Advice for driving with 1 year old?

Question

We're doing an 11 hour road trip with our son next weekend, he's 1 almost exactly lol. He sleeps alright in the car and is fairly patient when I'm sitting in the back playing with him and feeding him snacks. We will be taking a break every couple hours. I'm mostly worried because he loves to crawl around but it's November and we live in SE Idaho (travelling to Portland, OR) so...we can't exactly crawl around in the grass. We already have snow on the ground here lol. Does anyone have any advice?

Answer

If you’re taking a large enough vehicle and not filling the trunk you can use breaks to let him crawl around the trunk with supervision. 
Repeat: crawling in trunk supervised when the vehicle is not in motion.

Answer

Drive at night

Answer

We just drove an 8 hour drive with an 11 month old. Woke up early and drove the first 4 hours while LO was sleeping then found a park/ museum to walk around at for an hour and a half. Ate breakfast then continued on for 2 hours then took another break and then drove the last bit. 
Bring things LO can play with. My LO was awake for 3 hours so we had to keep her entertained. 
I really liked driving at night. Seemed less stressful.

Answer

I would drive at night. We did this last year when my daughter was around 1 and it was so nice. She woke up a few times to nurse but otherwise slept

Answer

Bring his snow suit and let him out in the snow at a couple stops

Answer

New/surprise toys and books he hasn’t seen before.  I also always leave before first nap of the day so that you can get a good long stretch of the drive in while napping.  I would bring a blanket in case you can set it up outside at stops (if the ground isn’t wet) or even get him a snow suit so he can get some extra energy out during breaks.  We did a 10 hour trip with our 13 month old, but it was summer so we were able to stop and let her crawl around.  It’s definitely a long trip but doable!

Advice for driving with 1 year old?

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