Tips for road-tripping with a toddler

When the open road calls and you’ve got a toddler in the back seat, your travels will be anything but quiet and dull!

The are some tips to help you:

• Install a car seat in the back seat with correct weight and height limits that match your toddler’s weight and height. The rear-facing direction is safest for children up to age 3.
• Fill a diaper bag with essentials for the car ride. Include more than the number of diapers you think your little one will need and a generous number of baby wipes for diaper changes. Pack two or three extra outfits for changing clothes while traveling. Add over-the-counter pain reliever and a dosage syringe to enable you to medicate your toddler if he/she develops a fever. Place a blanket in the diaper bag to keep your child cozy during naps in the car seat. Pack your little one’s security object, if he/she has one.
• Gather toys and activities for the trip and place them in a small plastic bin that will fit in the backseat of the vehicle. Suitable items include musical toys, stuffed animals, manipulative toys with buttons for pushing, coloring books, crayons and figures for pretend play. Pack picture books for reading and electronics that will help keep your toddler occupied during the drive. Books are a staple for any long drive, and before a trip and you should stock up at the library the day before.  It always seems like a new book takes longer to read than an old one.
• Toddlers are slow eaters and they like to play with their food.  While this is not helpful on Monday morning before preschool, but you can definitely work it to your advantage on a long car ride. Pack food and beverages for your toddler during the drive. Add your toddler’s favorite foods to help keep him/her happy, such as bananas, sliced cucumbers, fruit pouches, yogurt, crackers, whole-grain bread and cereal. Use a small cooler to keep refrigerated foods cold. Supervise your toddler’s eating carefully for safety. Strive to provide healthy foods for your toddler, but an occasional deviation from the healthy norm won’t harm your toddler’s overall health.
• Time your travel for periods during the day or night your toddler will sleep. Leaving just before nap time can enable your toddler to sleep happily for a few hours in the car seat. Leaving in the middle of the night with a sleeping toddler could also give you some peaceful travel hours.
• Stop and stretch often when your toddler is awake. Rest areas with grassy space will allow your little one to burn off excess energy.
• Talk it up! Odds are good that you’re toddler is already looking forward to the final stop on your road trip.  But toddlers are pretty excitable little people, and it won’t take much to get your little guy or gal psyched on the travel component too.  Explain in advance what’s going to happen in kid-friendly language.  For example, instead of waiting until the day of and hopping in the car, you can build enthusiasm in advance by talking up the drive – “In 2 days we get to drive up to the mountains!  We’ll get on the highway, and drive past some farms where we can look for cows and horses, we’ll drive through tunnels and see how long we can hold our breath, and we can count all the bulldozers we see!”  If your child sees that you are psyched, he or she is likely to hop on the bandwagon.

Make photos of your little traveller and upload to the App. Write briefly about your car trip with a toddler.