Road Trip and Young Toddler

Since there will be 2 adults, one should ride in the back with her. Read books, sing songs, etc. Stop frequently to let her run around then hopefully she will nap.. Have fun.

When my daughter was this age we went on a 14 hour trip. I was alone with the kids. I bought a lap table for $10 at Target.(It was kept in the section with sun shades and other car seat accessories) It's soft (can't be used for coloring), so it's not a danger in a crash and it attaches to the car seat so it doesn't fall off. Since the sides are slightly raised, the toys she played with didn't fall off. Matchbox cars kept her busy for long periods of time. It also made a great snack table on the road. Her leapfrog phone was another great source of entertainment.

We took our 15 month old twins on a 15 hour car trip. We left in the middle of the night so they would be sleeping. This is the best advice I can give! We were a bit tired, but it didn't throw off their routine too much. Five hours really isn't that long, so she will probably be fine just watching out the window. Another trip we took with them was six hours when they were seven months old. They just looked around and were content.

I would recommend traveling during her nap time or at night, if possible. We bought a lot of inexpensive little things that we didn't show our son until he started getting restless- cars, finger puppets, etc.

LOTS of singing, talking, fun music, bubbles and flashcards (if you don’t get car sick). My babies are 4 and 2 and we travel 5 hours to see Grandma twice a month. We do not have a DVD player by choice. Our kids love The Jungle Book and The Sound of Music soundtracks along with their own stainless steel box filled with yummy snacks (something that they would normally never get at home – like Oreos or Animal Crackers). They can go in 2 hour stretches now so we stop and let them run around and stretch their legs about half-way. Or we find a McDonald’s and let them play at the play center for at least 30min. Then they get a treat for the second half of the trip – usually strawberry flavored milk. You could buy all sorts of stuff to distract her, but I bet she would simply LOVE your attention for that length of time. :) Good luck and safe travels!

When we travelled with my son at that age. The main thing he like was interactive books. So, things with flaps, or some books have numbers that pop out to reveal a picture. They also have puppet stories at barnes and noble. We had the old macdonald one. It's a glove-puppet with one animal on each finger....
We sang a LOT and stopped every 90 minutes or so to let him run around.

That doesn't sound fun at all. Can you drive at night while she's sleeping? Or wait until close to her nap time so you can have her spend part of it sleeping? If not, then good luck!

how about getting some kid friendly CD's and interacting with her this way, dance in your seats!!

I got my daughter a etch-sketch with a pen instead of the knobs. She loved it and there was no mess. She still loves it. I keep it in my airplane bag so she only gets it when we travel and she is 2 now and still can't wait to play with it when we get on the airplane. If you have a DVD player, I would bring it and get one DVD, you never know. Since she won't have any other options, she may watch it. One with singing may work.

My husband and I just took our 15 month old son on a weekend to the Ocean we drove a lot, around 13 hours or so and my son did so great. He usually doesnt like being in the car too long but he did well.

We bought him 2 or 3 cheap new toys he could chew on, because he is teething and he had never seen them until we started our road trip so it kept him pretty busy. Then when he got bored of that one we just changed out toys.

We also sang, and talked to him, and he slept when he was tired, ate when he was hungry. We had plenty of snacks and juice for him so he was pretty happy guy.

We brought books, and some of his favorite toys and things too.

I was also thinking of buying a portable dvd player to play Elmo's World because he loves it!

Those things should work pretty well. Just make sure to have lots of her favorite things and you will be fine.

does she like to color or draw? we love these: http://shop.hobbylobby.com/products/water-wow-disney-prin... our daughter has 4 for car trips. no mess, only water!