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Traveling with young children can be tough. Check out these ideas for making your family road trip developmentally appropriate so it goes as smoothly as possible.
Summer is here and for many people that means traveling. Sitting in a car for hours with a toddler may not sound appealing, but with some preparation, lots of patience, and a good plan it can be fun.
We started this summer with a 10-hour each-way (Google Maps time) road trip. (As you can imagine, it was not completed in 10 hours.) At the last minute, my husband had to stay behind for work. I panicked bought a tablet for my son when I found out I would be alone driving with a two-year-old for so long. However, with some preparation, I actually allowed very little screen time to get us through.
Since that trip, we did another shorter 5.5 hour each way trip as well and my initial research served me well in this trip as well. So I am sharing some of the things that worked for us to help your summer trips run smoothly!
What is developmentally appropriate
Let's be honest, sitting still in the car for long periods can be challenging even for many adults, let alone small children. To start planning a road trip, understanding your child's development can be helpful in setting your expectations.
Sitting still in a car seat is not a natural state for little ones. According to understood.org, children ages 3 -5 should only be expected to sit still for 5 - 10 minutes. Obviously, you are not going to be able to stop and let your kids out every 10 minutes, but understanding this can be helpful in being empathetic towards kids as they are forced to be still for hours at a time.
Additionally, without parental support, your child's attention span is only 2 - 10 minutes. So you will likely need a lot of activities to keep your child entertained for long periods of time. This is especially true if you are going to be sitting in the front seat while your child(ren) is in the back. If you plan to sit in the backseat and be engaged with them, their attention span may be longer.
If your child is potty trained, your child generally needs to use the potty 4 - 8 times per day, so you can expect to stop every couple of hours for them to use the bathroom, unless you decide they will wear a diaper. If they are not in a diaper, be sure to have a plan for accidents!
If you would like to learn a bit more about your child's brain development (helpful in setting expectations), check out my post on the Domains of Child Development and Brain Development Stages in Early Childhood.
Tips for Road Tripping with a Toddler
If you are anything like me, you will want any helpful information to make the trip go smoothly, check out my tips below from my research and personal experience:
Making a plan
Planning and preparation are key. I like having a plan, but I think some level of planning is needed when traveling with your toddler even if that is not your natural state.
Some things to consider when planning (be sure to read the whole post for more information on some of these points):
When will you be leaving?
What route are you taking?
What will you do if that route needs or would be faster to change? (There is a backup and Google Maps tells you there is a faster route.)
How often do you plan to stop?
How often do you plan to travel each day (if applicable)?
What toys will be engaging in the car?
How many toys do you plan to bring?
Will you stop at restaurants for food or do you plan to bring food?
What are your boundaries around food and screen time during travel?
What will you do if your child has a meltdown?
How will you prepare your little ones for travel?
How will your little ones be seated? (If you have more than one kid, consider they may need separation if possible!)
Having a plan may be helpful in making sure the ride runs smoothly and how will you respond to things along the way. That being said, you cannot plan for everything so you still need to be flexible.
When to travel
Personally, I believe this is very much dependent on your family and your children. When my little guy was an infant he slept just fine in the car, so we preferred to leave at bedtime or wake up super early (3 AMish) to start our drive. Now as a toddler, he does not sleep for long in the car.
We have tried leaving at bedtime, leaving super early in the morning, leaving at nap time, and leaving just after a nap. As a toddler, I find leaving at nap time works best for us. Why? My two-year-old seems to only sleep for about 30 minutes in the car before waking up and not going back to sleep. So leaving at bedtime or very early are not effective for us because he is awake and loses out on sleep. Personally, I try very hard to maintain his sleep schedule as much as possible when traveling.
Leaving after nap means we generally arrive well after bedtime, so his sleep schedule is off. Additionally, he is energized and ready to go. He has been still for a couple of hours and he wants to play.
Leaving right before nap means he is tired and we may get a 20 - 30 minute nap or he may stay awake the whole time, but he is not as energized. When possible I try to give him lots of time for play and physical activity before we leave. I have found this method leads to the calmest road trip and then we try to stop before or close to bedtime to get him to sleep on time (or close) for night sleep.
To be honest, this may take some trial and error on your part to know when is best for your kids.
Pros of leaving at night:
Your child will hopefully sleep the majority of the ride
Less traffic
Less need for stopping
Cons of leaving at night:
If your child doesn't sleep, it can be pretty miserable and throw off the next day too
You have to drive in the dark
Not as many places to stop late at night
In the summer months it stays light so late it may be harder for your child to get to sleep
Pros to leaving super early:
Your child may sleep the first few hours
You may be able to get more driving hours in
Less traffic (at least for the first couple of hours)
Cons to leaving super early:
You have to wake up super early
If your child doesn't go back to sleep they are missing hours of sleep and may still be energized in those first hours
Natural light may start filtering in and wake them up before their normal wake up
Pros to leaving before nap:
Your child is tired and will hopefully take a nap in the car
Less energy
Have had an opportunity to move around and be active in the morning.
Driving during daylight
Can drive for several hours before bedtime
Cons to leaving before nap:
Your child may not nap and be tired/cranky
More traffic
You arrive later in the day
Pros to leaving after a nap:
Your child is well rested
Driving during daylight
Depending on how far you plan to travel can stick to their sleep schedule
Cons to leaving after a nap:
More energy
More traffic
If you are trying to drive further than a few hours, you may arrive after bedtime.
These pros and cons are all based on my personal experience and your experiences may differ as every child and family are different.
Breaks From Driving
Before I had kids, my husband and I would try to take as few breaks as possible to get to our destination as quickly as possible. It has been a mindset shift to plan more and longer breaks into our travel and to only plan on driving for a few hours per day. If I am being honest, it has been challenging to shift my thinking on this. But it is so necessary.
Plan for breaks and expect unplanned breaks
Young children are not meant to sit still for so long. Plan to take breaks (I recommend every couple of hours) and when possible plan breaks where your little ones can stretch their legs and get some energy out.
I used Chat GPT to find playgrounds along my route. It was pretty accurate, but I recommend double checking because Chat GPT is not always correct. It gave me a great place to start though. I made a list of possible playgrounds to stop at along the way, so we could start if needed.
I also made a list of all the rest stops along the route because I find rest stops are easier stops than businesses because there is often more green space for some movement. I tried looking this up on Chat GPT as well, but it was totally wrong. A quick Google search found the correct information though.
We actually stopped at two really amazing playgrounds on our trip. They were very impressive and my two-year-old had an absolute blast. Limiting the time we spent at the playground and the transition back to the car was a little tough for him. He does pretty well with time warnings (You have 5 minutes left; you have 2 minutes left) and I also recommend just talking through that it will be a relatively brief stop at the playground to mentally prepare them.
For rest stops, taking a little walk or playing a game was helpful. I have also heard from other moms that rest stop calisthenics are a great way to get kids moving.
Even with planned breaks there may be times you need to stop when you did not plan. During our trip, my son somehow got his arms out of his car seat harness and could not get them back in. So he was yelling that he was stuck and he was crying. My husband was not with me, so I could not help him while I was driving. We were not near anything, so I was low key panicking in the front seat looking for a safe place to pull over. I took the nearest exit and there was not a single business. I ended up pulling into a side road of someone's farm and putting my emergency lights on so I could get out calm him down and fix his car seat harness (and tighten it, so he couldn't get his arms out again). Just stay calm, stop when safe, and have lots of supplies in your car!
There also may be times when you need a break for you! I felt myself getting sleepy at one point. So I got off at an exit with a Starbucks and gave both of us a chance to stretch out and be ready for the road. It can be easy to only think about our kids during travel, but be sure to take care of yourself as well and of course always be safe!
How long should I drive each day?
It is really tough to know how long to drive each day. Some days your kids may be fine sitting longer than others. You could drive and stop when everyone has had enough at one of the many hotels that are off highway exits.
Personally, I am too much of a planner for this. Not having a sure place to stay would give me anxiety. Especially, because we were traveling during a holiday weekend and I worried that there may be no rooms available. For me, I booked a hotel for us to stay at what I felt was a reasonable drive for each day. The down side to this is that if everyone is having a tough time, you still have to keep driving until you get to your destination.
We never planned to drive more than five or six hours per day. However, in a couple of instances we did hit traffic that slowed us down. I personally would not plan for too much more as we all were ready to get out of the car every single time.
Entertainment
So I drive a minivan and have one child, so I have a good amount of space in my car. I brought a lot of things for my little guy to do. I highly recommend bringing a wide variety of items if you can. Remember, your toddler's attention span is extremely brief.
I went to the dollar store and bought some new toys and some containers to keep all of the toys in. Something new is always exciting, so buying a few small items at the dollar store helped me affordably provide some new toys for my little one. He got some small construction trucks and stickers that were great in the car. They also have little books at the dollar store. So I bought a bunch of the books for $1.25 and these were a big hit. (Our dollar store had a lot of Sesame Street books that were a hit!)
I chose to keep the containers with toys in the front seat when I was driving without my husband, so I could easily hand him things. When my husband could drive, I moved the containers to the floor of the backseat. My son is rear facing, so he could not see or reach them. Then I could hand him toys one at a time to try to make them last as long as possible.
Some of the toys my little one enjoyed in the car:
My little guy loves the book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," so I told him he needs to help the caterpillar eat through the fruit. He loved it and it's great fine motor practice.
These can suction to the window, but my little one also just liked holding it and spinning it. They were also great to bring into restaurants along our travels.
My little guy loves a choo choo right now. This kept his attention and great fine motor practice and cognitive development.
Pretend phones are a big favorite at our house. Recently, Elmo has also been a big deal recently, so combine those two things and there was a lot of joy when handed this toy.
Almost all of the toys ended up being tossed to the side eventually. So when we would stop, I would reset and put everything back in the containers. That way we could start over with all of the toys.
Okay, so even the toys above that he was loving just did not keep his attention for a super long period (which is developmentally appropriate). At some point, I did turn on the tablet for short periods (generally under 1 hour) to give us all a break.
For my family, we chose to do no screen time until age 2. So screen time is pretty new for my little one. If I am being honest, I feel a lot of mom guilt giving him screen time. But I have recently been working on modifying my thinking. 1. I am NOT a bad mom because I let my child watch a screen sometimes. 2. If I am using a screen as a tool to help me get regulated while he watches, so I can then be calmer and more helpful in co-regulation after the screen time, then screen time can be beneficial to everyone. Plus sometimes you have to do what you have to do when you are in a car that long. 🤪 For now, I am telling him that the tablet is only for trips that have us travelling more than two hours from home. As he grows, I may modify the boundaries we have for screen time, but in this moment this works for us.
I bought the Amazon Fire 8 Kids Tablet for Parker. Overall, I think it is a pretty good tablet for what I needed it for. It is not super easy to use, but it is fine for the basics. I didn't want to get a fancy tablet or spend a lot of money for a tablet for my two-year-old. Downloading anything off of Amazon, Disney +, or Netflix is really easy.
I do not believe my son is ready to have access to the tablet, so I used this tablet holder to attach it to the headrest, so he could not get to it but could still see it. (I attached it to the middle head rest). It worked really well for us.
Food
Planning food is completely up to what will work best for you and your family. You may want to stop and eat along the way or bring food to eat in the car or at a rest stop or at a park along the way.
I brought a small cooler along with healthy snacks and some food that would be sufficient if stopping to eat didn't work out. I am very glad I did this. My son has some food allergies, so it is not always super easy to just stop at any fast food. While I did plan to stop, on one leg of the journey there was no good place to stop. When we got there it was way past bedtime and I didn't want to go find a place, so I was so happy I had enough to eat with us.
Snacks, Snacks, Snacks!
Normally, I try to have some limits on snacks because my little guy loves snacks. However, in the car I gave us all a pass. He was happier and calmer with a snack and so I just went with it when he asked for one. I generally believe having all the snacks made everything go smoother for us. And I think it is okay to have different boundaries and rules when traveling. As always, you have to do what will work best for your child(ren) and family.
Food I packed for our road trip:
Goldfish
Cheese puffs (Trader Joes)
Veggie straws
Peanut butter sandwich crackers (Trader Joes)
Apple sauce pouches
Yumi bars (found at Target and they have no added sugar)
Graham crackers
Individual milk boxes
Cheese sticks
Apple slices
Uncrustables
Preparing your family
I am a big believer in mental preparation for both adults and kids. I feel that it helps us process what is happening better and it setting expectations for everyone.
Preparing Kids
I think my little one is better prepared when we have talked about a big event coming up extensively before hand. Before our trip we talked a lot about going on a long car ride. I also made up stories about a family trip to help him process it. Once I found out my husband was not coming, I built that into our conversations and stories. It can be helpful to read books, watch shows, or find other story telling methods to help kids process.
There is a Daniel Tiger "Movie" about a family trip that I played in the car on the first day of our journey. We could then talk about Daniel's family car trip too.
Preparing the Adults
Planning and packing help me with mental preparation. But I think the biggest thing needed to prepare is to set realistic expectations. Since I did a lot of research, I knew to expect more breaks, short attention spans, etc. I also told myself that even if the car trip was terrible, say my little yelled a majority of the way, it would only last a few hours each day and I could get through it. Then when things went well, it was a pleasant surprise. My personal opinion is that it is important to make sure all the grown ups have realistic expectations about the trip.
Other Helpful Things
Water Bottles
Is my child the only one who constantly wants a water bottle in the car? However, he regularly throws them over the side of his car seat and then is upset that he doesn't have it. I was a bit worried about this, especially on the trip where I was the only other person in the car. So I brought about 5 water bottles. This way when he tossed one, I could hand him another one. Then I would reset when we stopped and bring them all back to the front of the car.
If you are looking for a great water bottle for toddlers, I highly recommend the Contigo water bottles. We have tried a bunch of different water bottles. Before the Contigo ones, we were using Camelbak water bottles. We still use them when we can help him with those, but he needs help opening them. The Contigo ones have a button to open, which he loves. So far (it's been a couple of months since we bought them) we have not had a problem with them leaking. Additionally, while the straw comes apart for washing the bottle, it stays attached. Plus they are dishwasher safe. Check out the Contigo water bottles on Amazon.
Music
My son loves music. He specially loves toddler music that he can sing to. While normally I do not mind toddler music, I cannot listen to it for five or six hours straight. I had a Spotify playlist of toddler music ready to go, but I started with my music. Then if Parker was starting to get dysregulated or upset I would ask him if he wanted his music on. Then we would listen and sing to that until our next stop. A lot of his music includes movement, so it was nice to get him moving (while still being strapped in) a bit in the car. It often helped turn his mood around.
Other Items I Recommend Having in the Car:
Having a well stocked car helped me be prepared for things I maybe did not plan. For us, it was helpful to have:
Paper towel roll
Grocery bags (good for dirty diapers, dirty clothes, excess trash, etc.)
Extra clothes for kids and adults
A towel (can be helpful for clean up situations)
Window sunshades (my son does not like the sun in his eyes)
Changing Pad - made car diaper changes so much more pleasant for both of us
Plenty of diapers and wipes
Easily accessible sunscreen (for stops) and if you have room so outdoor play (I keep a couple of balls, chalk, and bubbles in my car pretty much all of the time.)
Have Fun!
As much as you possibly can, try to enjoy the journey. Don't stress stopping a lot or the increased time to get to your destination. Maybe even plan breaks that include some fun activities for the whole family if there are good stopping points along the way. If you have fun, it is more likely your children will have fun as well.
Summary
Going on a road trip with a toddler can be daunting. But with plenty of preparation, it can be opportunity to slow down and enjoy the ride.
When you decide to go on a road trip with a toddler (or any kids), first set realistic expectations for them (and for you) for the travel. Then make a plan and be sure to include plenty of stops and opportunities to get out of the car. Lots of different items for entertainment and all of the snacks will make the journey a little more enjoyable for the kids (and thus for you). Be sure to pack to plan for the unexpected. And most of all, have fun!
Remember Mama, you are doing a great job! You got this!
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Resources for More Information/Sources
Understood - When do kids sit still?
Ready Kids - Attention Span
Child Development Institute - Potty Training Guidelines