Traveling with a 5 month old!!

[brittbritt_94]

My baby will be a month old in a few days. I am wanting to go to my sister's graduation in May. I was thinking about just driving up there, but it's a 18 hour drive. Thats not including any stops we'll have to make. My baby will be 5 months. My husband and our dog will also be with us. I'm really nervous about the long drive. Has anyone ever traveled that long with a 5 month old? How did the drive go? Any tips? Or would you recommend just flying?

[anwhatin1]

We usually start travelling with our new born immediately so that they get use to the car seat and sleeping in it. If u r breast feeding then get them use to bottle feeding as well so u can interchange them as needed. Start now. I will be driving 3 hours away very close to her being 7 days old and will then travel 6 hours away and then be in and out of the car on a daily basis so that thee r no concerns. This has always worked for me and now they r use to travelling long distances without cae sickness or being stressed. Good luck

[Sarah_Speed]

I recently took my 7 month old on an 9 hour trip (driving). The trip took 12 hours wil many extra stops. As long as baby is sleeping you need to be traveling, don't stop or wake baby up when it's time to eat. If possible have someone in the back seat to help entertain the baby. Hope this helps and good luck and safe travels!

[2gs_2bs_andcounting]

Drive at night when the baby would normally be sleeping. We traveled a lot when we were military and we found that was the easiest for us

[lguzmom]

I have flown with a baby and driven and both are doable. We took our 3 month old on a 16 hour car trip once and he did fine. I also have flown with a 6 month old. Its kind of a hassle either way but its definitely doable. Easier than traveling with a toddler who wants to be entertained.

[Leabellallee]

I think flying is always easier than driving. You just book, pay, pack, board, and you're there in a few hours. You can interact with baby a lot more on a plane (since baby doesn't have to be in a car seat the whole trip.) This is good if you have a "needy" baby you likes to be entertained.  Plus you can feed and change with no special stops. But if flying makes you uncomfortable in general, it might be easier to drive- Just to elminate stress on you. Maybe you can split the drive into 2 days? And stay in a hotel one night? If you're breast feeding that is definitely going to slow down your trip, unless you can pump beforehand. At 5 months baby will be more active and alert than right now and may need a little more time out of the car seat so maybe plan to do sit down meals or walks at the rest stop to get baby out of car seat some. There are a lot of great pintrest links and blogs out there with tips for traveling with infants.
Good luck!

[bjm_1125]

I personally would 100% recommend driving instead of flying. Flying with a small child is a bad idea, there's so many bad people out there trying to attack airplanes ( in my opinion ). Idk, maybe I'm just super paranoid. I do think driving with the baby for a long period of time like that may get a little difficult but I definitely don't find a problem with it. May is a warm month and at 5 months of age, baby would've had their shots and everything and would actually more than likely love being in the car. Do what you think, Mommy's know best. But I think it would be fine.