Long drives with a toddler sound terrible on paper.
Honestly, sometimes they are.
We recently had to drive about five hours to get somewhere, and before leaving, we were already trying to figure out how to make the trip as painless as possible.
Snacks.
Toys.
Books.
Music.
Backup entertainment.
More snacks.
Basically, everything short of bringing the entire house with us.
But if I could give one suggestion to another parent doing a long drive with a little one, it would be this:
Leave early.
And I mean really early.
3 A.M. Early
If you can manage it, leaving around 3 a.m. can be a beautiful thing.
Yes, waking up that early is miserable.
Yes, you’re tired.
Yes, you’ll probably question your life choices while carrying bags into the vehicle in the dark.
But the payoff can be huge.
We woke our little guy up, got him into the car, and he basically went right back to sleep.
Beautiful.
If you have a five-hour drive and your toddler sleeps through three hours of it, you’ve already won.
Some parents might say having a toddler sit in a car seat that long isn’t ideal, and I understand the concern.
But when you genuinely have somewhere far away to get to, sometimes you work with the situation in front of you.
For us, the goal wasn’t to drive five straight hours without stopping.
It was to use his sleep window to cover as much ground as possible, then give him proper breaks once he woke up.
Breakfast on the Road
Once he woke up, we pulled over.
Diaper change.
Stretch.
Food.
My wife had prepared breakfast the night before, including homemade granola patties.
I’ll share that recipe in another post because they worked great for travelling.
We took our time.
Probably close to an hour.
There was no point rushing him back into the vehicle immediately.
He had already spent a few hours in the seat, so we let him move around, eat, and reset.
Then we carried on.
In a perfect world, that would have gotten us the remaining two hours.
Toddlers apparently don’t care about perfect-world travel plans.
About an hour later, we stopped again.
The Trail Stop
This time, we found a walking trail along the way.
We got out and spent around half an hour walking.
Nothing fancy.
Just enough time for everyone to get some fresh air and stretch their legs.
Then back into the vehicle.
Eventually we arrived.
And honestly, the trip went surprisingly well.
At that point I thought we had cracked the code.
Then came the drive home.
The Return Trip Had Other Ideas
The return trip was the next day.
Another five-hour drive.
Except this one turned into about eight hours.
We tried timing our departure around his afternoon nap.
The plan was simple.
Get in the car.
Toddler falls asleep.
Parents enjoy a couple peaceful hours.
Reality had a different plan.
He slept maybe an hour.
Possibly two.
Then he was awake.
Very awake.
Now we had a lot of kilometres left and a toddler who had absolutely no interest in sleeping.
So we started working through the entertainment.
Toddlers Don’t Need Anything Complicated
We played music and sang songs.
That bought us a solid half hour.
We played I Spy.
He’s still young, but he was starting to understand what we were pointing out.
Then we played things like:
“What colour is that truck?”
“Can you see the red car?”
“Where’s the big truck?”
And when that stopped working, out came the books.
He loves books, so those helped quite a bit too.
We still stopped.
We still let him stretch.
We still had snacks.
And we still had moments where everybody was getting a little tired of being in the vehicle.
But we got through it.
Plan Ahead, Then Accept That the Plan Will Change
That’s probably the biggest lesson I took from the whole thing.
Plan ahead.
Bring more snacks than you think you’ll need.
Pack a few different toys.
Bring books.
Have music ready.
Look for places along your route where you can stop and let everybody stretch.
And if you can use nap time or nighttime sleep to your advantage, absolutely do it.
But also understand that toddlers do not care about your travel schedule.
A five-hour drive might take five hours.
It might take six.
It might somehow take eight.
Take the wins when you get them.
If the kid sleeps for three hours, enjoy it.
If singing the same song six times keeps everybody happy, sing it again.
If you need to stop and walk around for half an hour, stop.
Getting there a little later is usually better than having everyone miserable for the entire drive.
They Won’t Always Be This Small
The funny thing is, during the drive there are moments where you desperately want a little peace and quiet.
Then I think about how fast everything is already changing.
One day he won’t need toys packed for the drive.
He won’t be pointing excitedly at every transport truck.
He won’t want us singing songs with him.
He’ll probably have headphones on and barely notice we’re there.
So as exhausting as travelling with a toddler can be, I’m trying to enjoy some of it too.
Even the long drives.
Even the extra stops.
Even the endless questions and songs.
Because these tiny humans won’t be tiny forever.
And someday, we might actually miss having someone in the back seat who just wants our attention.
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