We’re home from our road trip to see my dad and his side of the family.
It was a total of 8.5 hours on the way down. And 9.5 hours on the way back up. With a 14-month-old and a miniature dachshund.
We survived. :) Want to know how?
After seeing so many of you recommend leaving at night, we bit the bullet and did it. We loaded most of our things in the car on Wednesday night, and drove together to daycare, then work on Thursday morning. I was able to get out of work a couple of hours early, and went home to pack the car, pick up dinner (subs to go!) and pick up Nora from daycare. Nora, Tessa, and I arrived at Michael’s office right at 5:00 to get him, and from there, we hit the road.
I fed Nora her dinner in the backseat while Michael took the first (short) shift. At the last minute, I grabbed one of our cutting boards to prop across Nora’s car seat for her to eat off of, like a tray–it worked perfectly. She had no problems feeding herself on the go (we kept it simple with turkey, cheese, peas, carrots, and pineapple) and that occupied her for a good 20-30 minutes of the ride. Once she finished, I cleaned her up, gave her some puffs in a snack cup + a sippy cup of water, turned on Toy Story 3, and climbed up front to eat my sub. Once I was done eating, we pulled off to a rest stop and quickly swapped spots so Michael could eat, too.
Backing up for a second… Toy Story 3. I’ll tell you what: Our iPad? If that thing seemed to be an indulgent purchase before, it proved to be a downright NECESSITY on this trip. As far as we’re concerned, that thing is worth its weight in gold. Nora got a couple of Disney movies for Christmas last year, and Toy Story 3 came with a digital copy, which I was able to easily transfer to the iPad. I downloaded a few episodes of a cute train show (she’s into “choo choos” right now), and then we ended up buying another Disney movie in Virginia–Rio–which also came with a digital copy that I transferred to the iPad for the trip home.
Nora sat happily in the backseat with her snacks and her movie and didn’t make a sound (except for the occasional laugh at the screen) for an hour and a half. We really don’t let her watch much TV in our everyday lives, so I actually had no idea that her attention span was that good. Who knew? Oh, and we bought a really cool (and totally worth it) iPad accessory, too: a headrest mount. This thing was awesome. The iPad was out of Nora’s reach, so she couldn’t touch it, accidentally turning off the movie. And it was propped up in front of her so she could easily see and hear it. I highly recommend.
At about 8:00, we were already three hours into our trip and decided to stop off at a gas station somewhere in Pennsylvania. Nora’s movie was over, and she was already about an hour past her normal bedtime. We went to the bathroom, topped off our gas tank (we still had about 1/2 tank, but filled up while we had the chance), changed Nora’s diaper, and got her into her pajamas. As we got back on the road, we gave her a sippy cup of milk, a blanket, and her lovey, and she “chatted” happily in the dark backseat for a bit before she drifted off around 8:30.
She slept the rest of the way, folks. It was phenomenal.
And, for the record, we never stopped again. We were too afraid of waking the sleeping baby! Michael drove the last 5 to 5.5 hours straight through without stopping. I’m not a good car sleeper, so I was awake, too–except for a 15-minute stretch when I happened to doze off before waking up with a huge crick in my neck.
We pulled into my dad’s driveway at 1:30 a.m. and went to bed. Nora woke up as we transferred her out of the car, but she did pretty well going back down to sleep. Tessa, on the other hand, was wired, which was a pain in the ass and didn’t make for a great night’s sleep. Nora woke up around 7:00 (maybe even earlier?), so we definitely weren’t well rested.
Still, we would totally do it again. Having Nora sleeping peacefully in the backseat through the majority of the ride was fantastic.
Yesterday, when we drove home, we tried a different method: We left in the morning. We didn’t get on the road until almost 8:30 a.m., and long story short–it was fine, but almost seemed even more tiring than driving at night.
The total trip home took an hour longer than the trip down–we stopped for almost an hour about halfway through the ride to have lunch and give Nora some time out of her carseat. Then, we hit rush-hour traffic when we got close to home (oops), so that set us back a bit, too.
Nora only slept for an hour and 15 minutes of the entire 9.5 hour trip. Yikes. We let her watch Rio in the beginning of the trip, then once it was over, we let her sit in the quiet back there and that’s when she dozed off. Once she woke up, she babbled happily for a while, played peek-a-boo with Michael, and then we stopped for lunch. We let her watch Toy Story 3, then three episodes of Chuggington. :)
All in all, we probably stopped five times on the trip back up–diaper changes, gas, etc.–and that ate into our time as well. Nora had a few periods of crankiness, but again, was pretty good.
In the end, I slightly preferred the trip down over the trip back up. But leaving at night on our way down and leaving in the morning on our way home maximized our time with my dad and my family, so we would do it exactly the same way next time. And there will be a next time!
Thanks to all who offered tips and tricks for roadtripping with a baby. We were pretty lucky, but I can honestly say that MOVIES were, by far, the most helpful tool. Without the iPad and movies, I’m not sure what we would’ve done. Thank goodness for modern technology!
I’ll share some pics from our trip over the next few days, so… more to come soon!
Nora’s birthday party was two months ago. I just got the rest of the thank you cards in the mail this past week.
(OK, fine. I actually have 2-3 more to go, but they are for people who gave Nora her gifts very recently, so that doesn’t count.)
Call me a slacker, call me rude… but we jumped right into the drywall project the day after the party, and life got a little crazy. So things that I would normally be pretty on top of fell to the wayside. In situations like this, I figure it’s better late than never, right?
On Monday, I stuck Mary’s thank you note (Mary is Nora’s daycare provider) in Nora’s bag with the check for the week. Yesterday, Mary happened to mention to me that she found it, and began thanking me (multiple times) for such a cute and wonderful note.
I found myself laughing. It was a thank you note. I was thanking you. You don’t need to thank me for the thank you! What’s funny is that Mary’s not the only one. I got thank yous for the thank you from a handful of other people as well.
This got me thinking: Do people not send thank you cards anymore? Is it “abnormal” to send thank you notes for a baby’s first birthday party?
My sister-in-law is a thank you note queen, as she sends them out for anything and everything, and you get them from her a day or two after the party. She’s on top of her game. Me, on the other hand… I’ll admit that I don’t send them for everything. Like, in instances where gifts are exchanged–like Christmas–I’ve never sent them. I’m not even particularly good at sending them after my own birthday. But the only birthday gifts I really get are from my immediate family, and I guess I feel like a good, heartfelt, in-person thank you suffices in those situations.
But when we throw parties and people take time out of their days to come and celebrate, and bring gifts? I can’t imagine not sending a thank you note.
Keep in mind that all of this is coming from someone who has a love for good ol’-fashioned paper. I love greeting cards (and Christmas cards!). And invitations. And stationary. And little note cards. (I don’t like paying postage, but that’s a whole ‘nother ballgame. And even so, it’s worth it.)
But still, why a thank you for a thank you?
Tell me, friends: Do you send thank you notes? For everything? For specific occasions? Do you have rules about how quickly you get them in the mail?
The other thing I’ve noticed is that the way people write thank you notes can vary greatly. I, for one, seem to write A LOT in thank you notes. Two to three small paragraphs, so they take a while to write! On the contrary, some thank you notes I receive are just a sentence or two, which is fine with me–I guess I just have some need to fill up as much of the space on the card as possible.
Maybe I just need to learn to write bigger. :)
It has been nearly a year since I’ve done a post about cloth diapering! HOW? How is that possible?
I guess it’s because once you start, nothing really changes. It’s a routine, and honestly, we still love it. I’m so happy that we decided to go with (and stick with!) cloth diapers. And for the most part, we’ve had a relatively easy time of it. A few small challenges here and there, but nothing that we haven’t overcome.
Our latest challenge, however, has been a bit more… well, challenging.
As Nora has grown, we’ve faced a few absorbancy issues. Suddenly, she’d start springing leaks on a regular basis, so we would know it was time to do something differently. We’d make adjustments to the sizing (since she wears one-size, adjustable diapers that can “grow” with her–see more on that in this post). Or we’d change the inserts with which we were stuffing the pockets (more on that in this post, too). But we’ve always been able to find a solution that was relatively quick and painless for all of us.
Nighttime cloth diapering is a whole ‘nother animal. Up until recently, we’ve been able to fix leaks the same way I mentioned above–sizing, stuffing, etc. But over time, her nighttime diapers had grown to be HUGE. Like, so big in recent weeks that I could barely zip up her pajamas over the enormously stuffed diaper. We’ve tried numerous combinations of inserts, different size settings, and Nora was still waking up at 4-5 a.m. (TOO EARLY!) due to a soaking wet diaper. After some trial and lots of errors, I believe the problems are two-fold.
First, let’s talk about inserts. Frankly, the inserts just cannot hold the amount of pee that Nora apparently eliminates in the 12-13 hours overnight. When she was smaller? Sure. But now that she’s a heavy-wetting toddler? Not so much. We’ve tried triple stuffing, using three microfiber inserts. No luck. We tried triple stuffing, using two microfiber + one combination microfiber/hemp insert. No dice.
Part of the problem with needing to stuff so much into the pocket is that you start to affect the fit of the diaper. By overstuffing, you start to create gaps in the legs of the diaper, which can cause leaks, too. So, if we weren’t getting leaks due to oversaturation of the inserts, we were getting them because the diaper was ill-fitting due to overstuffing. I tried backing down the number of inserts I was stuffing with, trying just one microfiber + one combination microfiber/hemp insert, and although the diaper fit better, the inserts didn’t offer enough absorbancy.
A week ago, after a number of nights in a row of Nora waking up crying and soaked at 4-5 a.m., I broke down and put her in a disposable. And, we’ve had her in disposables overnight ever since then, while we work on figuring out what we’re going to do longer-term. The problem now? The last three mornings, Nora’s been waking up wet again, even in the disposables.
It might be time to call in the heavy artillery: Huggies Overnites.
Up until now, we’ve been using our regular, cheap-o disposables that we keep on hand for the grandparents, or travel, or the occasional severe diaper rash (always caused by acidic foods!). But since they’re not cutting it, we hear that Huggies Overnites are the way to go. And I already have them in my Amazon Mom cart, y’all. (Do you all know about Amazon Mom? Amazing!) But I am still hesitant to hit “submit,” simply because I would ideally like to find a cloth diapering solution!
In reality, I’m probably going to go ahead and order a package of Huggies Overnites to use in the short-term, but continue searching and experimenting with cloth diaper overnight options. Like, I’ve had a few cloth diapering mom friends suggest trying pre-folds in the pockets. I need to figure out what size and order a few to try out that theory. I think I also need to experiment with our different brands of cloth diapers. We’ve almost always used Fuzzibunz dipes as our overnights, but who knows–maybe the bumGenius or Blueberry diapers we have will fare better.
At some point, I’m sure we’ll be cutting back her liquid intake before bed, but she’s still pretty young to do that. After all, she likes to have her milk before bed, and it’s a way for us to nourish her before bedtime to help keep her full until morning. Until then, I guess we will have to stick with disposables just for nighttime, or, hopefully, find the answer.
Are there any other cloth diapering moms out there who have conquered overnight leaks with a heavy-wetting toddler? What is your solution?
If you’re new(er) here, you may not have even realized Nora is cloth diapered!
Curious about cloth diapering?
See all of my cloth diapering posts here.
See all of my cloth diapering posts here.
Read about our decision to cloth diaper here.
See my starter stash (and links to some cloth diaper resources) here.
Read about the start of our cloth diaper journey here.
See how we transitioned to pocket diapers (and explanation of one-size, pocket dipes) here.
I’m told you’re supposed to start brushing your kid’s teeth pretty much as soon as they come in. So, well, we’re about 3-4 months behind, but… whatever. Nora still only has four teeth, so I’m not really sweating it.
But recently, Nora’s been showing a lot of interest in what we’re doing when she sees us brushing our teeth. Within the last few days, she has even gone so far as to open her mouth when she sees us with our toothbrushes.
We decided to take advantage of her interest and pick up a toothbrush for her while we were out today. I stood in the toothbrush aisle for about five minutes, overwhelmed by the choices for toddler/children’s toothbrushes and toothpaste. I narrowed it down to three choices, held them out for Nora, and let her choose. She picked Elmo. I grabbed the “matching” toothpaste and we were on our way.
Of course, it was only after she had eaten two “pea-sized” portions of toothpaste that I actually looked at the back of the tube (I was trying to figure out the flavor). Come to find out, this particular brand of toothpaste (Crest Kids) is for children and adults aged 2 and up, and is not supposed to be swallowed.
I’m so glad I spent five minutes in the toothbrush/toothpaste aisle, only to come home with the WRONG KIND OF TOOTHPASTE anyway. *sigh* What the heck! I guess I fell for the marketing on the tube, which featured Elmo and Abby Cadabby. That crap was expensive, too. Damn it. So now we’ll have to go back and get her a tube of the completely edible toddler-safe stuff.
How old were your kids when you started brushing their teeth? Are they good about it? How many times a day do you brush them?
Please. Tell me what I need to know about roadtripping with a 14-month-old. And hold me. Because I’m scared.
We’ve done 4-hour(ish) stretches with Nora during our traveling to and from Pennsylvania, but even that was tough. Plus, it was three months ago, and she was younger and less mobile. We’ve had great success with her on flights, too, which have ranged from two to four-ish hours–but again, she was younger. And although she was confined to our laps, she finds that much more tolerable than being strapped down into a car seat.
So, as we prepare to take an 8-hour roadtrip with her, I am preparing myself for the worst.
First and foremost, I expect it to take longer than eight hours. In the past, Michael and I would power through, only stopping for gas and the occasional bathroom break (for us and/or Tessa). We’d eat on the road (packed lunches!), and keep our eyes on the prize and just GET THERE AS FAST AS POSSIBLE.
Now, I’d like to take a similar approach because HELLO, I don’t want to prolong the suffering for all of us, but I could also see how taking a longer break for lunch or something could possibly make things easier on Nora. Right? Still, I know she’s going to be so.pissed.off. when she has to get back into that car seat, even if we just got done letting her explore and eat for an hour.
We’re also debating on when to leave. Do we let her get a full night’s rest, wake up at her normal time, and take off then? Or do we get up a few hours early, transfer her to the car in her pajamas, and hope that she’ll continue sleeping?
I had half a mind to actually leave the night before–like, after we get home from work–and drive into the night while Nora sleeps peacefully in the back the whole time. But, leaving at 6:00 p.m. wouldn’t put us at my dad’s until around 2:00 a.m., and that’s a looong freaking day. And because it’ll be after daylight savings time ends, it will be dark THE ENTIRE TIME, which is not pleasant, especially this time of year when deer are prevalent on the roads. I feel like I’d be a nervous wreck the whole time.
So, please. Share your tips and tricks. Timing, breaks, distractions… everything. We’ll take all the help we can get. :)
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About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
