Road trip: 22 months old

We traveled by car about 4 hours away for Thanksgiving and I want to share some thoughts or tips/tricks with you.

Noah is now 22 months old and traveling with him is much different than it was even a year ago.

· Purchase some toys or books that your little one has never seen or played with. Slowly introduce these as you hit a “rough or fussy” patch along the way. This distracts your child and allows for time to find a place to get out and shake our sillies out. I kept some items to introduce to him on the way home too.

· Replicate nap and bed times. If your kiddo sleeps with a specific blanket, lovey, night light or book, make sure you keep the environment as similar as possible.

· Keep your routine the same for bedtime. At home, we do bath, books, and bed. Where we stayed there is no bath tub so we either do a shower with Daddy, or just go right into unwinding with our books.

· Pack snacks, snack cups, a couple treats, and stop along the way. We stopped at McDonald’s to stretch our legs and Noah got a kid’s meal that had his favorite, French fries, and a little toy inside. We are not fast food people, but on a long road trip, you do what you need to do.

· We stopped at a gas station on the way home, to walk around a bit, and Noah picked out a couple snacks for the car. He picked an applesauce pouch, some chips, and snacked on our items as well.

· A tablet is your best friend. My husband attached an Amazon Fire tablet to the head rest, in front of Noah, and we downloaded a bunch of his favorite shows. This occupied some of Noah’s time, even though he does not really sit there and watch his show, he enjoys having it on, in front of him.

My husband was driving and my brother in-law traveled with us. Since I was in the backseat with Noah, he could see everything that I was doing or eating. This made my ride a bit trickier because I couldn’t sit there and read on my phone or snack on some chips without him wanting a part of it.

Noah is not much of a car sleeper, and I had to pretend that I was sleeping on the way home to get him to sleep for a half an hour. Whatever we need to do right?

All in all, kids get bored and fussy, just like we do. They like to get out and stretch, have a change of scenery, and have some new books or toys to entertain them.