[bluecupcakes]

Hi all,
We are going away for christmas and it is a 12 hour car trip to get where we are going. I have 3 children aged 5,4 and 2. DP and I will be sharing the driving. I am considering doing it overnight as in leaving at the kids bedtime hoping that they will just sleep the night and arriving at out destination in the morning.
Just wondering if anyone has done this before and how it went? Did the kids sleep the trip? We have done this trip before but this will be the first time with all 3 of the kids.
Thanks in advance

[kpingitquiet]

I did a lot of car trips as a kid, and have done a few big ones with a child slightly younger (16mo at the time) than your youngest, and I've done a blue million long trips on my own. If it were just adults, I'd say drive through. But with kids I strongly recommend planning an overnight stop. We always drove until dinner time and had dinner near a motel/hotel where we stayed for the night, then started up again after breakfast and arrived at the destination mid-afternoon.

Even if they do sleep the overnight portion, they will probably not feel so fantastic when they wake after being stationary so long in a weird position. Plus, you two will be tired, too, as I don't know too many folks who manage to sleep solidly during car trips. Is there a motel or caravan park with cabins or something halfway?

I'm sure someone else will say it works fine but I wouldn't personally do it!

[casime]

I do a lot of travelling and have just done Vic to QLD and back again. I tend to stop at a motel and get an early night, then get up about 2-3am, put the baby in the car still asleep in his pjs, and start driving. I like it because you get a fair bit of driving done before the traffic starts. I usually stop again by mid afternoon, and sometimes will have a nap at the motel. Twelve hours I would probably drive 2am-2pm, especially if I had a co-driver.

[butterflies]

we have a caravan so drive to every holiday we have haad, be it 3 hours away or more.

We have done Gold Coast to Sydney in 12 hours with the caravan and 3 kids, we left at 10am and stopped for dinner for an hour(had packed a lunch)

sometimes it's tough but we have recently got portable dvd players for the kids and I wonder why we didn't do this earlier.

When we leave for holidays it is usually 3am wake up, the kids sleep in their clothes (comfy car clothes) they get in the car with their pillows and blankets and usually go straight back to sleep. then we will stop for breakky when the whinging gets too much LOL!

I don't take turns in driving as we tow the van and I am not confident doing that, so the driving is left up to DH which he is fine with.

I think driving through the night might be a bit much for the driviers, depends on how the passenger sleeps and if the kids are awake??

good luck

[BVB09]

We will be doing the drive from Gold Coast to Sydney with a 5 and 2 year old. Have done this plenty of times in the past.

We do quite a lot of stops as we are in no hurry !


We stay at Port Macquarie overnight and continue the rest of the journey the following day. Seems to work for us, if the kinders are tired they will sleep in the car which they usually do.

I do not like driving at night ! I prefer to drive during the day.

I would consider maybe leaving super eary in the morning, at least you and your husband would at least have had proper rest, rather than sleep tagging in the car.

Have a safe journey

This post has been edited by Sim 74: 27/11/2012, 08:17 AM

[melaine]

We used to pack up the car, go to bed early and then get up really early to leave. It was a more pleasant drive if we missed the midday sun (not very good car aircon then!), so sometimes we'd stop somewhere shady for a couple of hours at the hottest part of the day.

We'd leave at 3 am and arrive at 4pm or so. As kids our parents would just move us from our bed to the car in our pjs and we'd doze off until the sun came up.

Depends on where you are driving though - its tiring driving at night, and if there are lots of kangaroos etc it can be a bit stressful!

[gizboo]

We did it with a 3, 2 & 1yo.
We left home at 9pm, and arrived in QLD at 8am the next morning.
We only stopped to swap drivers, the kids slept the majority of the way, though at one stage they were up watching a dvd in the early hours, but crashed out again.
Admit we were shattered, mum (who were visiting) took over the kids and we passed out until that afternoon.

On the way home we stayed a night halfway. It was a lot more relaxing.

[Therese]

All I ever imagine is that my children wouldn't sleep once they were woken up to get in the car. And I imagine all 4 of us being overtired to begin with.

So I wouldn't do it.

[tothebeach]

This year, we drove Syd - Gold Coast. We also drive Syd-Melb once a year. Rather than go overnight, we get up very early and go. For Syd-Gold Coast, we left at 4. The kids are excited about going in the dark and are awake for the first 1-2 hours, then fall asleep for a few hours so you only need to make your first stop 5 or so hours into the trip. We stopped for breakfast and continued on. We prefer not to do an overnight stop, just a waste of everyone's time. Kids have slept in the car so won't go to sleep at night. Disaster all round.

Last time, we stopped at the butterfly farm for a few hours. Made the day seem like a tourist day, rather than just a travel day.

This post has been edited by tothebeach: 27/11/2012, 08:24 AM

[MrsLexiK]

As a child we used to go on 10 hour+ holidays a bit. We would either get up really early or leave in the middle of the day and stay somewhere. My dad did all the driving.

My DH, his friend and I drove from Melb to sunshine coast. We left at about 9 or 10 pm chirssy day and got there in the afternoon boxing day. (Everyone else had either taken a few days to get there or flown) My DH and his friend just drove the whole way, one would drive and the other would sleep and then they would switch. We had a TV/DVD player wired in the car and also a portable DVD player for me (who got the front seat) I didn't sleep too much as I was worried about all passangers being asleep at the sametime. We were also towing a boat so it is heavy driving (hence why I could not drive as I was on P's) I don't think I would be prepared to drive through the night with kids unless they were all in comfy rear facing seats, I personally hate sleeping in the car myself.