Moving to Tennessee has been a dream-come-true in a lot of ways.
When I was about 9, we drove from Ohio to Florida and I remember driving down I-75 and loving the mountains and being amazed at them (I grew up where it is flaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat). I remember looking up and seeing a house right on top of a mountain and saying to my mom “That’s where I’m going to live when I grow up”.
Then when we got married and started talking about our life, we knew we wanted to be ‘south’ but that was about it. Tennessee seemed to make sense to us (I’m sure it was a HIGHLY logical and scientific thought process) and after years of thinking and praying and dreaming, we moved here in February.
I may not live on the top of the mountain (we actually live in a valley but what a VIEW), but the Tennessee dream has become our reality.
The more challenging part of this transition has been how far of a drive it is to get back north for things. It’s just under 9 hours to each of parents’ houses which is in the “doable” range – doable in one day, no hotels, stop overs, or flights required to make it.
There has been no shortage of people who have suggested we do this drive at night so our kids will sleep through it. We don’t actually think this will work for us for a couple reasons.
One – My husband is not an all-nighter kind of guy. I used to be an all-nighter kind of gal, but now, staying up much past midnight makes me want to find a couch, lay on it, and not move for 4 days.
Two – We know that when we push ourselves like that, we would not be the best company when we arrived at our destination.
Three – Our kids are not children who sleep in the car. We may get the occasional nap out of them but it’s about a third of the length and quality of a bed nap. I can’t imagine doing this to a night’s sleep. AH! (Actually I can. We tried to drive all night to my bro’s wedding and my precious little girl just stared at me for 8 hours. It was….awesome?)
So we’ve decided to make the drive during the day, at least for now. I read lots of posts on long trips with little people and how to do them well and even without DVD players. And I tried a lot of the ideas and some of them were major busts for us.
Was our roadtrip a success or a disaster?
Total success!
So you want to know what worked for us?
- Comfort Objects – Our kids each have a blanket, a blanket-body-animal-head lovey we call Oo-Oo, and a bear. We make sure these are accessible and can be handed to the kids when they need them. [I know what you’re thinking – Duh, right? Well I’ve packed all of these things in trunk about ….50 times before I learned they needed to be handy. Slow learner.] We also stop before nap time, do all of our normal nappy time type things, settle and tuck them in with their comfort objects then pray for naps.
- Stops and Potty Breaks – My husband and I have always been rather generous stoppers on road trips. I totally grew up in a “hold it ’til we’re running on fumes” family and when we got married I kind of continued that. But my husband is a journey guy and doesn’t care if we have to stop to pee, even when it’s only been an hour. Sure we don’t want to be CONSTANTLY stopping but when we do stop we take care as much of as we can at one time including potty, cup refills, getting out to stretch the baby legs, and everything else. He’s super great about playing tag with the kids or doing push ups and letting the kids climb on him and I wrestle every one in the semi questionable public restrooms. It seems like a pretty fair trade since you know, I don’t have to run or do push ups. So, win.
- Bin of Books – My kids love books, so I bring LOTS. I even have them help me pick them out so they are books they like. The only real stipulations I put on the book choosing is they have to fit in their laps. We tried a road trip with those huge books that seem like a good idea almost never and it was just proof that I was ridiculous to choose this book. I couldn’t lift it while reaching backwards and it fell off their laps about a million times. I also try to put the bin where they can reach and get their own new books. This wasn’t the case on the long road trip, but it was easy for me to reach them.
- Bin of Toys – Much like the bin of books, the bin of toys is something small that can fit in their hands (but not SO small that it’s immediately dropped, lost, and never be seen again in the crevices of New Ban), be played without a lot of complex scenarios, little pieces, or require 40 supporting toys. This bin is also stuff they helped choose or that I have been saving for JUST such an occasion. And I try to put this in arm’s reach as well.
- Stuff In Arm’s Reach – Are you noticing a theme here? The more I put within their reach, the more they can do for themselves (the peasants rejoice), the less I have to turn around in contortionist-level gymnastics (the peasants rejoice), and the less I have to hear what will eventually turn into grumpy whining from the back seat about me not being fast enough or listening immediately or whatever toddler-drama exudes from the car seats (the peasants rejoice). So when we got our new-to-us van (New Ban), a substantial size upgrade from our car, I didn’t want there to become a sea of stuff that dropped between my hand and the kids’. So I shopped for back-of-the-seat organizers (like this one) then said yea, no, I’m gonna make one. And I did that. I bought a $6 shoe organizer from a dollar store and got TWO back of the seat organizers, each with 12 pockets. Sure there was some fiddling but I mean, $6. And the kids are so in love with their pouches and the treasures inside them. (In hind sight, I would think harder about buying them. Mine touch the floor, so there’s pros and cons and also, they’re white so they look FILTHY which makes me cringe.)
- Stash of Snacks – When I put these genius pouches on the back of the seats, it occurred to me that if I planned this right, I might not have to turn around EVER. And while obviously that was naive, I did manage to greatly reduce my turning around by stashing all kinds of stuff within their reach. Where we drew the line, however, was snacks. (My husband is so wise.) Usually I’m turning around every 12 seconds to give the kids some kind of something for food or beverage. I was NOT going to spend 9 hours doing that.
So I made a plan. I ordered healthy snacks from a new online marketplace called Thrive Market, which specializes in gluten free, paleo, vegan, and whole foods snackage, as well as body and home products we can feel psyched about using. I ordered totally “normal” kid-friendly snacks, but just in healthier versions – cheese crackers made with whole wheat and real cheddar, fruit leather made with applesauce and fruit, some gf cookies, and cereal. Then I got those little snack size baggies and spent a couple hours filling those bad boys up with all of the great snacks I had. And those were the perfect portion sizes! There was a container for helping to contain the mess. There was no need to turn around and hand them more cheese crackers. It just ended up making so much sense! (I also ordered two boxes of each snack, but them in a crate in the back of the van with snack bags, and did this again for the way home.) - The DVD Player – I read a post about a family who does a 10 hour one-way trip to visit family sans DVD player and I thought ‘I’ll do what they do and I won’t even have to get ours out!’ Well I’m guessing their kids (or at least SOME of their kids are older than mine. I tried an audio book at home to see if it was worth it. Nope. I tried reading books aloud just like I do at home, but that made my son want to sit in my lap which obviously led to some crying I was trying to avoid when we couldn’t do that. But when we wanted the kids to settle in for a longer stretch of highway, or make it till Grammy’s the very LAST thing we would do is pull out the DVD player. We tried to exhaust all of our other options first, then use that at the end. A movie was a treat, just like it is at home. And it gave us a chance for a much quieter car – the volume doesn’t go that high on the DVD player and so everyone had to be quiet to hear the movie.
And that’s about it.
There are some awesome posts out there on all kinds of great road trip ideas. For example I read this great post on creating individualized coloring books for each kid and the road trip for them to color through. And when I ran out of time I just picked up the kids coloring books from the dollar store that they got to choose for themselves. My 4 year old LOVED it but our 2 year old couldn’t care less. He doesn’t sit and color at home and he wasn’t going to in the car.
Likewise I read a post about using road time for school time and I thought ‘YAY Yes so smart!’ not thinking that my daughter doesn’t always feel the best in the car and she doesn’t want to focus on writing her letters or numbers.
In short? Read a handful of posts, be prepared to try a few things, but also trust your gut. You’re the mama and you know better than anyone else which of the ideas you find in the posts will work for you.
And if you have something up your sleeve that’s a real winner for road trips, I’d love to hear about it.
Our next major road trip will include a breastfeeding baby and I feel like we really only get these trips done well once we’re well out of the baby stage (our babies have not traditionally been good travelers) so road trip success for any age is so appreciated!
P.S. If you’re thinking you’d like to check out these amazing snacks, household goods, and body care products but you’re unsure, then you are in luck. When you order through this link, you will receive 25% off of your first purchase, and your membership fee doesn’t get charged until after your first month of service, so you can cancel if you don’t love it. I think you will though. And if you want to know more about I love it, check out this post on * Reasons Why I Love Thrive Market to see my favorite things!
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