Road Trip with Twin Babies (How To Pack, Sightsee and Sleep)
Our family travels up the east coast from Maryland to New York every year to spend time with my husbands family. My husband and I took off work for the week between Christmas and New Years to enjoy the holiday week care-free with the family and expanded the trip across three states: New York, Massachusetts and Maine. This year, would also be different because we now have 1-year-old twin boys along for the ride.
This article dive deeps into how to have a fun and fulfilling road trip, see the sights and enjoy the food with a good night’s sleep in a hotel room while traveling with multiples.
Preparation is everything when packing for your road trip. You’re packing for yourself and multiple children. We’re traveling with infant twins so we need all the baby needs times two.
Be prepared for mealtime in the car, hotel or on the go.
- Formula and water
- Milk
- Solid foods
- Spoons
- Bottles
- Bottle cleaner
- Bottle warmer
- Burp cloths
Don’t overpack things you can clean or buy on the road.
If you’re traveling in a small car like us, you don’t have unlimited room to pack for every possible contingency.
Don’t feel pressured to pack new outfits for every day that you’re traveling for. Pack enough clothes for 7 days, maximum for longer trips. You can usually wash clothes at a hotel, laundromat or family’s house if you’re traveling for more than a week.
You’ll need lots of diapers when traveling with a baby, especially when you have multiples. Carry enough to fit in the space you have, while knowing you can always purchase more diapers on the road.
Plan to drive during babies nap time.
The best drives tend to be after a feeding and right before nap time. That allows us to drive in peace and the babies will fall asleep comfortably in the back seat for the ride. If we keep the total length of the drives between 2-3 hours, the babies are waking up right when we arrive and are in a good mood after a nice car nap.
Keep essentials in the front seat.
Pack the road trip baby bag with everything you may need during the trip. That includes:
- 4 diapers, two per child
- Wipes
- Burp cloth
- One ready to feed (or ready to mix) bottle per child
- Snacks
- Extra toys
For snacks, we pack one banana for our twin one-year-olds because the kids are comfortable eating bananas without supervision.
Use sun shades to keep babies comfortable during the ride.
Place sun shades in the window to keep the sun out of the baby’s face during the trip.
That way, you can have a peaceful ride knowing that baby is comfortable and not painfully turning their face to avoid harsh sunlight.
Plan your sightseeing around baby’s schedule.
The whole reason we go on a road trip is to see the sights and try the food, right? But it is a lot less fun seeing sights when your baby (or babies) are crying and you’re spending more time soothing them than actually enjoying the views.
Build your road trip sight seeing around your baby’s usual usual eating and naptime schedule. The night before a day of sight seeing, plan when to wake up and feed your baby, when you’ll leave to see the landmarks and what time you have to be back for the next naptime and feeding. Prioritize any sights that require sunlight for during the day while saving indoor activities like dinner and family time for nights.
Our twins nap from 11AM-1PM and 3PM-5PM at home. To maximize sightseeing between naps, we shifted both naptimes by a half hour to 10:30- 12:30 and 3:30 -5:30PM nap times. That way we had three hours in the middle of the day to see all the daytime sights and 3-4 hours at night for fancy dinners or seeing family with well-rested babies.
Pack for baby’s bath time routine.
Our twins have outgrown their baby bath and are now bathing in the tub, but we still had to pack their baby soap, wash cloths, towels and lotion.
Bring your own bed for bedtime and naptime.
Babies can easily sleep in pack and plays for long road trips. Pack and plays are easy to carry and can fit into smaller spaces. Younger babies can sleep well in a travel crib.
Some hotels will have cribs available by request, but be prepared with your own pack and play just in case. Pack extra bed sheets if you’re traveling with a child that is skin sensitives.
At home, the twins sleep with a noise machine every night so we brought that along as well.
Recreate your at-home bedtime routine to help your baby sleep peacefully in the hotel.
We followed our bed time routine to a tee and had no problem getting our children to go to bed in a hotel. Here’s what we did:
Position the crib(s) in an area of the room you do not need to use at night to ensure baby will not be disturbed by parents moving around. Place baby in the crib. Turn on the noise machine and turn off all the lights in the room. Close the shades so no light comes in.
With the TV off and no remaining noise in the room, go to a different area of the home or room where your child cannot see you. This will help your child realize it’s no longer play time and it’s time for bed.
We were in a small hotel room and sat in the bathroom chatting while we waited for our kids to fall asleep.
