When you’re on a family road trip, the only thing that beats the sight of a baby sleeping is the sight of a baby sleeping at the right time.

Photo credit: Heather Flett

I can’t promise you perfectly timed naps and roads clear of construction and traffic, but I can give you a few pointers as you plan your getaway. Before you pull out of the driveway, consider these tips:

1. Car. Get your car serviced before you get on the road. Increase your peace of mind with a full tank of gas, properly inflated tires and a carwash, too.
2. Maps. Know your best route before you start driving. Bring along maps or a handy dandy GPS unit.
3. Schedule. Plan your driving times to coincide with nap times, if at all possible. Bring along pacifiers, loveys and sleepytime music to encourage the rest.
4. Food. Pack a little cooler for chilled sippy cups of milk and healthy snacks for rest breaks. Please DO NOT give your child baby carrots or any choking hazard while driving.
5. Toys. With two little guys in car seats in the backseat, I keep a tote bag filled with toys and books they can reach themselves. No crayons … nothing with small pieces.
6. Music. Fill your iPod or make a mix CD of favorite kid’s music in addition to your own.
7. Rest. Expect that you’ll need to stop and stretch (or run!!) for about 20 minutes every two hours … at least.

Most importantly, keep your expectations in check. As long as you expect it to be a wild adventure with some tears and much, much slower than you’d travel on your own, you will have a great time!

My husband has had the same cell phone number for 10 years. You can imagine how surprised I was when I began to dial his cell phone number from my home phone one day and couldn’t remember the order of the digits. Why did I suffer this memory loss? Two minutes earlier, my 4-year-old son had run full speed ahead into a doorway and was now cradled in my arms, bleeding profusely from the forehead. And my cell phone was acting wonky. And my two-year-old was clinging to my leg. And my home phone is not programmed with speed dial numbers because, well, I have a cell phone that does that.

So there I was, carrying my bleeding kid around the house, searching for a scrap of paper on which I may have written my husband’s cell phone number for a babysitter, cursing myself for having not kept it on the fridge like I did when my son was first born and my habits were more safety conscious.

Safety tip #1: Do not rely on memory or technology for phone numbers. Use the old-fashioned method of posting critical information on the fridge.

Later that week, as I repeated this now funny anecdote to some other moms as we sat waiting for our children’s swimming lessons to end, our conversation turned to 9-1-1. I had not forgotten the conveniently short number 9-1-1 during the head-bleeding incident. But, I knew that the wound I was dealing with, which required one stitch across the eyebrow, did not merit a 9-1-1 call. (I had lost my memory, but not my mind.)

When I have called 9-1-1 in the past, I told the other moms, I have waited a long time for my call to be answered. Also, a 9-1-1 call placed from a cell phone may not be identifiable to the call center in terms of location. The call is picked up by the nearest cell tower and then dispatched to the appropriate local law enforcement agency. If you are in a true emergency and call 9-1-1 from your cell, be sure to provide your location clearly.)

Safety tip #2: Look up your local police dispatch phone number and program it into your phone. Use “9-1-1”as the contact name to force your electronic address book to list it first.

We write another blog together at RookieMoms.com and just published our first book, The Rookie Mom’s Handbook.

We love hot chocolate, comfortable shoes, and the television show Lost, but that’s where the similarities end. Now we need to stop using “we” and introduce ourselves separately.

About Heather (as told by Whitney)

Heather has curly red hair and a personality to match. She is strong willed and loves to have a challenging goal in front of her. After 28 years of leading an un-athletic life, she set out to do the Chicago Marathon and finished it. She devotes herself projects, lists, and rituals. The number of fun things we’ve done together is probably recorded in her diary somewhere. When Heather became a mother, she requested that I make a list of all the activities I liked to do with my baby (six months older than hers) so that she could check them off of her list.

Now Heather and her husband Alec have two sons, Holden (3 ½) and Milo (1 ½). As a family, they are conscientious about their impact on the environment and use their car minimally, cook lots of locally-grown produce, and avoid buying things they don’t need. She is originally from the Cleveland area of Ohio and went to Northwestern University.
Career-wise, Heather is a seasoned interactive project manager with 13 years of experience that she doesn’t look nearly old enough to have.

About Whitney (as told by Heather)

Whitney is short in stature but huge in creativity. I like to lift her up and carry her around. We met 12 years ago when we were fresh out of college and she was wearing a colorful handknit hat. Since then, we’ve shared many (finished and unfinished) craft projects. Whitney’s great because she knows where her sewing machine is and she remembers how to use it.

Whitney and Ryan have two children, Julian (4) and Scarlett (1 ½). Julian is mellow and Scarlett is proving to be more feisty. Whether from well-timed online shopping, embellishing hand-me-downs with well-placed buttons, or purely handmade creations, the whole family is very well-dressed. Whitney grew up in LA and attended Barnard College in New York City before moving to Berkeley.

Whitney has had several interesting jobs (from teaching children’s gymnastics to risky web startups) but worked most steadily for LeapFrog Toys as a marketing manager so she’s a professional expert in fun stuff.

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