I just got home from a long weekend road trip with Big P. On Friday morning we packed up the car and started the drive up to Chicago to go to the big event Mr. P has been working on for the past year. My parents graciously offered to watch Little P to make things a little easier for me, so it was just 3-year-old Big P and me (this was my first time being away from one of my kids for more than a 1-night work trip, so it was a little hard to say goodbye even though Little P was in very good hands!) After a few days in the Chicago area, we headed back home on Monday .

The drive was supposed to take about 5 1/2 hours, but with a potty training toddler and Chicago traffic it took almost 9 hours on the way there and about 7 hours on the way back. I’ve traveled a lot with my kids, mostly by plane and usually with Mr. P, but this was my first solo road trip. I thought I’d share a few tips and tricks on surviving a road trip with a toddler.

1. Plan on it taking longer than you think. We all know everything takes longer with kids. When you’re by yourself it takes even longer – there is no running into the rest area or gas station while your spouse stays with the kids or into the store to pick up snacks or diapers. There is no magic fairy to pick up dropped sippy cups or toys. There is just you. If I had known it was going to take a few extra hours to get to our destination, I would have left earlier to avoid rush hour traffic in Chicago.

2. Bring the best of your best “independent play” toys. Big P still naps every day and often falls asleep in the car, so I only brought a few toys thinking he’d likely sleep for a big chunk of the drive. We spent about 16 hours in the car together and Big P slept exactly ZERO minutes. On the way back I was so desperate for him to stop complaining about being in the car that I handed him my iPad and let him watch YouTube videos (and use up all my month’s data) for about 4 hours straight. Here are a few of our favorite independent play toys – all of which I’ll be packing for our next road trip:

ADVERTISEMENT

3. Download a movie or three to your iPad. Whenever a new Disney or Pixar movie is released (or an old one is re-released), we buy the Blu-Ray/ DVD combination, which usually comes with a free digital copy. One of the items on my pre-trip to-do list was to go claim our free digital copies of The Good Dinosaur, Aladdin, and Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs and download them to our old iPad for Big P to watch during the trip. Oh, how I wish I had done that – it would have helped save my sanity and my data allowance for the month! Also, bring headphones for your toddler, so you can listen to your own favorite playlist, podcast, or audiobook.

4. Consider bringing the baby. I decided not to bring 1-year old Little P with us on this trip primarily because my parents were available to watch him, but also because we were going to a golf tournament in the middle of the summer (and I had serious doubts in my ability to keep my two little ones happy, fed, lathered in sunscreen, quasi-rested, and quiet at the appropriate times). On one hand, it was so nice to just have one kid to take care of and to have one-on-one time with Big P. On the other hand, kids love routine and Big P seemed out of sync without his little brother.

5. Start a children’s audiobook before you leave. We recently started listening to children’s audiobooks with Big P. He doesn’t seem interested yet in listening to an audiobook if he hasn’t read the book with us first, but Big P loves listening to audiobooks of stories he already knows. We borrow audiobooks from our library using the Overdrive app or download them from Audible. If you have an Audible membership (a great deal if you like audiobooks), many of the children’s books cost less than $3.00 or are packaged as a set with other stories for less than $10.00. I do find it’s helpful to bring the actual book if we have it for Big P to follow along with as he listens to the story. Here are a few of our favorites!

6. Don’t stress about potty training. Now that Big P is 3, we are in full potty training mode. I started out our road trip stopping frequently for potty breaks but quickly realized that was going to add a lot of time & stress to our trip. While we were driving, I put Big P in a pull-up and encouraged (but did not require) him to use the bathroom when we did stop (and we only stopped if I need to use the restroom or we needed gas or food/drinks/ibuprofen). As soon as we got to our destination we went back into full potty training mode, and Big P seemed to handle the transition just fine.

Have you road tripped with your toddler? What are your tips and tricks when it comes to traveling with little ones?