Travel Safety Tips for Traveling with kids

These travel safety tips are sponsored by Graco to help ensure families travel safely this travel season. Opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting our sponsors who make our site possible.

Just because school started doesn’t mean that family travel stops. Even amidst school we still find ourselves often taking a weekend to go visit family.

Not to mention the holidays coming up where many families will hit the road to visit family or go on vacation around the holidays.

Which means it is extra crucial to be extra safe on the road. And when we travel with kids, it throws a whole new element into the works. So here are our travel safety tips for when you are traveling with kids!

Kids Travel Safety Tips

These travel safety tips will ensure a safe trip but also to go as smoothly as possible.

Car Maintenance. Before you even begin, makes sure that your vehicle is in good repair. Read about our miraculous experience of why we have an obsession about road safety before a trip!

Before each trip always check all

• fluids such as windshield washer fluid, oil, brake fluid, etc, are full and no leaks.
• Check tires for proper air pressure
• Check tires for proper tread
• Check headlights, blinkers, and tail lights to make sure all are working well.
• Ensure you have a proper maintained spare tire and jack in the car.
• Include jumper cables.

Emergency Gear. You never know when something will happen and you’ll be in an emergency. From getting a flat tire, a car accident, road closures due to poor weather, vehicle breakdown, or just a typical stuck in traffic for hours. If you are prepared then it helps these emergency situations become less stressful.

Emergency Gear to have on hand:

• Extra water for each person
• Non- perishable Snacks/food for each person
• First aid Kit
• In winter include extra clothes, blankets, and winter gear.
• Basic medications such as Pain relievers for adults and kids, inhaler if you have asthma, tweezers and finger nail clippers, etc.

Entertainment. When you are traveling with kids, having entertainment for them is actually a safety measure. If the kids get board and start screaming, then it’s not a safe driving environment. We always ensure we pack entertainment for the kids such as:

• books
• Magnet activities
• Coloring books & crayons or Colored Pencils
• Smaller quiet toys such as action figures (not tiny that will get lost in the car)
• A stuffed animal
• Electronic game
• Small pillow and cuddle blanket in case they want to sleep
• Favorite Snacks – this can really help keep kids happy while traveling.

Seat Safety. Not only is it the law to wear seat belts or ride in a car seat/booster chair when in the car, it is also crucial for safety.

You want to ensure that each person in the vehicle is safely restrained in the car.

For our older kids, that means sitting in the back with their seat belt on. For our daughter that means in her Graco Booster Chair with her seat belt in place.

For our little Rose that means in a Rear-Facing Car Seat.

Many parents think they have their children properly restrained in the car, but statistics show that many actually don’t.

According to our state law, a baby has to remain rear-facing until at least 1 year of age AND is 20 lbs. But state law isn’t always the safest.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends children ride rear-facing until at least two years of age or until they have reached the maximum height and weight limits of their rear-facing car seats.

I don’t know about you, but for my kids the problem is that my kids would always get so tall that it was uncomfortable for them to remain rear-facing. Which is why I think the new Graco Extend2Fit 3-in- 1 Car Seat is brilliant in safety design!

The Graco Extend2Fit 3-in- 1 Car Seat has the features to keep your child comfortable, but boasting safety features Parents will love!

The Graco Extend2Fit 3-in- 1 Car Seat allows for adjustments that keeps your child rear-facing longer. Including 6 reclining position for comfort and a food extender which offers up to 5″ extra space for legroom when rear-facing!

I mean seriously where was this when my boys were babies? I love this feature!

What that means is that we can keep our kids rear-facing much longer until they reach the weight and height limits of the rear-facing capacity.

Not to mention that the Graco Extend2Fit 3-in- 1 Car Seat is like 3 seats in one! It allows for:

• rear-facing with harness from 4 – 50 lbs.
• forward-facing with harness from 22 – 65 lbs
• High-back belt-positioning booster from 30 – 100 lbs.

You will want to adjust the recline and foot extender to the position that is right for your child before you put your Graco Extend2Fit into your vehicle. Once it is installed in the car you can’t adjust these features.

The other great safety feature is how easy it is to adjust the shoulder straps. You know how difficult it was to unthread the shoulder straps, change height positions and rethread?

Well, that is all a thing of the past!

This car seat offers 10 height positions. And it is as easy as pulling a handle and pulling! No seriously!

Just grab that little handle, squeeze and pull up! And it adjusts the height of the shoulder straps for you!

I’m telling you this is genius! I’m so in love with this feature! Adjusting the shoulder straps for the right height was always the part I hated the most when fitting a car seat for my little ones!

So adjust the height of the shoulder straps to where the shoulder straps are right at their shoulders or just slightly below.

Move the chest clip to where it is level with your child’s armpits. And tighten.

Perform the Pinch Test: When tightening the harness straps, check at your child’s collarbone to ensure you are unable to pinch any excess webbing. If you can pinch access webbing, tighten the harness.

Other safety and ease-of- use design elements include:

• Fuss-free harness storage which holds the buckle out of the way for easy in and out
• SimplySafe™ Adjust harness system helps parents easily adjust the height of the harness and headrest together
• Easy-to- read level indicator  eliminates installation guesswork
• InRight™ LATCH system for a one-second LATCH attachment
• Machine washable seat cover makes clean up easy for parents

Take a look at our video feature to see all the features of the Graco Extend2Fit 3-in- 1 Car Seat in action!

 

While our big weekend at the Discovery Museum got postponed due to kids getting sick, we still have holiday travel coming up! And nothing makes me more ready to face the upcoming hours on the road than to know everyone will be traveling safe and secure.

Now with our Graco Extend2Fit 3-in- 1 Car Seat installed we are ready to hit the road for more than just our traditional weekly shopping trip to the store!

We have a trip to Idaho in November, and hopefully another trip to Wyoming in December. Not to mention trips around here to visit my family on weekends we can get away.

Here is to a safe and enjoyable travel experience for you and yours! Use these Travel Safety Tips and you may have a smoother trip!

You can learn more about the Graco Extend2Fit on Graco’s Website. You can also find it on Target and Amazon.

What are your Travel Safety Tips for traveling with kids?