3 Things to Bring for a Road Trip with Kiddos

We just came back from our Memorial Day weekend in Nashville and let me tell you, 17 hours on the road is tough.  We broke the trip down into two segments and did an overnight in Roanoke, VA after being on the road for twelve hours.  On the way down, we left at 12:30AM and made it to Virginia by noon last Thursday.  For our trip home, we left at 9:30AM on Monday and got back to Massachusetts at 6AM the following day; totaling 21 hours due to a few stops to break up the monotony and to eat.  17 hours is a long time to be cooped up in a truck and it's even tougher on two little kids.  To make things easier on us, we did the following.

3 Items That Saved Us on the Road

1.  Cooler

We brought a cooler with us to keep perishable items from going bad, which included milk, juice boxes, and a few other foodstuffs.  This was really important for Dean now that he's turned one and switched to milk so we could give him bottles during the drive.

2. Snack Bag

An IKEA bag can come in handy for a lot of things, but works great for holding snacks.  We packed fruit snacks, Cheez-its, graham crackers, a couple of apples, and chips.  It served as a great catchall bag and held excess items that we couldn't fit into our luggage.  Snacks are CRUCIAL when it comes to small children and important so we didn't have to stop too many times on the road.

3.  Toy Storage Bin

I had mentioned in a previous post that I got this storage bin at Target for $2.98.  Such a great deal and it's large; fitting a ton of stuff in it.  We grabbed the bin and stuffed it with toys.  Toys that worked well for Dean - Fisher-Price BeatBo robot, remote control, and a few trucks.  Toys that worked well for Faith - IPad, Shopkins, and a few dolls.  My daughter Faith at 3.5 years old is fairly easy to keep occupied with IPad or one of our cell phones so she can watch Nick Jr.  It was a constant hand off of toys to Dean to try and keep him occupied when he wasn't sleeping.  We played a lot of fetch - him throwing toys on the floor of the back seat - and me grabbing them from the floor and handing them back again.

On Friday, I'll share details on where we went in Nashville with the kids and our family visit.

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