An 8 hour trip in…..8 hours!

This past week we tried our first big road trip with the baby (and the dog of course) and drove to see my parents in Saskatchewan for the week. We’ve done smaller road trips to Edmonton and out to the mountains and they went fairly well (except for the point when Dave accidentally sneezed and woke up the baby, at which point we had to stop on the side of the road in a snowstorm to feed the baby which was promptly followed by a massive poop explosion) but this was going to be the first time we would be spending the whole day driving.


Based on stories from my other travelling mom friends, I was expecting the trip to be long and exhausting. In the end, it was fabulous. We stopped at our usual places along the route and just added in a feed and diaper change to our normal pit stop. In between breaks, Isla slept for most of the drive and babbled to her toy when she was awake. We had a small incident on the way out where a rock cracked the window of our brand new vehicle but we managed to get a quick repair in Medicine Hat and we were back on the road with barely any time lost.

Here are a few tips that I feel contributed to our smooth journey:

• Put the baby in old clothes that you don’t care if they get dirty (because they will!) and bring an extra change of clothes in an easily accessible bag. We didn’t have an issue except for when Isla pulled off her socks right at the beginning of the drive and then spit up on them leaving me with nothing to put on her feet. Of course the only thing I didn’t have in my diaper bag was extra socks so we had to unpack half the car to get at a new pair from her suitcase.

• Bring the stuff to make a makeshift diaper change station in your car. We only had to change her in the car once on the entire trip but it was worth it to have all our gear easily accessible. The baby change areas on the road aren’t great either so there were a few times where I regretted bringing her in with me and just wished that I had changed her in the car.

• I kept the back seat beside the carseat free just in case I needed to sit in the back with Isla. In the end, we didn’t need to use it but if you have a fussy baby that needs entertaining then this would probably be a good thing.

• If you have a 10 month old Cheerio hound like I do, then keep a huge supply of cheerios on hand to get through the fussy times.

• We had a pile of children’s music on our iPod just in case but in the end we just listened to our own music and that worked out just fine too.

• I’m not a fan of Fast Food but a lot of the places do have high chairs to feed the baby on the go. We also have a chair that screws onto the side of a table so that works fantastic for restaurants as well.

• Bring a carrier or a simple umbrella stroller for the breaks. It makes it easy to do things with the baby along and its simple to set up and go quickly.

Location: Highway #1 from Calgary to Regina
Cost: Gas for the car
Gear for Isla: A car seat (we have the Snugride 32 carseat which is awesome if you have a tall baby), toys, one of those mirrors that allow you to see the baby from the driver’s seat, extra clothes (and socks!), formula and lunch for the baby, gear for a change station in the car (mat, wipes, diapers, plastic bag), carrier (we have a BabyHawk carrier that is great since it fits both myself and Dave), and an umbrella stroller.