how long can you have a new born in a car seat?

[petemurphy]

looking at going to devon either by train or car with our by then 3-4 week year old. It will be about 5 hr drive. is this too long to have them in a car seat at that age ( with breaks ) or should we be fine?

ta

[Deerfoot]

petemurphy said:

looking at going to devon either by train or car with our by then 3-4 week year old. It will be about 5 hr drive. is this too long to have them in a car seat at that age ( with breaks ) or should we be fine?

ta

I lived in Germany when my lad was born, we came home for his first Christmas when he was 4 months old. The drive was around 6 hours on the other side of the channel then 4 hours this side.

We took regular breaks to get him out of the seat, plus of course we had a 90 minute ferry crossing but he was fine.

Just take plenty of breaks and you`ll have no problems.

[Backtobasics]

Seem to recall it's around 3 hours

[seagrey]

I asked ths same question at our hospital and they said two hours maximum with a half hour break in between.
London to Fife,my daughter was 12 weeks old,it was a long long day.
I took the scenic route because it offered better stopping opportunities,I dont like m-way services and your not going to be making good time anyway.

[littleandy0410]

As already said, I think it's about 2-3 hours, but to be honest, you'll need to stop for feed breaks and nappy breaks at least that often anyway.

We got one of these as part of our travel system package:

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.208-4922.aspx?utm_sour...

which was a great way of transporting our daughter around. Much safer, and would allow for longer journeys, although we only ever did a couple of 2 hr+ trips.

(I wouldn't pay that much for it, we paid a fair bit less than £100 I think as part of the bundle.)

[Pickled Piper]

A couple of hours is usually the limit. Your sprog will tell you when he / she has had enough. You will also be making frequent stops for nappy changes and feeding.

pp

[Rubin215]

2 hours is the generally accepted limit by healthcare professionals.

We did Amsterdam to the far side of the Czech Republic six weeks after our youngest son was born (approx 650 miles) and split it over two days so we could "see the sights."

[JungleJim]

as above, everything i've been told by shops, midwives, and read says a sensible maximum is 2 hours.

[ludicrous speed]

Might be better just to wrap it up in a few blankets and duct tape it somewhere in the boot. Will easily have enough padding should the worst case scenario happen.

[ewenm]

We do Bath to Bolton/Lancaster in one go as our little one sleeps well in the car - it takes about 3 hours.

If she wakes and needs feeding/nappy then we'll stop, but more often than not she'll sleep the whole way if the traffic isn't too bad (she wakes up when the car stops ).

[petemurphy]

ludicrous speed said:

Might be better just to wrap it up in a few blankets and duct tape it somewhere in the boot. Will easily have enough padding should the worst case scenario happen.

sounds awful but does make sense!

thanks for the replies so far

[swamp]

A five hour drive to Devon should be no problem. Most babies sleep well in a car, but you will have to make unscheduled stops so budget up to seven hours.

I wouldn't fancy going anywhere by train though. You need to take a lot of stuff, and there would be nowhere for the baby to sleep, unless you had a moses basket on the floor, or a buggy left in the bicycle bay!

[entwisi]

With or first we bought a fitting kit that allowed us to us the carry cot with the baby strapped in. this way we were told was fine as the child was flat amd no different to being in the cot at home. Other wise we were also told a couple of hours max in a normal away is as much as you should look to do.