Long trips, small children. Memories, ideas, let’s keep the screaming to a minimum!

[Coldhandscoldheart]

I guess lots more of us will be doing long trips in cars this year.
I need advice on head lolling when kid is sleeping in a HBB. Neck pillow? Is that safe? We’re planning to travel early in (probably vain) hope they will sleep.

What snacks best in the car? What were your favourites?
I’m going to stick Velcro to their trays & the bottom of a plastic bowl to try to minimise spill.

I’m going to have a couple of films loaded on iPad & a playlist. They will get a new magazine each - debating if that’s something to let them choose at first service station stop for added excitement.

We drove 3.5 hours with DS 3 yesterday. We were arriving in time for dinner so snack was a banana and some milk. We were recently given some story CDs by a neighbour so listened to those in the car and accidentally made a pit stop at an amazing rest station in Austria which had the most amazing playground so he could get out and stretch his legs. We were hoping he would sleep some of the way but he had other ideas.

Busy books
Food is that isn’t messy such as rainbow drops.
Sing songs
Play I spy. Use colours for small children rather than letter

What’s a busy book?
I don’t know why I’m thinking of snacks to keep the mess down, as the five year old could make a mess in an empty room! But rainbow drops could be exciting!

We have some stories, they make me nervous as spoken word often sends me to sleep and I’ll be driving!

Bryan Oden (duck story man) has a couple of albums on Spotify that are annoyingly catchy.

CBeebies radio is amazing

With the ipad, do you have a holder for it to go in as it is dangerous to just be holding on to it. Loose heavy items fly around and kill people if the car were to crash.

We are doing a 5 hour drive with my 4 and 1 year olds. My plan is to get 4yo some new audiobooks to listen to, which she loves. For snacks I'm trying to think of things which take a while to eat like rice cakes - take a lot of chewing.

Also planning in a couple of breaks where they can run around for a bit. We might have to detour 5 mins off the motorway, but worth it to find a play area or at least green space rather than just a service station. Mcdonalds or similar for lunch I expect.

Spotting stuff as a game. E.g. diggers, camper vans, Eddie Stobart lorries. You can see how many you can all spot together or see who can spot the most.
I-Spy books are good and there are a couple of motorway/vehicle versions.
Audiobooks or a playlist of songs you all know and can sing along to. Our dcs love Nick Cope songs so they are often on in the car.
Snacks - nothing they are likely to spill everywhere or choke on. Flapjacks are good or something like a frusli bar.
We try to research a place for a lunch stop where there is room for a good run around. If you are members of National Trust or English Heritage etc find somewhere on the way. We usually do a National Trust stop and have a run round and a picnic.

DD1(7) has an iPad loaded with films and episodes that I download before leaving. When we went on planes with her when she was 3 and 4, we took little activities that wouldn’t make a mess and were in one piece. Plastic cars, colouring, travel games.

Snack wise, we take a cool bag with lots of options. Mini packets of cookies, mini Jammy Dodgers, small bag of chocolate buttons, bread sticks, crisps... Being in a car is miserable as it is so I don’t try and force food she doesn’t like. We stop for lunch/dinner (usually McDonalds as a treat) if necessary and stretch legs.

DD2 is only a baby and long journeys are hard work with her. We try and plan them around naps.

How old are the children? Are they able to read i the car? Some people get car sick reading.

We did long journeys as a child, Yorkshire to Cornwall, Lancashire to Spain, South of France or Italy.

Map books so we could trace our journey were used when we got older.

My mum would sometimes do us a parcel / envelope with a list of things on it so inside the envelope / parcel were toys, sweets, bits and pieces - all individually wrapped.

On the outside was a list of things

A purple car
A boat
First road sign for X
Eddie Stobart Truck

Ending with things near the destination so 'the sea' would be in the middle if we were going to France but at the end for Cornwall.

Every time we saw one of the things on the list we had to confirm with mum (sometimes she would hold on to the parcel) and then we could open one of the little parcels.

When we were young there were no child seats or seatbelts in the back of cars so my mum would make a 'bed' with suitcases in the footwell of the back seat, we would go to bed as normal, in the middle of the night we would be woken up, put in the car and go back to sleep.

Obviously I don't recommend the bed but starting in the early hours still in PJs encourages sleep.

Stop at the normal waking up time for breakfast and to change.

We used to drive to Spain every year starting when DC were 6 and 8. It was pre IPad but they had an in-car dvd player with two screens so they became word perfect in Doc Martin, Outnumbered etc. Books were a problem because they made DC car sick unfortunately.

I got a multi pocketed thing each that hung on the back of our seats so that DC could easily access everything they needed.

For snacks they had a bottle of water and a carton of orange juice, little bags of breadsticks, crisps, boxes of raisins, small apples, Nature Valley bars or Oreo cookies and individual cheeses. A lidded box between them was the bin.

We’ve always driven to France/Italy/Switzerland with our kids (they’re older now). We used to start at night, with pyjamas, pillows and duvets for coziness.

Story CDs ( the Roald Dahl tin of stories was particularly popular). We bought travel activity cases which attach to the back of the front seats and fold out into a small table (like on a plane), from the Early Learning Centre- they lasted until they were teens.

French song CDs for singalongs.

Cold chamomile tea in their bottles (they both have ADD- it helps!)

Lots of observation type games.

I miss those journeys!

Story Cds to listen to.

Children’s volume limited headphones and an MP3 player (20-30 quid) full of audiobooks. DS has got though some very long journeys that way. Music they like on the radio, snacks at service station!

I need advice on head lolling when kid is sleeping in a HBB. Neck pillow? Is that safe? We’re planning to travel early in (probably vain) hope they will sleep.

Meant to add that we tried a neck pillow with DD1 in her HBB but it pushed her head forward and wasn’t comfortable. We had a blanket that you could attach to a seat belt so it wouldn’t slip down and you could tuck it into the bag to make a pillow too. We got it in an airport or services I think.