Road Trip with a 15mo

[teamcarbone]

Hi I'm taking my 15mo DD on a 12hr.road trip which we plan to split up in two days, therefore 6 hours a day.  She is a crib-lcoholic . The few times we have traveled with her in the car she it was only for a 3hr. trip to ILs and would only sleep 35min.  We did try to leave at around her bedtime one trip and she didn't fall asleep until 2hr. into the trip  .  Of course that was 8mo. ago and now shes is on a one nap routine-1 2hr. nap and is up in the AM for 4.5 hr. and 5 in the afternoon. Do any of you have suggestions on what time of day we should leave and any thoughts on how I get her to sleep longer?  Oh we plan to flip her seat to forward facing tomorrow and we leave for our trip next week. Not sure if that will help with the sleeping. 

Thanks!! 

[skatty]

If it were me I would get DD up earlyso she's still quite tired and leave early in the morning about 7 and I would hope she would take a catnap and then get to my destination for her real nap 

[vivy74]

my Lo is 18 months old and we just come back from an holiday in California where we did long car trips. We used to leave very early in the morning 3:00 or 4:00 depending on the lenght of the trip. We let him sleep till we were ready to leave, then put him in the car seat and gave him a little snack (2 children biscuit) and some camomille. He usually staied awake for about 1/2 an hour and then he falled asleep for 3 hours.
That worked well for us.

[mum101]

What about driving at night?  We plan to do a 13 hour drive overnight (me driving first half, DH driving second half) then he sleeps in in the morning.

[Jaime]

What about driving at night?  We plan to do a 13 hour drive overnight (me driving first half, DH driving second half) then he sleeps in in the morning.

we did that once when dd was about 13 months, and it was a nightmare.  she was so excited to be up & out of bed that she was up almost the entire time.   

6 hrs in one day isn't too bad, actually.  i'd time it so you go to your destination about an hour before (afternoon) naptime.  that way, if she still takes a morning nap & it ends up lousy while in the car, she can recover in her crib/bed.

[teamcarbone]

Thanks for the advice ladies but I'm feeling torn...

vivy74-How was your holiday in CA? How long were your car trips? I do like your idea of getting her up early in the AM and trying to drive straight through, which is a 12hr. trip. But I'm really scared that she won't sleep at all and then I have a crazy OT kid! My Dr. said I could give her Benadryl but I've never tried that so I like the camomile how did you give it to your LO?

Mum101-Yah I'm afraid she'll stay up through the whole night too if we leave at night. She only takes one nap a day now and I'm afraid that a catnap in the car might make a mess of the later nap because she'll have had just enough of a nap in the car and then be  UT from the drive...

I guess I just have to make up my mind on what I'm most worried about, day sleep or night sleep!

[mum101]

LOL, my DD passes out in the car regardless! 

[meri anne]

DD is 15 mo too, and we'll have a trip of 8 hrs this weekend. We had many of those since DD was 6 wo, but every time it's different because of the age and the needs.
Our last trip was when she was 12 mo, we left home at 7.00 after her breakfast, she took 2 short naps of 30 mins or so, had an early bed time when we arrived.
This time we plan to leave at 3.00 or 4.00 as vivy74 suggested. I hope DD will be sleeping until breakfast (we'll not move her until we are ready to go, generally she doesn't wake up when moved during the night) and we should be at destination for lunch and nap time.

[Shdef]

my Lo is 18 months old and we just come back from an holiday in California where we did long car trips. We used to leave very early in the morning 3:00 or 4:00 depending on the lenght of the trip. We let him sleep till we were ready to leave, then put him in the car seat and gave him a little snack (2 children biscuit) and some camomille. He usually staied awake for about 1/2 an hour and then he falled asleep for 3 hours.
That worked well for us.

We did that a few times, too.

Sometimes our flights used to leave at 6 am, with a 2 hour car trip to the airport.

The buggy fit in the taxi. We all got up at 2 am, got ready in peace. He would have been dressed for the journey the night before.

We just lifted him from his bed to the car, he was awake for 30 min or so and slept for another two or three hours. Drive and then airport.

Mind you, Scotty is angel/ textbook.

Then, at 7 am, he'd be starving, so a very very long breakfast which included loads of slow eating finger food junk, too) and a bottle of juice with a tiny teat hole, lol.

New books and toys were also there

Good luck

[teamcarbone]

Ok my LO has been a sleeping machine and is now on a very late wake 9am and bedtime 9pm last night...grrr not sure if the early wake will work for us. 

Meri Anne if we don't leave in the early morning I'll just hope that she takes 2 catnaps and just put her to bed early...

[mum101]

Sometimes our flights used to leave at 6 am, with a 2 hour car trip to the airport.

The buggy fit in the taxi. We all got up at 2 am, got ready in peace. He would have been dressed for the journey the night before.

We just lifted him from his bed to the car, he was awake for 30 min or so and slept for another two or three hours. Drive and then airport.

Mind you, Scotty is angel/ textbook.

Then, at 7 am, he'd be starving, so a very very long breakfast which included loads of slow eating finger food junk, too) and a bottle of juice with a tiny teat hole, lol.

New books and toys were also there

That sounds great!

[vivy74]

Hi, sorry not to have replied before but I've been very busy and then sick.
The holiday was wonderful, we are Italian and we love U.S.A.
The trip usually lasted 4/5 hours, we only had a problem going from Yosemite to san Diego has road was closed due to an accident so we had to make a very long detour and the trip lastid 8 hours.
My little one beacame a little bit frustated, we tried to keep him entertained then we gave him an homeopatic remedy that is sold here in Italy (Kindival of Loacker Kinder, a German product) and he falled asleep for about one hour. When he woke up we stopped for lunch and then in car again. Probably we are lucky because my LO Davide cries for a while when he can not stand anymore the car seat but then he falls asleep. 
For camomille we prepared it in the morning and gave him in his sippy cup.

[teamcarbone]

Well we're back from our road trip and let me say thank you for all your advice but my DH wasn't very cooperative.  First off we let her sleep in the morning of our trip because we figured we would stop and spend the night 1/2 away, well that meant we didn't leave the house until 11!  Yes my DD slept until almost 10.  We stopped and had lunch which gave her a chance to stretch her legs and back into the car.  She did fall asleep but only for her record 35min.   Later we stopped for dinner and let her stretch again and by that time we figured it was late enough in the day she would fall asleep and we could drive straight through, we didn't want to hit the crazy traffic in Chicago. We started out and got caught in a crazy rain storm and had to pull over.  My DD finally fell asleep but that only lasted about 1.5. We arrived at our destination around midnight and I put her right down.  She woke a hour and half later but was easy to resettle, then up bright an early!  She did great the rest of the trip but still gave us a hard time in the car, she just can't relaxe enough to sleep longer than 35-40min at a time.   

vivy74-Wow what a crazy detour.  I gave my DD some homeopathic called Avena Sativa which helped a bit but not enough for her to get some solid rest.

Well thanks again for the advice, which I'll be sure to take next time! LOL