Traveling with Children - Car Tips

[jujubee]

Traveling With Children – Car Tips

We all love to take vacations, but we dread the long hours in the car with the kids. Let’s share some tips to help make those long drives more fun!

[jujubee]

~Portable DVD players are the obvious choice, but some (including me!) don’t own them.

~I let my DD pack her own “car bag” this year. I gave her one backpack and let her put any toys in it she wanted. Some were totally impractical for the car (blocks), but I didn’t intervene. Packing her own bag made her feel like a big girl, and she never once complained that I forgot her favorite animal, or whatever.

~I packed her a “secret surprise goody bag” for the car. Hid it under my seat, so she didn’t have any idea where things were coming from. I included new coloring books, pack of crayons, pens, stickers, $1-store books, and other little $1-store surprises. I was able to pull these out randomly when the boredom set in, and it was fun for her to get a new surprise every 60-miles or so.

~Car bingo! We bought a set of these this year and DD played with this for hours! You can also make your own reusable ones: Draw them up or print them online. Slip into a clear page protector and use crayons or dry-erase markers to mark the items. This will clean up, and make them reusable.

~Don’t forget to pack the snacks, and a pack of wet wipes!

[Jenna26]

Drive at night, if possible! That's what we're doing in 2 weeks - it's an 11 hour drive, without stops. We are leaving at bedtime and hopefully will not have to stop too often.

I agree with the "special bag" thing - my MIL mailed my DD a package today full of activities for the car - a travel Doodle Pro, gel pens, crayons, coloring books, stickers, etc.

We always played the Alphabet game as kids - anything outside the car counts - signs, license plates, etc. Count from A to Z.

Play the State License Plate game - see how many of the 50 states you can find.

[zansammommy]

We received dry earse boards a week per to driving to ten hours to VA. They keep my children quiet for about three hours. It was wonderful.

I know they are really cheap at Big Lots and Walmart. They are only about and 8x 11 size so they fit in their lap perfectly. Plus I bought lap boards that are in the baby section. It made eatting in the car much easier as well as coloring and such.

[tomatohead]

crayola colorwonder
sing a long songs like the wiggles
car dvd player
wiki sticks
sticker books
leapster/gameboy
books
suckers/snacks
we also have them run until they are exhausted at rest stops

[twostep]

Kids Bop CD..............I took my two nephews ages 5, and 3 on a 6 hour trip to Sea World and thankgoodness for Kids Bop CD!!! We sang together the whole way it was great!

[lalanpnut]

Nothing that's already been said, unfortunately!! We are HUGE fans of the travel Doodle Pros, the kids (well, the 5 year old, the 1 year old just loves to "make meh") love being able to draw what they see and erase as needed. Also, we have a couple Disney song CDs that DH and I will rock out to that automatically calms the cranky kid! Good luck to all traveling soon :)

[deep_18in]

I pad, Galaxy Tab,Their favorite songs, Rhymes, Lullaby. Favorite snacks. Take stickers, coloring book, crayons. Travelling is fun.

[meggers]

Originally Posted by Jenna26 Drive at night, if possible! That's what we're doing in 2 weeks - it's an 11 hour drive, without stops. We are leaving at bedtime and hopefully will not have to stop too often. I agree with the "special bag" thing - my MIL mailed my DD a package today full of activities for the car - a travel Doodle Pro, gel pens, crayons, coloring books, stickers, etc. We always played the Alphabet game as kids - anything outside the car counts - signs, license plates, etc. Count from A to Z. Play the State License Plate game - see how many of the 50 states you can find.

I deconcur. License plates never count!

[$Saving!]

My kids are now in the mid 20's but when they were younger, we traveled long distances all during their growing up years.

Various things worked at various ages.

One little trick that worked when they were old enough to get on each others nerves (elementary school time frame) was we would give each of them a roll of dimes (or quarters as age appropriate) and tell them that each time we had to address their behavior, they had to hand over one of the dimes.

The goal was for them to get to our destination with as many of the dimes/quarters as they could hang onto because it was theirs to keep and spend as they pleased.

Worked like a charm Cheap way to squelch the bad behavior of getting on each others nerves (and ours!).