HELP- need your top tips on surviving car journeys

Travel overnight

You see dg I would worry about that from a car sickness point of view with DS.

So another tip. If you child is prone to car sickness give them a joy rides before you set off - and do not feed them bananas.

Last summer when DD was just over 2 I made her her own little photo album (cheapie flip album for about 86p from Asda) and then printed off digital photos of her friends and family in action shots where possible. So it included one of her and DS asleep in the car, one of her riding her bike, one of DS playing football, one of her cousin with his birthday cake etc. She loved it.

My 2 older boys are kept happy for journeys of 5 hours or more playing on their gameboys (god knows what it is doing to their brains and eyes though)

a recent huge thread here has lots of tips

If the children are old enough then money is a good incentive to behave. On long journeys our 2 can earn 10p for every 10 mins without an argument etc. They love this idea and it works. We have the usual activities for them to do to keep them occupied but I've found this works best for us

Name-Its
A pillow barrier between children

Buy child friendly CDs and keep them for long car journeys. Each year, my children have a new obsession and we have to listen to the CD ad nauseam (oops perhaps shouldn't use that phrase in case there are travel sick people here!) but it certainly seems to make the journey easier. Past and present obsessions have been Abba, Billy Joel, Rolf Harris, and Joseph and his amazing technicolour dreamcoat.

For younger children keep some finger puppets in the glove box so if you get stuck in a traffic jam you can act out endless dramas...

Audio books are good in my experience too - we always had things like Tolkien and CS Lewis but I suppose now you can get Harry Potter and Philip Pullman's stuff - nice and LONG!

Obviously regular stops are important. I tend to let the children eat in the car (yes I know it creates a mess) and then when we stop they can use the time for running around.

Timing of journeys can be critical with younger children - if you can incorporate part of their evening sleep or their nap, so much the better.

We have not yet bought an in-car dvd player, but we use story cds and DS (6) has a personal CD player and we usually compile him a new CD before a major journey.

Anything to get away from I spy and word association!

Make a list of things they have to look out for(5 green cars, 3 caravans, 4 horses, 1 fire engine, 7 red cars etc, 1 petrol station, 2 police cars etc). If they can't read, stick to colours and draw a car or lorry of that colour and get them to tick. Sounds really simple, but mine used to love it. A bit like the I spy books, but I find they get fed up with those because too many things they can't find

There's only one answer really is there?

In car DVD player! We travel to Germany regularly and find it so easy now since the girls can watch Mary Poppings for the 500th time...

buy dvd players that strap to the headrests

journeys are the only time that me and dh get to talk to one another during the day and we thank these wonderful inventions every time

Buy a car with a child proof, soundproof screen..or in fact just leave the kids at home no one will ever know