I'm looking for a bit of advice for a long car journey. We've got two girls, one is 2 and a bit and the other is just over 9 months old. We're planning a trip at the end of this month which involves a ~450 mile drive. Last weekend we did a trip of just over 200 miles which went reasonably well. Took lots of breaks so they could get out of the car seats and stretch their legs, had plenty of snacks and drinks, and tried to time it so the start of the journey was around their first nap time so they slept the first hour or so. Even with a couple of good long breaks and plenty of snacks, they still started to get pretty fractious towards the end.
For the next trip, we're probably going to try to leave around 3AM so they'll hopefully sleep a good portion of the trip. We really want to get the drive done in a day if we can do it without losing our sanity.
First problem - the older girl has figured out how to escape from the straps on her car seat. They're shoulder straps and she can slip her hands underneath them and get her arms out no matter how tight they are. We tried an anti escape system like this one -
http://www.halfords.com/kids-zone/c.../child-safety/5-point-plus-anti-escape-system
- but she figured out how to get out of that fairly quickly. She also figured out to keep quiet when she does it so she can stay free for as long as possible O_O Have read that a houdini clip works well, has anyone tried one of these? Or any other suggestions for stopping her from escaping?
The next problem is keeping them entertained. We're probably going to take an iPad with a couple of films on it that they can watch during the trip (we do usually keep their screen time to a minimum but for a long journey like this we'll take all the help we can get). We've also tried to check out places we can stop along the way. Service stations are OK for a quick break and some fresh air but they're not great. Is it better to do lots of small stops or a couple of longer ones to break up the journey?
Has anyone attempted a similar trip to this? Any advice?