Road trip with 3 month old..am I crazy?

Question

We just booked a trip to Asheville, North Carolina for Memorial Day weekend. My baby is due in February and will be roughly 3 months by then, depending on when he actually comes. We are first time parents so I don’t know what to expect. We’re pretty laid back/flexible people so I’m hoping by then we’ll have the hang of caring for him and we can just deal with issues as they arise.
We want to teach him how to travel starting at a young age so we figured we’d start early and I’ll still be on maternity leave so it’s a good time to go. We are driving so we can leave whenever and take pretty much whatever we want. Do you have any tips? Should we cancel the trip? Am I crazy?

Answer

Stop. Frequently. We did a road trip from Ohio to Miami with my oldest was 5 months old. We were on a tight schedule though so we stopped as little as possible and that was a huge mistake. He loved the car seat and car rides before the trip, and after we returned I took two extra days off work because he would shriek just seeing the car seat and I didn’t want to force him into it to go to daycare. I regret that part so much. They may be little and sleep a lot, but they still need to change positions, wriggle, etc. I was a first time mom and I still beat myself up over that.

Answer

Not crazy! When our first was 11wo we drove 17 hours to my parents for Christmas. We took a 10 hour flight to Hawaii when he was 6mo. He is 2 now and is an amazing little traveller! Our second is 8mo and we drove to my parents for the first time with him when he was 7wo. He has made the trip 3 times now. 7wo was a little rough as he cried a lot, but when he made it the second tome at 4mo he did amazing. My husband and I always said we wouldn’t let our kids hinder us from doing the things we love and so far so good! We’re taking the boys with us on a cruise on Monday and we’re going to Norway with them in May plus 2-3 drives to my parents.

Answer

Honestly I’ve found that when they’re babies, it’s the easiest time to travel.  All they do is eat, poop, and sleep a lot. 
The only thing is there’s this thing called positional asphyxiation. It happens when babies are in car seats for too long. Their airway gets blocked and they can suffocate (even if they appear just fine).  So you’ve got to get baby out of car seat often (important).  
Other than that, I’d say go for it.

Answer

We flew from upstate New York to Kansas with a 7 week old for Thanksgiving. And then we turned around and did a 10 hour drive (it wound up taking us about 12 hours) with him at 3 months for Christmas (upstate NY to Ohio). We travel a lot to see family, so we wanted to start him early.

Answer

When I was pregnant, we thought we'd do a road trip when our son was almost 4 months old. Yeah. Then we had a baby and realized that we majorly underestimated just how much work babies are. 😂 We've postponed our trip until March when he'll be 7 months. 
I'd recommend making a shorter trip (2-3 hours or so) beforehand as kind of a trial run. That's what we did and learned that it would be best for us to wait. Maybe you guys handle it just fine. Good luck!

Answer

I would never. You couldn’t pay me enough. Too little sleep, too much stress, too much unpredictability. But that’s me! 3 months would be better than in the middle of the four month sleep regression at least.

Answer

Nope! I’m traveling with a 6 week old to Aruba lol It’s gonna be interesting and great! Just plan for it take longer lol My cousin adds 2 hours to any road trip plans to plan for breastfeeding and diaper changes haha People tell me I’m crazy. I tell them I’m not passing up a week all paid for trip to a 5 star resort and it’s gonna be cleaner there then my own home 😂😂

Answer

My child is only good for a 2 hour trip at most.. but when she was 3 months old a trip home was rough... She was good for the first 45 minutes of the ride.. then the last 45 minutes of the ride she'd scream until we got to my mom or dad's house.

Answer

How far is the trip? By 3 months it’s not too hard to travel long distance provided you have plenty of stops along the way. I regularly drove a 3 hour drive with my daughter from when she was about 6 weeks old and never had any issues. Every baby is different but it’s definitely do able! Just may take a little longer when you allow for stops for changing and feeding and for baby to get out of car seat for a bit.

Road trip with 3 month old..am I crazy?

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