advice needed for travelling with an infant
 

not 100% sure if this is the right place to post this, admin feel free to move to the right place.:offtopic:?
We have just had a baby (paul vincent born 4th december)
and we want to do some travelling around norway.
we have a very good car seat (cybex serona)
but we cant find any info online about recommendations with long trips in regards to newborns. anyone have any experience?
ive come from the world of motorcycles so all this is new to me, i am still getting used to doors and window wipers
when we left the hospital they recommended to keep car journeys under half an hour and we wondered how long that applies for....
thanks in advance!
the carters

The problem with newborns is that they came without instruction manual.
Just go and adapt your journey to the family needs. Get ready to change diapers on the side of the road. :)

There has recently been some research into young babies becoming hypoxic in car seats over a relatively short time and the advice seems to be to keep journey as short as possible. That why you were given that advice

Hypoxia Risk Cited for Infant Car Seats and Beds | Medpage Today

Randomized Controlled Trial of a Car Safety Seat Insert to Reduce Hypoxia in Term Infants | Articles | Pediatrics

As a start, but there is lots more on line

You could invest in a paediatric oxygen saturation monitor and some kind of neck support as babies of this age cannot support their own head well and that is associated with hypoxia

Not only that, but prolonged use of car seat is not great for spine development when infant is young. We are in the same boat with a new born and we are planning our next cycling trip, but will only do this once he is about 6 months old. Even at 6 months, we still need to take are with his position for longer periods.

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My daughter was transported three hours by 4x4 in australia when she was 12 hours old , in a baby capsule (like a modern moses basket) . She had to go to car seat when she was 5 months as she was too big for the capsule.
The car seat was a rear facing and canted at quite an angle so that she was semi recumbent . This takes the weight off the neck for the most part .
The size and strength of the baby needs to be taken into account and rear facing is much safer , less risk to damage to neck . Progression is also important imho as like any muscle exercise aids development . You will find
that length of travel time is very much regulated by the needs of the child eg longer spells when they sleep , and shorter intervals when they need feeding and changing . The biggest no no is trying to feed when driving
also next to that is traveling with just driver (esp mother) and baby in car ,as baby can be a definite distraction . I have seen results professionally and personally , my wife took a range rover into a ditch full of trees , as i watched from my car behind , due to being distracted by a baby. Luckily due to solidity of the vehicle they both survived .
On a more humorous note , you will be surprised by the amount of kit a baby needs .

Len Beadell took his wife and new baby in a series 1 Land Rover .. the baby was packed inside a wooden tea chest. This was over some rather rough future roads ... Now which of his six books has that in it ? Ar .. 'Bush Bashers' .. he named the road they made on this trip after the baby ... the "Connie Sue Highway" .. a 5 month trip of 8,000 miles with a baby... You might be able to buy a copy off ebay.

I'm not sure that the crash protection of a tea chest has ever been examined, but I would suggest it's not good, especially unrestrained

He was surveying the road network for the Woomera rocket range in the late 40s/50s, and only had a theodolite and marker poles for line of sight surveying - sometimes he'd be able to drive a mile before losing sight of the last marker, more often less than half a mile.
The chance of hitting anything at walking pace through those parts of SA and WA would be remote - to say the least - even today his roads are not greatly used.
In one of Beadell's books he tells the tale of finding an abandoned, fully laden truck bogged to its axles. The road construction party, pulled it out, graded a new section of road and left the truck parked on that, probably for a confused truckie to find.
One of my favourites is about the bulldozer driver being unsociable and not talking to anyone in the construction party for 6 months, Beadell asks if anything is wrong and the driver says "NO, just leave me alone". In another 6 months he still hasn't said a word and Beadell asks the same question, this time the driver responds "I'd be alright if you stopped nagging me so much". You need to be a peculiar breed to live/work in Outback Australia.
He was a great raconteur doing plenty of talks about his days surveying the rocket range and the Maralinga A bomb testing grounds.

the other thing to consider is where in the world you are going, and feeding.

In places of high temperatures and tropical diseases the baby may not yet be immunised against various things compared with an adult. Also, when babies get a fever, or other illnesses they cannot tell you they are feeling unwell unlike adults so illnesses can escalate rapidly.

Obviously breast feeding is easy but babies when on solids may not cope with the bugs on food in strange places compared with home food.

But that said, what a great opportunity to get on the road and not allow parenthood to hinder opportunity.

It's interesting that the OP asks a group of people (this forum) a question and then remains mute to the people providing answers.

The OP can be presumed to now be the parent of a 2 1/2 year old, for whom traveling raises a whole different set of questions.

I find it more interesting to notice the strange mix of medically-sound with homespun, totally-discredited advice (e.g., placing the infant forward-facing on the front seat). Internet forums like the HUBB are a great source of all kinds of information, but it's obvious that where health and safety are concerned the reader's job is to take it all with a large grain of salt.

I'd be interested in hearing from the OP (or others) about the adjustments they made as their infants grew into toddlers and onwards. I'm confident that advise from the Norwegian health care system didn't stop at "Keep car journeys less than half an hour."