How To Take A Road Trip With A Toddler

This year, for Stampede season, we decided to get the heck out of town and headed to beautiful Christina Lake, British Columbia. My cousin and his wife own a cabin there and are gracious enough to let us use it. The only downside to the whole experience is you need to take a 7 hour car ride to get there. We have never done a road trip with Clara before and what follows I hope will be a helpful lesson for all on how to take a road trip with a toddler

Lessons Learned … The Hard Way

“I can’t take it anymore, we’re pulling over as soon as possible.”

That was me as we approached Blairmore, Alberta in the Crowsnest Pass. Clara had made it an hour and a half so far sitting peacefully and staring out the window. I had delusions that this long road trip was going to be easy. She quickly – and loudly – told me otherwise, and after 30 minutes of straight crying I couldn’t take it.

We pulled over to the first park we could find, coincidentally next to the Blairmore crematorium, and jumped out as quick as possible to get her happy again. One trip down the slide and her mood was considerably better.

This is the pattern that continued all the way from Calgary to Christina Lake. We stopped approximately every 100-150 KM to let Clara out to play at a park. It was the only thing that seemed to keep her happy. By the time we made it to the lake – 10 hours later – we were seriously considering moving there forever to avoid the drive home.

In the interim week, both Dashing Mom and I did research on how to take a road trip with a toddler and thankfully the trip home was MUCH better. Here’s what we learned.

Get Over Your Fear

I believe kids are a lot like wild animals, they can smell your fear. That fear makes them fearful, anxious, or apprehensive and can make your trip downright awful. So the first thing you need to do is confront your fear of travelling with a toddler.

Go into the trip with a realistic expectation of what is going to happen. Yes, there will be crying. Yes, your kid will poop the second you pack them into the car and drive away and yes you will angrily yell at your spouse that you meant to take the wrong turn as an exciting detour to see a different part of the country.

Expecting these things means you can prepare for these things, and that will make them easier to deal with when they happen.

Prepare For Your Trip

We did some prep work before the trip that we truly thought would help. We got toys and books ready and put them in a bag that was easily accessible. Plenty of snacks were packed, and I loaded up the iPad with Paw Patrol and Word Party. We even got Clara her first set of headphones and got her using them a week before we left so she would get used to them.

None of this really worked on the way out.

Perhaps it was my expectations, or perhaps it was our execution, I’m not sure. We gave Clara access to her iPad, but that also allowed her to press all the buttons. She got upset and frustrated that her shows would stop and once she got worked up there was no getting her to calm down. On the way home we mostly fixed this problem by hanging her iPad case from the headrest. This put it in a good viewing spot, but out of reach of her grabby hands.

*A note about screen time* We don’t particularly monitor screen time. We don’t allow Clara to watch a lot of TV, but we also don’t make ourselves feel guilty for throwing it on when we need to go to the bathroom, or make dinner. If 7 hours of Paw Patrol would have worked to get her to the cabin without crying we would have done it. Knowing she would get a full week of hiking, and playing in the water while we were there, made that seem reasonable to me.

Food

We didn’t want to spend a lot of money on food on the drive out. Also we weren’t sure how well Clara would take to driving, so didn’t want to have to stop for food right in the middle of finally getting her to sleep. Dashing Mom loaded up a cooler bag with enough snacks to last us the week, let alone a single car trip. Snacks included all of Clara’s favourites like cheese strings, raisins, fruit leathers, granola bars, and chopped up vegetables (carrot sticks and peppers mostly). They also included muffins and bananas.

Which I would not recommend at all.

Clara loves bananas and muffins, that wasn’t the problem. The problem, we didn’t foresee, was what a banana and a muffin would look like after she had successfully smooshed it into her carseat. I would definitely recommend taking this into account when packing your snacks. It’s also amazing the amount of crumbs I’m still finding a week after getting home.

For more substantial food, sandwich’s are always a great choice. This was our plan as well, until they accidentally didn’t get made in the hoopla of getting organized in the morning.

Music

Music, we thought, would play a big factor in the trip. I downloaded a bunch of music off of Spotify onto my phone and Dashing Mom brought along a Beethoven CD she had recently purchased off of Amazon. It mixes a tale of a boy whose mom rents the upstairs of their house to Beethoven with some of his classic songs.

We brought the CD case but left the actual CD at home, *face palm.*

In the end we hardly listened to any music. Clara didn’t like her headphones on for more than 5 minutes, and if she was sitting quietly we were afraid to jinx it by listening to anything. Instead we enjoyed the sweet, sweet music that is silence.

For your own kids, music may play a great role in distracting them. I recommend the usual kids songs, audio books or stories as well as songs like The Happy Song. Also, don’t be afraid to listen to your own music. As a child I remember listening to Bruce Hornsby, The Crash Test Dummies, Wilson Phillips and Jann Arden as we drove to the lake in the summer. These songs and artists still resonate with me to this day and invoke great memories.

Arranging The Car

We learned some great lessons about arranging the car for long road trips through trial and error. I drive a 2009 Hyundai Tucson. On the way out to BC we put Clara’s car seat behind the passenger seat, and made her toys, books and food all easily accessible.

For us, the problem with this setup was that Clara needed quite a bit of attention and it was hard for Dashing Mom to reach her from the passenger seat. We had read many times the recommendation that you leave the seat next to your child open so you can ride back there. This would have worked out great, but ultimately we did not have the room to do that. Instead on the way back we put her car seat behind the driver side, which made accessing her from the passenger seat much easier. It also had the added bonus of putting her out of the sun for most of the drive home.

Which brings me to another recommendation. Grab a sun shade for your child’s window. This makes napping easier, and if they’re anything like Clara it will make them less likely to get upset when the sun shines in their eyes.

For future trips we will also be using a roof top carrier. Specifically, the one my in-laws have sitting in their garage. It’s a Thule – which seem like the most popular brand. I won’t pretend to be an expert on rooftop carriers, we just lucked out that Dashing Mom’s parents had an unused one in their garage (thanks guys!). Using a rooftop carrier will free up much needed room in the car, especially if/when future kiddos come around. I like to golf and things like golf clubs and strollers and pack and plays take up lots of room in a car.

Making Stops Along The Way

In the end it was this strategy that worked the best for us and saved our sanity. Each time Clara became too upset to calm down we pulled over at the closest town and headed for a playground. It meant that the 7 hour drive took 10 hours on the way out, but it was worth it to not have Clara cry for the whole car ride. As an added bonus we became more intimately aware of towns like Blairmore, Cranbrook, Creston and Castlegar.

If you need park recommendations in any of those towns, we can help!

It’ll Be OK

After a fairly disastrous start to the vacation, I’m happy to say things rapidly improved. We had a great time in Christina Lake, spending time exploring the lake, the woods by our house, and spending evenings getting ice cream at Kool Treat. The drive home was markedly improved after we implemented our learnings from the first drive and we completed the 7 hour drive in 9 hours – which included a 45 minute stop/crawl outside of Creston for highway work.

The time spent on vacation created lasting memories and it was amazing getting to watch Clara and Dashing Mom bond. Taking a road trip with a toddler is more work than a college road trip with friends, but they’re worth it. The best thing about vacations away, are getting to watch your kids experience things they wouldn’t normally. It’s just awesome getting to watch them grow and even though the drive was a headache, I’ll surely do it again for the experience it offers.