Road Trips with small children are a trying time for anyone especially a little girl, and being that we travelled in the middle of the day didn’t help either. I took a trip with Pyper which should take the average person around 7 hours at the most took us 9.5 hours, now taking her in the car was a tricky thing being that she would be in her capsule for all but around 2.5 hours of the travel. It felt like the longest 2 days of my life to be honest! Things just took a lot longer than normal.

I left home early and then stopped about 2 hours after the first part of the journey to feed and change her and wait for a while, she was getting a little upset and besides cars aren’t the easiest things for babies to be comfortable in at the best of times. We managed around another 2.5 hours before she started to get restless again, and then we did the same thing – fed and changed her and then waited for another half another before heading off again. By the time we got to our destination she was starting to get miserable and then just wanted to kick around and not be so hot, she was also sick of travelling, I mean for god sake who wouldn’t be by this time I would have just walked myself if I was her!

So tips for taking small children on trips – never travel for longer than 2 hours, being the father and operator of the car, be prepared with at least 2-3 bottles so that you can feed and be prepared with nappies and the usual going out bag! Make sure that their clothes and bag are close in the boot, keep an eye on their temperature also – they get hot really easily in cars. Have a sun shade also that sticks to the window and something that actually works ours seemed great in the brochure but its crap! I could do better with newspaper.

Plan for the stops also – like getting lunch or petrol this way you can change them and feed them easily enough! You don’t want to have to make unnecessary stops if you don’t have to in the middle of a motorway setting not a good look. Police I would say wouldn’t be too sympathetic.

Sometimes long trips just can’t be avoided but planning out where and when you are going will save a lot of fustration from you and your screaming child.

- Scott

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