretches after that.

Cloudy it's based on a research study done in 2016 which showed that newborn babies are susceptible to lowered oxygen saturation levels when placed at the angle that a car seat requires for crash safety and the car seat is vibrating (as it would from the movement of the car's engine). The research was performed as babies (including older babies/toddlers) have died when left to sleep in car seats for extended periods due to reduced oxygen saturation levels. There are older studies behind the 2 hour limit.

Car seats are vital and lifesaving but they do involve a compromise in baby's position and therefore they should not be used for too long. Once babies are older then they are more able to tolerate the angles required.

I don't think 30 minutes up to 4 weeks is an unreasonable or impractical suggestion. You only need to stop briefly and take them out. If you really really need to do longer journeys with a brand new baby and can't wait a couple of weeks then you can always use a lie flat carrycot type seat, although the crash worthiness of these is less clear (particularly the older style ones, modern ones might be OK, there's just not much if any real life data). So you have to choose between crash danger and oxygen desaturation danger and see which is the biggest risk to your own baby.

However people do sometimes incorrectly state that it's 30 / 120 minutes in a single 24 hour period which is wrong - no research or logic suggests this would be a beneficial limit. You can keep repeating the blocks of 30 / 120 minutes all day if you really need to. I wouldn't do it every day because babies need time to stretch out and move naturally for their development, but that is a completely different concern.

You'll have to stop for feeds and nappy changes anyway, but I would say that if they are asleep - leave them be!
As long as you have regular stops - which you would anyway, it's a long journey, you'll be fine.
I second stopping over halfway. Not just for baby - you'll feel better for it as well!

Babies under 6 weeks shouldn’t be a car seat for more than 30 mins at a time and after then for no more than 2 hours at a time.

I’m sure there is also a minimum age for flying due to air pressure.

i drove London to Glasgow when my son was 5 weeks. His car seat was a maxi cosi pebble, i had someone sitting in the back next to him keeping an eye on him and we stopped every 1.5/2hrs, so we could take him out the car seat and for a feed etc. He was totally fine and a week later we did the same trip in reverse.

I used to fly London to Scotland alone with him all the time, but yes it takes some getting your head round all the stuff that you need.

I’d fly. Put baby in a sling or get a small travel pram- the Babyzen YoYo can be taken as carry on luggage on most planes even in the newborn mode. Take minimal stuff and ask family to buy what you need (offer to pay obvs!) and have it ready for your arrival. It will be the quickest and easiest way of doing it by far.

First tip is get grandparents to get duplicates of all the kit you need. They can a cheap travel cot, a cheap food down pushchair (many can be used from birth is lying flat) a set of baby grows from primark etc. Basically so you can cut down what you need to take.

If you drive, I'd plan to do it over 2 days and make a proper trip of it. Stay overnight on the way. Premier inns are fantastic for staying in with babies / children.

Get a really good cloth wrap sling. I got mine from free rider range and it was amazing. You can eat with baby in it, go to the loo with baby in it etc.

Personally though, I'd fly. Again it's actually quite easy to do. Especially with a good sling and a back pack. If everything is the other end as well, very little to take with you.

You didn't consider your tiny baby would one be an adult and worry about his carbon footprint and choose not to contribute to an over populated world?

Actually since I have a child I also choose not to fly or drive, since I have convenient alternatives to both (the train).

I mean, it really doesn't work that if you've done one thing that's not so great for the environment then you might as well just not bother at all . If anything those of us with kids have a greater duty to be careful in other ways.

The top three things you can do for the environment are have one fewer child, not drive and not fly. I already have a kid so I don't drive and I don't fly.

Looking at the travel times I’d definitely be getting the train. If you are wanting to go quite a few times you can see if you can leave some supplies there rather than lugging them up with you every time. On the train you should be able to chill out a bit. Alternatively, I’d look at getting a carrier and maybe a doona car seat/pram and go by plane. Baby will need to come out of the car seat most of the time but it should be easier for you. I’d also invest in a backpack for hold luggage to free up
your hands.

I would 100% fly. It's just not fair on a tiny baby to do such long car journeys there and back

Depends on the kid, if they are chilled and sleep a lot you might be ok, if they are colicky and (later) active you might be better getting the train. Either way when they are very tiny (less that 3-4 months) they tend to need a lot of feeds, and suddenly wake up hungry, so you would be stopping frequently and potentially having a painful few minutes while baby is crying til you get to the next service station. That calms down a lot from about 3 months at which point a few pre planned stops might be sufficient.

For what it's worth I did similar trips many times with dc1 from about 3 months on, sometimes alone with her, and it was totally fine - she was happy to sleep through most of the ride especially if the longer chunks were at nap/bed time.

It's maybe not ideal. But we (like you) want our kids to have a relationship with far away family and we don't fly for environmental reasons, so this is our solution.

Later (toddlers) my top tip is a stop at soft play rather than a service station - find one that just off the motorway

Oh for goodness sake. Driving long distances is do-able. Just make lots of stops. The guidance is just that, guidance it's not the law. Life doesn't stop because you have a baby and sometimes needs must. Ive done it with all mine.
The guidance is always to be in the same room as a sleeping baby for the first 6 months but that's when you can catch up on housework and have a quick shower. 🙄

The car seat suffocation issue is real and shouldn't just be dismissed off-hand.

When I was looking into this for newborn DD I read some compelling statistics which were enough to make the decision to buy a lie flat car seat. We have long journeys fairly regularly and I had a 6 hour journey with her at 7 weeks. With the lie flat car seat I was able to drive for 3 hours then have a very long lunch stop where I fed her at the beginning and end of the stop and then did the other 3 hour stint.