How To Survive a Road Trip with 3 Kids

We recently took a road trip to Green Bay, Wisconsin. It's about a 15-hour drive.  We are very fortunate that our kids have always done well with road trips.  Since Boogie was 4 months old, he was traveling on long car trips to Maine which can be done in about a day. As he became older we started to stop halfway through, but that was only because we started later.  Twice I was caught with a long OB appointment the day of our trip.

But as traveling goes, my kids like it. They have always been contented with driving around. So what did we do to make it enjoyable for all of us?

• packing the car the night before
• we made fried chicken tenders to eat for lunch the next day. They're great. They can be held easily in little hands and they're okay cold.
• lots of snacks (Peanut butter pretzels, fruit leather, oranges, raspberries, kettle corn, bagel chips)
• personal thermoses (sp?) for the kids
• bags filled with crayons, dry erase boards, magna doodles, coloring books, and books
• audio books. Lots and lots of audio books. For this trip we packed: Magic Treehouse series, Ginger Pye, Pinky Pye, Alice in Wonderland, Sword in the Stone, Tall Tales, and the Nate the Great Series.
• DVDs (though the kids only watched one movie and it was only one time. They prefer audio books!)
• bathroom breaks/stretch your legs every 3-4 hours (this was perfect and it gave me time to nurse the baby. Each break was at 30-45 long. During this time we had the kids go to the bathroom when we came to a rest stop and right before we left
• OH and we surprised each of the kids with a travel buddy waiting for them in their seats. Boogs chose a dragon and Bug a pink triceratops.  

One night I had them go through a website and had them pick and then ordered their new buddies in time for the trip. I told them it was for Christmas.  When they got in the car they were surprised. Bug still thanks us for her "Cera." I love that their animals turn into pillows. Bug let me borrow hers when I took a nap in the car and it was very soft. We also were able to take the kids pillows at the hotel because ours were so crummy. They slept with their pillow pets and had no trouble at all.

As kids, Hubby and I remember taking family road trips. We still enjoy them and we enjoy the time it gives us to talk.  On the way home, we decided to power through and finish the trip in one day.  When the kids fell asleep I stayed awake the last five hours (9pm-1am) while Hubby was driving. We listened to music, sang, and talked all the way home. Good times.

This is How We Roll

My family and I really enjoy road trips. It's a good thing since we rarely fly anywhere.  The kids enjoy car rides and they entertain themselves pretty easily.  Though, if Buggy and and I are in the car for more than 20 minutes without her older brother, she's very concerned that we've left him behind and will fuss.

Over the last several years the family has taken several multi-hour road trips. We've driven to Maine numerous times. About 10 hours pre-children, about 12-15 hours post-children.  We drove to Chicago and back last summer. About 13 hours each way. We drove from Chicago to Green Bay...I want to say it was about 5 hours.

Hubby and I always try to finish a long car ride and not break it up into two days. I don't know why we do this to ourselves, but we do.  The car ride is not torturous by any means. However, just because we stay up to drive all day and into the night does not give us a free pass to sleep in the next day. No matter how long we've been driving and how tired we are, we still have to get up bright and early (or as early as the children do) to take care of the kids.

We have a minivan to haul all our stuff (pack n play, double stroller, cooler with munchies, baby backpack for hiking...you get the idea.) An added bonus to our minivan is the DVD player and wireless headsets. We've used them multiple times for long car rides. This year Hubby made sure that we had quite the selection of DVDs and this would be the first year that Buggy would be able to enjoy them.  Do you know that we didn't use it once on our way to Maine or back? Awesome!

One of the things that I did do before traveling was to buy the Chronicles of Narnia on CD. I love books on CD. I have the entire Harry Potter series and listened to them in the middle of the night while nursing and rocking my first born, on car trips, and while making dinner. Boogie has heard "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" at least once a couple of years ago. But now that his vocabulary has expanded he was more interested in it this time around.  He wanted to listen to the whole story and would not take a nap in the car because he was so interested in the story. When we finished "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" he wanted to hear another "Aslan" story. It's a good thing I bought the whole set! We listened to several books on the way home. At one point I told Boogie that he and Lillian could watch a movie until our next stop. He said no and said he wanted to hear Aslan. So that 's what we did! We listened and enjoyed stories all the way home. I was impressed that a book on CD won over DVDs.  He listened and asked really good questions for clarification, which we enjoyed answering.

As a mom and a Reading Specialist I was really, really pleased :)

I currently have The Chronicles of Narnia, The Harry Potter Series, and A Wrinkle in Time on CD. Do you have any suggestions for other kid friendly books on CD? Especially a series? Please share!