Best options for travel with small kids

A snowHead

Kids vary. As do adults. Some doze off the moment they're in the car, others find it very difficult. Having the footwell packed with soft bags helps as they have their feet up - much more comfortable. My OH would fall asleep very easily in the car (even when he was driving, which is why I mostly did the driving!). A good neck cushion helps, too.

For families whose children can't sleep in the car it's probably easier to fly or go by train. 12-14 hours sitting up awake is even less fun than spending some of it sleeping. For carsick children it's a no brainer to fly/train.

A snowHead

Layne - Surely you cannot lie across the seat and still be correctly under the seatbelt?

Pam W - my kids are always far too interested in what is going on around them to sleep. When my son was 3 we put him in the car at 8pm for the 3 1/2 hr drive back from my parents thinking he would sleep the whole way. He remained awake for almost the entire journey and we have fond memories of him saying "where have all the postlamps gone?" as we turned off the M25 for the last few miles home. He fell asleep one mile from home Laughing

We have never needed to spend 12 hrs in the car as we drive to the Alps over two days. The kids are awake the entire time happily looking out the window, chatting, listening to music, playing on their electronics or reading. They have never felt carsick thank goodness. Amazingly they never wind each other up on journeys either - they save that for the Novotel en route stop! I have friends with three kids who chose not to do long drives as they are more likely to bicker without the space in between.

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We have decided to break the trip up with an overnight stop. Before the kids we used to take a run down the day before we could get into the accommodation, stay in Chambery and be in resort for 9am for a day's skiing. That isn't going to work with two kids in tow, so the plan is to set off and get as far as Dijon on the first day and then cruise to Val with a goal of being there around 1ish for lunch. Accommodation is ready around 4pm, so that will work fine.

I would have considered powering through if we could share the driving but neither my wife or I can sleep in cars so that just doesn't seem viable.

Thanks for the tips on things to bring, DVDs are a definite must but ipads are a good call too.

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@snowymum, Never been a problem my son just dropped his head back, or sometime slumped forward, and slept. He even did it on a 10 minute drive to school. He even slept most of the way during the day. My wife is the same but I like to prop my head against something.

Last week we decided to drive down during the day to Les Arcs, and left home at 4:30 am after a bit of a faff picking a friend up in Ashford, the usual 1:30 delay for the tunnel, road works and heavy traffic we got to Les Arcs at 00:30 - 19 hours. THis was the longest the journey has ever taken. So it was back to the night time drive on the way home - a lot quicker and smoother (and only 30 minutes delay on the tunnel).

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@snowymum, we used to travel from the UK to the Black Sea via Bucurest every summer as kids (the trip took 3 days as a rule) and my Dad always drove through the nights - all the luggage was on the roof (or in the caravan when we took to towing one of those out) and my siblings then slept flat by taking out the back of the rear seat and made up "beds" for at least 4 kids that way. Otherwise all other long journeys were made with lots of pillows and blankets for the sleepers, while I travelled in the front with my Dad as I could not sleep in a moving vehicle. I chatted with him about all the subjects under the sun, helping him to stay focussed while he taught me about the geography of the countries we passed through. We would park up evey so often for him (and sometimes me) to catch some Zzzzs but never for more than 2 or 3 hours and usually in daylight as the others could get out of the car and play. My siblings slept most of the way or read when they were awake during the day. We got out of the car at regular intervals for toilet breaks and food, usually combined with filling up the tank. Nobody was allowed to stay in the car during breaks as that way we did not have someone asking for the loo 10 minutes after a stop!

There were no DVDs, no iPods or electronic games or talking books back then, but all of us remember these journeys with a great deal of fondness (apart from me when I had to travel in the back of the car and was horribly travel sick all the time). I think kids are way more robust than many parents these days think they are! The really young ones can be trained to fall asleep the minute a vehicle starts moving - I have several middle-aged friends who still fall asleep within 5 minutes of starting a journey if they are passengers because that is how they were "trained" by their parents. They make very boring travel companions as I still get travel sick at the drop of a hat as a passenger so I do all the driving! Embarassed

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@kosciosco

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@Samerberg Sue, I didn't say my children weren't robust. I just said that assuming people adhere to current safety standards ie. seatbelts in the rear of the car it is not that comfortable to sleep in an upright position and not that easy to ensure that your child is wearing the seatbelt correctly at all times if everyone but the driver is asleep.

Things were completely different in the 70s/early 80s. Kids sat on laps in the front, no one wore seatbelts, we went with friends on holiday to Scotland lying in the back of their camper van whilst the adults took in turns to drive through the night.

Provided your resort's reasonably close the train is a very good option - and not just for people with children. With a good percentage of the passengers being families the children were soon off making new friends, rather than fighting with their siblings and the adults could pop open a bottle of wine, sit back and relax.

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@snowymum, I was one of those 'trained' by my parents to fall asleep quickly in the car on the frequent long journeys we did. Yes it was different in the 60`s and early 70`s because you could lie flat as cars did not have seatbelts and no one though about car safety. However, I can still fall asleep very quickly in a car, in the front passenger seat I have a small memory foam pillow which tucks neatly around the head rest and to the window side giving me good head support. I have a friend in her 30`s who is a competitive dancer and because going to comps often involves very long days right from childhood, with immaculate hairstyles not to be disturbed, she can sleep sat bolt upright!

My own children were always strapped into car seats and as they grew we were always concerned to make them as safe as modern equipment in cars could keep them. They slept well in cars as babies, in fact with my eldest we sometimes resorted to putting him in the car and driving him around simply to get some peace! They continued to sleep well in cars always, and still do. They usually have a small pillow or a rolled up jumper or some such thing but they are very grateful they have the ability to fall asleep when travelling. It really does make the international business flights my oldest two do quite frequently much easier on them!

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@CaravanSkier, my own kids and myself will sleep in the car.Within 10 minutes of setting off my eyes start closing. It was never something that hubby did that much, holibobs were only one week a year for his self-employed father.

You know it makes sense.

I'm a crap passenger, there is no way I could sleep with Mrs B driving. So I would be up all night

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@Boris, so is hubby.

A snowHead

Yes, husbands have to stay awake whilst their wife is driving. They have to do the "fake brake" and sharp intake of breath. It's the law. rolling eyes

A snowHead

not to mention hanging onto the handle above the door for grim death.

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@Hells Bells, the salesman did that when I test drove the new car. And I wasn't even married to him Little Angel

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I know some men who are such control freaks that they are unwilling to let their wives drive even when they're wide awake.

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@maggi, of course - same as wives have to make comments like "you're going to fast", "watch that car", "you were a bit close there" etc wink

Being serious this is no reflection on Mrs B's driving - I hate anyone but me driving!!!! But we take it in turns when we go, I just wouldn't be able to sleep when not driving, so we stop overnight.

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My wife and me are often arguing about who should drive - She wants me to drive and I want to sit in the back with her driving and me sleeping. I never understood this "I want to drive thing"

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My Mrs is the 2nd best driver I know.

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If you are driving down I can recommend staying over near Troyes at a 3-star motel called Le Val Moret, about 4½ hours from Calais and just 5 minutes off the autoroute. Mainly because they have a nice heated indoor swimming pool which is great for the kids and relaxing for you. The restaurant is child-friendly and you can ask for a table in the area near the Reception area if you're worried about them getting fractious. Obviously, it's going to be more than a Formule1 or Campanile but the pool makes a big difference to my mind. Take a look at the website and see if it suits you.

http://www.le-val-moret.com/en/

I'd also recommend getting a SANEF tag. It's transferrable and you can lend it to (trusted) relatives and friends or use it on another car. For us, it's more a case of not having to ask the passenger to faff-around with ticket pickup and payment, rather than avoiding queues. Take a look at the website and see what you think.

https://www.saneftolling.co.uk/

The other, but more contentious suggestion is that you switch to a set of winter tyres annually, if you plan to drive down to the Alps - Cue another (there are many) thread arguing why you don't need to vs absolutely must. All I'd say is that I switched to using winter tyres for a ski trip about ten years ago and now always have a set for our main car. But I appreciate that there's a cost/benefit/risk equation here and that they're not for everyone.

One thing I'd argue against is the idea that you can stop for a quick sleep in the car en route. We'd done this in the summer on long drives back from Spain. But of course, in the the winter it's colder (surprise) and I found that it was impossible to snooze in a parked car, even if I kept the engine running. So only tried that once and never again.

Whether you need to stop en route on the way back is often a point of discussion. I'd say that it's a close call. We've had a clear run and been pleased we chose the straight-through option. We've equally had poor road conditions (delays, sleet and snow) and been really pleased we'd booked an overnight stay. It's hard to know the best strategy. Generally, even without kids now, we stay en route on the way home and make the stop part of the holiday.

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Not done it with kids (dont have any) but do do the drive to the Swiss alps a couple of times a year in summer and winter. We drive through the night, in our big estate we put our friend who boards big padded bag in through the back and down the middle, which creates a really nice little padded booth either side in the back which then gets filled with pillows and sweets.

We do the journey back during the day though, usually by all taking the monday off work and driving on the monday. A leisurely 9am local time car load gets us back to MK before midnight UK time. We'd drive out during the day, but as me and OH have all our own kit and season passes, we like to avoid having the friend in the rental queue at a time we could be skiing, so we aim to arrive by 8am, get a good space in the car park, have a few hours nap, buy and eat lunch and then get friends sorted with their kit/lift passes etc and move our kit from the cellar to the ski locker at the base of the lift, then head out and ski all day the next day.

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And just wait until your kids are old enough to drive. I remember handing-over a new BMW 530 Touring company car to my daughter three weeks after she passed her driving test when her turn to drive came 'round. White knuckles for the whole 2 hours of her shift ........

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Best options for travel with small kids

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