Tips for long car journey with 8.5 month old?

[LauraKB]

Hi All

We are (hopefully!) going to visit friends who live about an 8 hour drive away at the end of july with our DD who will be about 8.5 months by then.

Any tips?

Thanks in advance

L, x.

Bumping in hope for you and me!

Firstly, share the driving as looking after a young baby in the car is far harder than driving, so make sure DH does his fair share of baby entertaining.

Probably easier to have the parent minding the child in the back of the car with the baby for a journey that long.... (we used to do this on a five hour journey to the grandparents).

Can you do some of the journey to cooincide with her daytime nap (or even do the journey overnight - roads quieter too!!).

These are some of the things we did on long journeys.

plan plenty of stops! let him crawl/walk about if he is mobile by then so that he isn't just stuck sitting down for the whole day.
take lots of little snacks and things, and a few toys to entertain him whilst you're driving

hope all goes well, we've done trips down to Devon fairly regularly since ds1 was born, takes us just over 6 hours normally, inc a couple of stops and the children have always travelled really well. plenty to see out of the window!

Thanks guys, I am (kind of vainly) hoping she will be in a forward facing seat by then but prob won't be big enough yet.

Hadn't though of travelling overnight but that seems like quite a good idea, x.

We put DD in a baby gro or other loose clothing and a quality nappy. We only stop for a break if DD wakes up, otherwise we drive until she does. When we do stop though, we stop for a while so DD has some time out of the car seat. DD is very grumpy if woken up so we don't unless we have to. In fact, we've been known to run into services individually for a wee so one of us can stay in the car with DD.

A fluffy blanket is good for wrapping around a little one when going into a services, rather than phafing around with a jumper/cardigan etc

We also used a mirror with the rear facing car seat so DD could see whoever was in the passenger seat (make faces, chat to DD etc). Also pack a little bag with food/bibs/beaker etc in so it's easy to grab it (& change bag) for any stops.

Drive through the night if you can. Baby should sleep whole journey and traffic much lighter. Helps if you can share driving, if friends don't mind you arriving at breakfast time, and if you'll have chance to nap a bit the day you arrive.

have just done 6h with 5mo & 2.10yo

do not stop unless you absolutely must - once they are asleep put your foot down because who knows how long the peace will last

if they wake up howling inconsolably and it is miles till the next services use the 'take me to the nearest petrol station' feature in the satnav

she won't b e able to go forward facing at 8.5 months. 9 months is the minimum.
personally i prefer to keep mine rear-facing as long as possible as it's safer. my 2.5yr old and 1 yr old are both rear-facing and don't mind it on long journeys at all!

I think it depends on size doesn't it? I thought that once they were 9kg (20lb) they could forward face?

Won't be an issue anyway cos she's not big for her age and was 16 lb 11oz last time she was weighed, and I don't see her putting on over 3lbs in 4 weeks, lol, x.

no, 9kg and 9months
ds3 weighed 9kg at just over 5 months!

take a look at this site which explains why rear-facing is so much safer
babies don't have strong neck muscles, and their heads are big compared to the rest of them... that means in an accident if they are forward facing their head gets flung forward, often with terrible consequences.

there is really no good reason to turn your child forward facing before you absolutely have to IMO

Cool, thanks for the info.

I think will put off reading the site for the moment though, I tend to freak myself out!