13 hours... in a car... with a 4-year-old. Am I insane?

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We're seriously considering driving to Iowa for a family reunion. Sozlet is a good traveler in general, and has become much better in the last year or so. We don't have much money, will be making at least two other plane trips this summer, and there is no airport near Grandma... so we'd have to fly and then rent a car and drive for quite a while, anyway.

What I would plan on doing is something like:

- Break it up into two legs, and stay overnight at a city in between. Peoria and Davenport seem like likely options. Both have interesting stuff to do, children's zoos and farms and state fairs and such. Plus sozlet just loves hotels. (We'd be staying with Grandma once we arrive in Iowa.)

- Find places of interest along the way, stop and look around.

- Rent a portable cd player for sozlet (only tape drive in our car) for her to listen to music and audiobooks.

- Rent a portable DVD?? (Less likely.)

- Sing stupid songs.

- Listen to the radio.

- Get some tapes, too.

- Snacks.

- Rig some sort of lap desk for drawing.

- Car games like I spy, etc. (Would like more suggestions.)

What do you think?

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Maybe some sort of sleeping thing too, though last time we tried that it didn't go well. She was supposed to nap in the car and just DIDN'T, and then was overtired for the whole trip.

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I have some experience with this. I drove my kids from PA to Georgia last year so they could see my grandma before she passed. It took two days and we stopped A LOT. I tried to stop at McDonalds with playgrounds or rest areas with playgrounds and practically chased them around so that they would get tired.

Your ideas are all good ones. A dvd can get you two solid hours of driving. If sozlet takes naps at roughly the same time every day then you can probably plan the trip around it. Also, if she goes to bed early, you can drive for a couple of hours after she goes to sleep and then stop at a hotel. Staying somewhere over night seems imperative. Above all frequent breaks seemed to be the only thing that got us through.

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My parents used to leave at like, 3 in the morning so that my brother and I would sleep for at least 4 hours in the car. Maybe just leave in the middle of the night? That could get you some time with her asleep.

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That's basically what we tried to do, but in transferring her from bed to car she woke up -- way up -- and just would NOT get back to sleep. Then the whole trip was spent trying to get her caught up on sleep.

So I'm nervous about doing that on the way there, maybe on the way back.

McDonald's/ playgrounds is a good idea.

Sozlet doesn't nap anymore. Very occasionally, and then in the car, so she might. But nothing to plan on.

Any car game recommendations? All I can remember just now is license plates -- trying to get as many different states as possible. (She's a bit young for that yet.)

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In today's world I wouldn't drive in the middle of the night,
especially since sozobe would be alone with sozlet. Maybe
I'm just overly cautious, but I wouldn't do it.

I have taken my daughter on long car rides, mostly in Europe
and she was around 4 years old the first time. I put a pillow
on top of her safety seat next to the window and a blanket
around her and eventually she fell asleep after a few hours.

Your game suggestions are excellent, and it should keep
you both occupied for the duration of the trip. Why rent a
portable CD player - at Target you can buy them cheap
with headsets. The headsets come in handy, if you want
to listen to something else than children's songs ( I got tired of them real fast).

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We used to play an ABC license plate game. My kids don't know the whole alphabet by sight, so we had to modify it for them this last time. Basically you go down the alphabet marking off each letter when you see it on a license plate, sign, or anywhere.

Singing songs is fun. We play a game where we sing songs we know but insert a funny word in unexpected places. The last time we played, it completely deteriorated until they wouldn't stop singing "old McDonald had a poop, poop-poop poop-poop poop". That got pretty old. They also liked to pretend they were reading a map and giving us directions. The map usually consisted of some tourist brochure we picked up at a rest area.

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Oh it would be me and E.G., sorry that wasn't clear. (FreeDuck, did you go all on your own?)

Good point about just buying the CD player. I'll go research prices.

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When I went to GA it was just me and the kids. But we've taken long driving trips to North Carolina and Tennessee with both of us. Most recently, we took the auto train to Florida and drove back. The kids are getting to be good little travelers.

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How old is sozlet?
A good travel game is to have her identify things she can see out the window that start with consecutive letters of the alphabet. A- animal! B- barn! It can use up a lot of time waiting for something with the next letter to appear.

When I was a kid on long road trips, my sister and I had puppets and put on lengthy 'puppet shows' through the rear window for the people on the road behind us.

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We did several similar long trips-
always driving during the night. We left after dinner, around my children's normal bedtime.
They were excited, so they wouldn't go to sleep right away. We just talked about what we were going to see, played some familiar games- like I spy with my little eye, then I told them their favorite story, put in a tape with their favorite music- and my husband and I stopped talking- then they went to sleep.
Mostly they slept for 6 or 7 hours.
When they woke up we had a very long stop- with restaurant, walking, playground.
More stops during the last part of the trip, with time to play on a meadow, a riverbank or so.
Games were
finger games, sing a longs, who spies first ( a skyline, a bridge,-the map can give hints).

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Don't know if you are willing (or able) to invest money into a portable DVD player but here are some I found that are well priced.

Wal-Mart
Best Buy1
Best Buy 2
Circuit City1
Circuit City 2

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Wow, thanks for the research, Bella! Much more reasonable prices than I expected, still a bit steep. But yow, the portable CD players are way cheaper than I expected. $30, brand-new!

Equus, sozlet's 4.5. She's right at the edge of being able to do that game, worth a try!

I like the who spies first idea, that sounds fun.

I'm beginning to think we can actually do this!

Something very attractive about piling in the car and just GOING. (E.G. has been singing "NO SLEEP 'TIL GRANDMA'S!!!" -- a take off on "no sleep 'til Brooklyn", evidently.)

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You won't regret purchasing a portable DVD player even if it exceeds your budget. It will be the best travel investment you ever make. I promise. Rent a bunch of DVD's from the library, Neflix, or Blockbuster. Two hours of silence a pop - priceless. Works on kids of all ages (provided they don't argue over the content).

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OK, I have done this with a two year old, not quite three years old, but drove about 20 hours. This was not by choice as we were supposed to fly home on 9-11. We explained to my daughter that the planes were not working so we had to drive home. It would be long and she would have to try as hard as possible to be good. I spent a good part of the trip in the back seat with her playing games and reading books, singing - anything to entertain her. The little darling (who isn't always so) seemed to understand how we felt and was a little angel the whole time (except the last hour or so when she became cranky).

I know you said you have limited funds, but I have seen portable DVD players pretty inexpensive. I would highly recommend it - we own one now (as the events of 9-11 took us by surprise, we were unprepared). Your child is now 4 and Brainquest makes those questions thingys for pre-school children - this may be fun. Maybe some sort of flash cards or other card games even UNO makes a version for 3 year olds.

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You can do it. It is definitely freeing to know that you can just go if you want to. I actually like to travel with the little buggers. They get so excited and they get to see so many new things. Just put yourself in slow mode and enjoy the ride. Getting there is half the fun.

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Think positive- travelling by car gives some freedom.
My worst trip was a flight-
1) departure 3 hours delayed
2) stop over in a crowed airport- due to a strike there were masses of people, another delay of more than 4 hours
3) arriving at our destination:
the car rental was closed- due to a strike-

The whole trip should have taken 5 to 6 hours- it took us 16 hours to reach the house.

If you are relaxed it will be a nice trip.

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http://www.momsminivan.com/bingo-roadside1.gif

When I was little, we played a lot of games on car trips. The only one I remember from pre-reading days was Car Bingo. I went looking for a picture and found what looks like an excellent site for ideas to entertain kids in the car:

http://www.momsminivan.com/index.html

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That's awesome!

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Yep, ul, I love the idea of not having to rush-rush, make deadlines, all the usual plane stuff. If we see something interesting, we can stop and investigate!

Thanks for the Brainquest and Uno recommendations, Linkat.

Thanks for that site, mac, good stuff.

I got all excited when I found this:

http://www.inmotionpictures.com/HowItWorks/HowItWorks.asp

But since we plan to leave on a Thurs or Fri and come home on a Tues or Wednesday, it comes out to only about $20 less than buying the damn thing. Oh, but I forgot shipping. So make that $10 less.

You make a convincing case, cjhsa.

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13 hours... in a car... with a 4-year-old. Am I insane?

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