Car sick 3 year old.

[ShesTheAlbatross]

DD2 (3.5) has started getting car sick. And I think she’s also feeling rough from even just short journeys because she’s started saying she doesn’t want to get in the car at all - this hasn’t come from me, we never talk about her getting sick in the car in front of her.
There doesn’t seem to be any travel sickness pills for her age. Joy-rides seem to have been discontinued, and kwells kids are 4+, and I spoke to the pharmacist who said there’s nothing. We’ve gor a drs appointment in a few weeks but we’ve got to do a long journey tomorrow, is there anything that will help? She’s very small, so sickness bands are too loose on her.

Will piriton help at all - it’s a 1st generation antihistamine which is what anti sickness tablets are, but obviously it’s not a specific one that is actually used for sickness. Has anyone used it successfully for car sickness?

DH is going to sit in the back with her with some Tupperware and tea towels to try and limit the mess. But ideally I’d like to stop it happening at all! She’s already forward facing.

Piriton is really not very good for nausea.

Kwells is much better. The children's dosage for a 4 yo is perfectly all right for a 3 yo.

Phenergan. Can make them drowsy but my GP recommended it and it’s worked wonderfully.

I don't have any advice to stop sickness but these bags have been great for my 3 year old, I keep them in the pockets on the back of the driver & front passenger seat so we always have one handy , I give them to my son to hold on the journey

Much easier than catching in a tupperware box 😊
amzn.eu/d/fASuTo4

Yes, that is a very good idea.

It's only licensed for 5 years and over, so the OP would have to lie about the age of her child in order to buy it.

Really? She’s a very small 3.

Also DH definitely errs on the very cautious side when it comes to medication so I don’t think he’d be ok with it. And he is the one sitting in the back dealing with it so it’s not like he’d be saying no to medication and leaving me to clean up the sick.

My lad gets car sick. Someone recommended putting a plaster over the belly button and since he has been doing this, he doesn't get sick as before.

I still get car sick now (56!). Do whatever you can to have her looking straight out of the front window. No phone, no screens, no reading, no looking at books. An audiobook or music to keep her occupied. Straight roads, fresh air blowing through the car. I like to stick my finger out of the window - something about the air rushing past helps my brain make sense of the motion. Good luck.

I'd definitely go with the front seat. I get it's easier for 'clean up' if she's in the back with her Dad BUT putting her in the front could prevent her being sick at all.

I'd be really really sick in the back of your car.

You can always massage the acupoints that the sickness bands hit on … https://blog.dana-farber.org/insight/2016/12/how-to-perform-acupressure-for-vomiting-and-nausea/
I’m an acupuncturist 😂

At 58, I still suffer from travel sickness. If someone else needs to drive, I find I travel better on a full stomach, something fairly dry like a sandwich and it helps if I suck salty crisps. Travel sickness tablets have never helped.

DD didn't travel well when younger. One big thing was to avoid milk, but the best thing we could do for her was for one of us to sit in the back and help her if sickness prevailed. She's mid 20s and has tried travel sickness tablets for air travel but it makes her feel really nauseous on top of sickness, so obviously they're not for eveyone.

Really? My GP suggested it for a 3-year-old.

Did they prescribe it? I think it’s prescription only for under 5s.

Avoid Milton Keynes if you have a travel sick child.
Roundabout city...

I appreciate the suggestions around putting your DD in the front seat mean well, but please don’t do this. You cannot turn off an airbag for a forward facing seat, but an airbag can be incredibly damaging to such a small child. They’re designed for adult bodies. ChatGPT explains it much better than I can in this screenshot.

I can see ChatGPT’s advice contradicts my comment on turning off airbags with a front facing passenger. I got it from the Car Seat Safety page that you can’t turn them off when forward facing - so not sure now which is true!

I have to admit I was quite lucky as a child to have always been on antihistamines- piriton daily from my toddler days through to my teens when I switched to phenergan- because it meant I always had something on hand if I didn't or couldn't get my hands on proper travel sickness meds! I don't get carsick but I do get seasick, and I live on an island so that's more of a problem than it is for most. I did used to use children's travel bands, but my go-to has always been Kwells! I see the children's dose is half a tablet every 6 hours, so if you have a pill-cutter perhaps you could cut that down to a quarter since she's only a year younger than the recommendation? Make sure to read up on potential adverse effects and the like so you're conscious of all the factors in your decision. I'm not a pharmacist, of course, so my word is far from gospel, but if it's really awful I think I'd probably do a half-dose.

Oh I can sympathise completely.

DD was car sick from months old. I remember speaking to the GP about it who said it couldn’t possibly be car sickness at such as young age. Which was strange - as she was sick every time she got in the car 🙈.

unfortunately for us - we live rurally and it takes 2-3 hours of windy roads to get to the nearest city, so we do the journey often (also to visit family).

we were prescribed Phenergan first as a liquid when DD was about 2 or 3 and then as a tablet when she was a bit older. We used to have to crush the tablet and hide it in food/drinks (same with the liquid actually, she hated the taste of it) and it was an absolute mission to get her to take it. It had to be taken the night before and morning of travel but each dose had both of us in tears. To the point where it was better sometimes to just let her be sick! (Although in a 4hr journey she was easily sick 3-4 times). Phenergan also made her SUPER grumpy and she often woke with night tantrums. She just wasn’t herself with it. She still to this day won’t eat yogurts or milkshakes as he associated them with us trying to get her to take medicine 🙈).

As she’s got older (she’s now 10.5) it’s much easier. She took Stugeron for a while but it made her sleepy and grumpy but now takes Kwells which seem to both stop her being sick (the majority of time) but also doesn’t seem to affect her tiredness or behaviour as much.

Well yes, but to buy it from a pharmacy, they might ask the age of the child.
The dosage table on the bottle starts at age 5, too.

Obviously doctors can prescribe it for younger children.

Years ago, you could buy it for babies.

@ShesTheAlbatross When my daughter was about the same age we read in a very well respected Scottish newspaper, that what to do was sit on a newspaper.
Now I know it sounds batshit, and I don't know if it is the rustling of the paper being a distraction , but it worked. We would make a fuss of getting the paper ready to sit on, saying this works, the paper said so' and off we went with me in the back beside DD.
She was never, ever, sick again.

Yes, they did.

Contrary to another post, my daughter adored the taste of the Phenergan syrup and sometimes asked for some as a treat! (Obviously we said no)

Serial car sick person here! For me it didn't really stop until I went to college and had to get a bus on my own weekly to and from home. However, what helped was being able to see straight out the window. Ensuring my stomach was not empty and I was not hungry getting into the car. And sugary lollipops if I did end up getting sick. For me, once I got sick once on the journey, I would be sick for the remainder of the journey and have extreme stomach pains due to my blood sugars dropping...a sugary lollipop helped because it delivered sugar quickly and was easy to pop in my mouth. When you've been sick you don't want to eat anything so a lolly was easy.

My kids started getting car sick around the same age. I have had car sickness also my whole life. So I asked my parents what they’d used with me and they said piriton. Didn’t help nausea but made me sleepy so I just napped and at least wasn’t throwing up!

I did same for my 2 and works pretty much.

we had family who lived a long way off so choice was either to be vomming the whole time and miserable or asleep, I’m happy they chose the latter for me!!!

Phenergan liquid is always prescription only now. I used to buy it at the pharmacy for DS, then it changed as apparently parents were abusing it to get their DC to sleep.

It’s still the only travel sickness medication that works for our 11yo.

I use these travel sickness patches for myself and my kids, they worked brilliantly on our last cruise. Not helpful for today but the future maybe.

Boots own brand Travel Calm tablets are aged 3+ , they are cheaper than kwells and the same active ingredient! These have been a lifesaver for us.