We recently traveled to Devon for a short break for my birthday. I was initially very daunted at the prospect of spending 4.5 hours in the back of a car with a cranky teething baby and so I looked closer to home for a trip. However we have always wanted to visit the West country and we found the most amazing secluded cottage so on a spur of the moment we booked it! I spent so much time researching how to ensure that it wasn't the journey from hell and so I thought it might be helpful to share what worked for us. We ended up having a fantastic time away and it has made me want to plan a trip back again immediately!
1. Download their favourite tv programmes. BBC iPlayer is amazing and you can download Teletubbies and in the night garden. However make sure you have a way to set up so the baby can see it as I hadn’t thought that far ahead and had to hold it upright for two hours straight
2.Use a Thermos to put in the baby’s milk so it’s nice and warm and ready to pour into bottles. I did the same for her purée which worked really well. It meant that we didn’t have to stop to try and get it heated up
3.Plan your route before hand. We had pre arranged pit stops for toilet breaks, nappy changes and maybe a sneaky McDonald’s. I was very mindful of the two hour rule, that babies shouldn't be in car seats for more than that. So when we stopped we made sure it was for 45 minutes to make sure she had a good break
4.We timed Eva’s nap with the beginning of our journey so she would sleep through quite a bit of it. Babies seem to sleep for so much longer in the car than at home!
5.Use sun shades to keep the light off baby and this also helps to keep them asleep for longer
6.I bought a few new toys and introduced them throughout the journey to keep her stimulated as sitting down for so long is Eva’s idea of hell usually
7.Bring plenty of snacks. We bought a cool box and brought veggies and yogurt to keep her interest and also snacks are everything on a road trip
8. Finally we stopped for a nappy change and we changed her into her pjs so that once we arrived we could just read her the bed time story and pop her into bed.
Eva managed to sleep for about two hours of the whole journey both ways which was fantastic and meant that I got to eat my cookies and read a whole book! I'm going to do a blog post about the air bnb and places we visited. Do you have any great recommendations for Devon and Cornwall? I'm so keen to go back soon!
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