Travel sick child - what worked for you?

[ParentalGuidances]

Hi

My DD suffers terribly from motion sickness and will almost always vomit when on a journey that’ll take longer than 20 minutes. We have a trip planned this weekend which is just over an hour long drive and I wanted to know what worked for your kids? What can I get to make this a smooth ride for her? Thanks

Things that help ds who is a veteran puker.

Having 2 dry plain crackers before he gets in the car. Most people keep sweets in their car. I keep a box of cream crackers.
Making sure he has a bottle of water to sip at
Absolutely no screens, books or anything he has to look at
Getting rid of any air fresheners or magic tree type things in the car
Using a swimming poncho towel over the top of his carseat and straps. Much nicer to deal with a vile towel than having to scrub vomit out of the car.

Although ds is well beyond the age of needing a tommee tippee travel potty, I still have one in the car. They make a fab vomit bucket as there is a large target area, the absorbent pad soaks any liquids up and absorbs any smells and you can knot and bin it so nothing vile to have to rinse out.

Also, if you are giving your child travel sick tablets, try them out first on your child before you get in the car. I found this out the hard way.

On the leaflets under the super-rare side effects most of them say 'may cause paradoxical effects' I.e. may cause hyperactivity. I still remember the day when I gave DS phenergan. Zonk DS out it did not. It was like giving acid to Tigger. Never again.

@kitchenceilingwaterleak excellent tip about trying it out before hand, nothing worse than learning the hard way on a journey! Thanks

Avoiding milk for several hours beforehand.

I'm a lifelong sufferer of travel sickness and would recommend accupressure wrist bands and an age-appropriate anti-histamine.

Travel sickness tablets. There really is nothing better

if she is old enough, she should sit in the front seat

get the temperature of the car as low as possible. Absolutely blast the air conditioning if you have it. The front seat passengers may need coats, hats, and gloves. A stuffy or warm car makes the nausea so much worse.

Avoid eating dairy that day. Have crackers to snack on in the car and/or hard candy to suck on.

candied ginger can help, but it’s a bit much for most kids. Mild ginger soda is a better option. Not the strongly flavored stuff, what you would want if you had food poisoning.

I swear by an app on the App Store called nevasic. You have to listen though headphones - but I am telling you, it works!

My DD takes kwellkids on long car journeys. They work like a charm but do knock her out for a couple of hours (which helps as well with long journeys but I swear that's not why we give it to her.. ).

Also, we've started putting her in a booster seat on the front passenger seat and that has helped as well.

I take Phenergan ( spell check it)

I've been sick since being a child .

Would see if there is a child dose

Anti- Motion Sickness Smart Glasses, Ultra-Light Portable Nausea Relief Glasses, Reduce Airsick Sickness Seasickness Glasses for Sport Travel Gaming, No Lens Liquid Glasses for Adults or Kids https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0871J52K7/ref=cmswwrcppapiii_WHKTCE8QFPKASW03DS0C

Seen good reviews on these .. need to try !!

Sea bands
Air circulation (still use wind deflectors as an adult as find I'm queasy in the car)
Sitting on a newspaper* mum did this to me as a child no idea of the science behind it 🤷‍♀️
Sips of water
Plain crackers / ritz

Sadly nothing works for us, so we simply travel with a load of proper travel sick bags and the kids vomit into them until we've arrived at our destination!

@mrsmacmc surely the science behind the newspaper is just keeps the car clean?

Having 2 dry plain crackers before he gets in the car. Most people keep sweets in their car. I keep a box of cream crackers.

Definitely this.
When I was a young dc my parents always gave us sweets to suck, they are the worst thing for travel sickness. It wasn't till I was older that I realised salty/savoury things (crackers/crisps) are soooooo much better.

My son started vomiting around the 1yo mark (was fine before then). Now he's 2 and much better though he still does vomit occasionally on drives longer than 20min.

I looked for medicine but was told there was nothing for his age range. The best remedy by far was getting him to sleep through the journey ! Otherwise, limiting food just before and during the trip and a plastic bag (I usually sit next to him). And I put on his waterproof silicone napkin (the one you usually put on when eating) in case I was too slow with my plastic bag. Obviously this works only with young kids but if yours is older he can tell you when he's feeling sick anyway.

I didn't know wristbands could help and I'm not sure I believe in them but I'll give it a shot...

Kwells kids are good. I take sturgeon 15 which are great.

@RandomMess oh no! Were you sitting backwards?

@stevalnamechanger yes!! They're amazing

I have really bad motion sickness still as an adult. My experience is that the wristbands are worthless.

I do have a device that sends an small electrical shock to the same spot that helps, but it’s not for kids.

one thing parents need to remember is that just because the child doesn’t vomit doesn’t mean they are not miserable. Having an empty stomach can make the motion sickness much worse.

I needed fresh air and no strong smells. So no perfumes, aftershave (or diesel trucks (still feel I’ll when I smell diesel 🤮))

Nothing ever worked on my ds, so we just brought a ziplock bag for him to vomit in on every journey. And planned with a few spare ziplocks and a change of clothes in case he didn't aim too well. By the time he was 4 or so, his aim was very good, so there was generally no mess. And a bottle of water or gatorade (depending on the length of the journey and how many times he was going to throw up). We had one memorable journey on the Motorway from Rome to Tuscany where he threw up all over (before he was old enough to aim) and we pulled into a police lay by to clean up and the police spotted us and came to hassle us, but when they realized why we were pulled over, they ended up helping us clean up the vomit and DS and get safely back onto the motorway.
(NOTE that DS was diagnosed with cyclical vomiting around the age of 10, so it made me feel better to know that there really was nothing we could have done to keep him from vomiting as it was his brain misfiring, and not actually related to preventing motion sickness....probably more related to the stress surrounding the planning of a journey and it was more helpful to just keep him calm and not making a big deal about the upcoming trip and the potential for lots of vomiting.)

It's just psychological

I get awful motion sickness (I had to get off a pedalo as it made me feel sick, also anything VR is terrible), things that worked for me as a child were

• no reading, etc in the car
• fresh air in my face
• sitting in the front wherever possible
• focusing on a fixed point on the horizon
• on school trips they would make us sit on a paper towel, they told us this would stop us being sick, and it generally did
• sip water - not big gulps, just enough to stop mouth getting dry

I've now taught myself how not to stop the sickness and how to learn the warning signs and react quickly, but as a child, with parents who had no experience of travel sickness, it was awful

I get travel sick and vomited every journey as a young child. What helps me is;

• sitting in the front.
• no reading or looking at anything. In fact best is something like music/ audiobook with my eyes closed.
• having a breeze on my face so window open.

-. Sucking a strong mint or something like crackers.

• travel sickness tablets (but they didn't always help me as a kid. Maybe they are better now as they help my occasionally car sick kids)
• no strong smells like air freshener.
• less windy roads if you have alternative route options.
• something to be sick into as a last resort.

Good luck.

Chewable kwells work well, you can wait until you actually feel sick to take one as they work so quickly.

My understanding is that travel sickness is caused by a disconnect between movement and what you are doing, so if it feels like you are in a room but it keeps moving then you'll get sick, so what I've found is that if you use the sentence, "we're riding in a car" it feels better because you're moving with the vehicle.