Any easy ways to pack for a overseas trip?

Taking road trip with 3.5 month old baby, dog, and cat in a family car- any tips?

• My husband is in the military and our family is being sent to a base over-seas soon. Before we move over-seas, we would like to visit our family across country one last time. We were planning to take a 28 day leave starting in mid June, or early July. Give us enough time to drive out, spend a week or two with the family, then drive back. Its about a 20 hour car ride, if you drive it straight. Of course we know we won't be able to drive it straight. Last time we took this trip I was still pregnant, and only the cat came with (the dog stayed behind). We stopped every two hours for a bathroom break, but besides that we drove straight through. This time we were still planning on stopping every two hours, however we were also planning on getting a hotel to rest through the night half way through the trip. (Meaning we'll have to find a list of pet friendly hotels before we go.) Our son is a very easy baby: he rarely cries and only fusses when he needs something. He usually sleeps in the car, although the longest car ride he's been on was 3 hours. We are breastfeeding, but I have a good pump and he takes pumped milk from a bottle just fine. We have a pack-in-play for him to sleep in when we stop for the night, since we don't co-sleep. The cat does great on these long road trips: we just put a litter box on the floor of the backseat, offer water and food at rest stops, and he pretty much just sleeps on our laps the whole way. Occasionally watching out the window. Our dog is a 7 year old basset hound, about 50 lb. The longest car ride the dog has ever been on was 4 hours, so we're not really sure how he'll react to being in the car for a couple days, even with the bathroom breaks. We've noticed that even on short rides around town, we can't really expect the dog to behave in the car. He moves around too much (which is weird because he's not that active around the house). So we have a collapsible crate for him to ride in (its the same crate that he sleeps in at night so he's used to being in it). We have a Ford Focus station wagon, so the trunk is very large and open: I'm currently working on a packing list, and trying to figure out how to maximize our space in the car. I was thinking that either the dog crate could go in the trunk with the suitcases; then the backseat could have the baby, a cooler, and the cat's litter box. Or we could move the baby's car seat from the middle of the back seat to the side, then put the dog crate next to the baby's car seat, put the cooler in the trunk with the suitcases and keep the cat up front with us...idk, we'll have to play around with it and see what works. I need ideas on how to make the trip easier for all of us. (Though I know it will be a hard trip regardless, just small ways of making it a little bit easier would be greatly appreciated.) Also, any thoughts on the packing list would be greatly appreciated.

• Answer:

  I think you could sit at the back and look after your baby and play with your dog while your cat was in front. In my experience dog could cause you a big trouble. My dog seem to walk around the car the whole time. lol...