Car snacks for long journey?

[Heathofhares]

Please O lovely Mumsnetters! What can you recommend for car snacks for a long trip.

Dcs are 5 and 9 and we will be travelling for about 12 hours. DH is a bit precious about crumbs and sticky stuff in the car... and I would like to avoid sweet stuff.

What could we pack to keep everyone happy?

What are good nibbling things for such a trip

As a pp said it depends on what you are looking for from the snacks.

If it's just against boredom I'd go with a bag of Cheerios, and a bag of grapes or orange segments.

If it's to minimise stopping pack a lunchbox each, and hand out items one at a time. Made with things that cause minimal crumbs. Ham or cheese spread sandwiches, carrot sticks, banana, bear yoyo, ready salted crisps. Bottles of water rather than cartons of juice etc to minimise wee stops!

Take wipes for hands and a bag for the rubbish.

Breadsticks, cheesestrings, crisps, fruit leather, soft fruits, sandwiches, McDonald's from a drive through

@Duracellbunnywannabe

I’m not a fan of children eating in cars, especially in motors ways where you can’t safely get to them quickly if they start to choke.

Yes I feel the same, can't believe people are suggesting grapes as a car snack!

My two could eat their body weight in carrot sticks on car journeys. Cucumber sticks, sliced apple.

Sliced plain wholemeal (not granary) bread sandwiches don't make crumbs. Cream cheese or PBJ, cut into small squares.

We used to put on long audio books. (Avoid Horrid Henry - it makes them fight. Seriously.) Malorie Blackman or Anthony Horowitz. Kept them happy from London to Scotland.

Just stop for food when you take a toilet break

When I did long-ish journeys in the car with young kids, I gave them French bread to eat. Its not likely to make them sick and it took so long to eat it kept them quiet for ages! (DD used to want to do pretend play in the car even when I was driving - and want us to be characters) ...but it was messy!
Now they are tween/teen and tend to eat crisps in the car. Both are liable to travel sickness but making a bag of crisps last an hour and a half seems to help.

This is a better idea, stop at a restaurant or service station. You can buy snacks and more drinks there. Pack some drinks into a bag or into a tin etc to take on the journey.

no eating in the car

take breaks every 2 hours
have a snack
skipping rope
toilet
maybe 10 min nap for driver

DH is a bit precious about crumbs and sticky stuff in the car...

And somebody suggests sausage rolls.

We take sandwiches, biscuits, grapes, crisps and also sweets. You could stop to eat at regular intervals too

Get those joyless sugar free gummy worms and dole out as you see fit/every ten miles. Asking means you skip your gummy worm 😂

Seriously though surely just eat when you stop, no need for constant car grazing really.

I guess your kids aren’t really little but I still wouldn’t really be ok with passing back boiled sweets and grapes when on the motorway.

Sour skittles are my kids choice of sweets

When we’ve done long drives, we stop for lunch but otherwise every time we stop for petrol we let DD choose something from the petrol stations, limited to one sweet item only. Gotta find ways to keep it fun! I’d only take my own snacks for under 2s tbh.

Sugar free sweets in any quantity for a child will give you a pretty good case of the runs within an hour or so.

We were in the stop to eat; it gave something to look forward to.
Breakfast; sausage baps or scotch pancakes, juice / coffe for parents
Morning coffee , maybe crisps or left over breakfast.
Lunch sandwiches and fruit or if very cold motorway services
Afternoon tea , satsumas or something ...
We might have had a bag of sweets in the car for emergency distribution late in the day!

I drove my DC plus their friends to the south of France every year from that sort of age until mid teens
Breakfast was always macdonalds as a treat in uk then I'd pack a lunch which we'd stop and eat outside mid morning once travelling south
Around late afternoon we'd stop for a meal
I can't remember ever having snacks. I certainly wasn't precious about my car or mean with food but just didn't find it necessary if you feed the children as you usually would

Mine used to get sick if they ate in the car. I’d do proper meals and no snacks.

@etulosba

DH is a bit precious about crumbs and sticky stuff in the car...

And somebody suggests sausage rolls.

I know, I'm a facetious dickhead aren't I?

@TabithaHazel - grapes are perfectly ok, it all depends on the age of the child.

I have a teen, she eats grapes without supervision for years now.

I wouldn't give it to a small child, actually I wouldn't give any food to a child I am not sitting next to in a car.

To be fair, it’s not like anyone has specified that the grapes shouldn’t be cut.