Surviving road trips with littles

Oh, long car rides with kids. It is cheaper than flying sometimes, but trying to entertain kids who have to be strapped in for hours on end can be exhausting for everyone involved. Now throw 2 kids in the mix who get car sick every time they watch their tablets in the car, so that easy form of entertainment is out. So yes even with all that we still take our kids on road trips, so how do we still manage car trips with our kids, read on.

First and foremost, we always try to plan our car trips for when they are sleeping. Sleeping kids means not getting sick or crying/screaming kids which is always a win. It depends on the distance of the trip we are taking, depending whether we leave during nap time, super early in the am, or at night. However we can, we try to maximize the most time that they will be asleep due to the bulk of our driving.

Tip 2: Snacks and more snacks. Special snacks that they haven't had or at least not had in a long time, so they are excited about them. We also look for snacks that are small that they have to eat one by one in order to try to draw out the process. When they are little, we will also put them in the snack catcher cups, so it makes it more of a process for them to pull out the pieces. Eating snacks is the easiest form of entertainment for both the kids and mom.

For car sickness, we also have used sea bands on the boys to try to help alleviate some of their car sickness. I am not ready to medicate the kids for the car sickness yet, so I like that these are a natural alternative. They do seem to help them not get as sick and as long as they have long sleeves and can't see the bands, they don't mess with them. (Also, a side note, I used these when pregnant to help with morning sickness and did see an improvement then, too).

If we aren't traveling at night, we plan a few destinations to stop at along our drive. I know this adds time to the drive, but sometimes it is a necessity in order to keep the peace in the car for everyone. Our go to is trying to find a park where the boys can get out and run around for a while. We will also stop and get a take away meal and just bring it to the park to eat. Fresh air is so helpful to not only burn off energy, but also to help with nausea. It also can be used as bribery to help convince your kids to sit just a little bit longer in their car seat. If it is cold or rainy and we are unable to go to the park, then we typically compromise with the kids and tell them we have to drive further than we normally do, but then we are going to find something really fun to do. We have stopped at aquariums, trampoline parks, or silly landmarks (see Jolly Green Giant picture above). It is not as convenient as stopping at a free park, so we typically plan to spend an hour or so at these destinations, to make the most out of it, but then we make fewer stops. It is not the most convenient to make the stops, but I truly believe it is the only way to make the trip bearable and fair for everyone.

Tablets: If your kids are fine in the car watching shows, find a new movie that they have never seen and download it to the tablet and give yourself two hours of peace while they happily watch their show. Pro-tip: Bring along headphones, if you want to be able to not hear what they are listening too.

Things we pack: always extra clothes (for kids and mom), extra baby wipes, more diapers than you would expect, a beach towel (in case they get sick or to sit on in the park), plastic bags, their favorite stuffed animal, drawing toys, their favorite toys, and all the snacks!!

So whether you are going on a 2 hour or 16 hour road trip, plan ahead and make the most of it to save both your and your children's sanity!