To not want to limit long car journeys with puking DS any advice?

[monkeynuts123]

DS has started being carsick, seems to be on journeys over 20 minutes or so. He throws up everywhere and without much warning being only 3. I have tried those joyride tablets for long journeys but they make him very sleepy, even on half the recommended dose. So I feel like avoiding long journeys, we make them if we have to but I avoid making unnecessary journeys. DH says I'm over-reacting, he says sit him with a bag and an old towel and if he pukes so what, we just carry on and get wherever we're going and have a fun day out. To me this is far from a fun day out, watching DS gradually green up and then having to clean all the puke off him and the car and carry clean clothes etc. Also of course it's not nice for DS! So, DH wants to carry on with days out at far away places and I feel like sticking closer to home, I don't want him to get a complex though and feel he can't travel. Does anyone have any suggestions? How about breaking journeys up into half hour chunks with little breaks for walking about in fresh air, would that work? I feel frustrated and like our life is grinding to a bloody halt!

My dd is the same. We use Nelson's Travella - homeopathic and non drowsy. We've tried the bands but they don't work for her.

Morning Monkey, what a difficul situation. I can see both sides of the argument. Stopping for breaks every 20minutes is quite excessive and would take you forever to get anywhere, but at the same time it isn't fair to subject your little boy to frequent and prolonged vomiting and like you said, you don't want him to get an aversion to travelling.

Could you possibly go to the GP and explain how severe it is? There are variety of anti sickness medications available and it may be they can prescribe one for him, not to take of a regular basis but just on the occasions you are having to make a long drive?

Ugh!! Much sympathy to you all! I am very travel sick on coaches or in the back of cars as is Dd. Now she is older, as long as we are organised it's not that bad, she knows what to do and the tablets really do seem to help.

I can well understand your desire to curtail your journeys, I probably would a bit. How is he once he's been sick? If he's fine then I'd be inclined to bring the stuff you need and plough on.

I used to have car sickness it's not great!
What he like on a train ?

Travel sickness doesn't end when the journey ends. It makes you feel really horrible for the rest of the day until you can sleep it off. So you are right and keeping all journeys as short as much as possible is the best solution.

I've never really understood why parents take children on such long journeys for a fun day out when the journey is going to be miserable for the child. My XH always wanted us to drive an hour or two to go somewhere nearly every weekend when we would pass hundreds of other suitable places on the way.

This doesnt help with the frequency of sickness, but does with the cleanup!
We have a stash of ice cream tubs in the car.If the kids feel sick they throw up in it, then without stopping the car they can wipe face with baby wipe, put in ice cream tub, put lid on and keep going. Keeps the smell down too!
Take bottle of water so they can get rid of taste.
Mine managed to aim well from about 2.5, so your 3 year old should work it out quite quickly.

I would avoid non essential (long) journeys. If you have to go, I would try to keep his window a little open to give him fresh air and stop every 30 minutes for fresh air and a brief walk. Hopefully he outgrows it over time. Also, all the stopping and starting, eg city traffic, traffic jams, twisty roads at a highish speed make it a lot worse. I would try to avoid that if at all possible.

I think your DH is quite unreasonable BTW. Travel sickness is horrible.

When I was a child (and sometimes now) I had pretty bad car sickness. The things I've found help me are not using anything that involves looking down, no reading, no playing games ect and the acupressure bands which you can buy from Boots or Amazon. Stopping and having a walk around also helps me.

I think you DH is wrong though. Car sickness feels horrible and I'd try and avoid unnecessary journeys. Does your DS get travel sick when you use other forms of transport (e.g trains/buses)? I've never felt travel sick on other kinds of transport so that might be a way to compromise with you DH.

I had awful sickness as a child.

The tablets didn't do much for me either. Instead I learned to cope - what worked for me was:

Even on cold days I'd have a hand poked out the window to feel the breeze.
Singing (ie. distraction) or word games
NEVER reading (or these days looking at a screen)
We always had tupperware with us for if we did throw up - no-one wants to clean the car/smell the sick.
Boiled sweets - continuous sucking really helped
When all failed, sitting very, very quiet, concentrating and ignoring everyone.

I'd keep with the pills. I wasn't car sick even on journeys taking 2 days with an overnight stop until my parents got a new car. We think it was the suspension. I was never sick in any other car except 2, one that my parents did a test drive in (took me along for every test drive to check puke scale) and one I test drove a couple of years ago.

The reason for keeping with the pills, they sent me to sleep. However long the journey was I would sleep through it.

I would arrive wherever a bit bleary eyed and within a few minutes was back to normal.

Even now I would rather sleep than puke.

Low windows, high car seat help. Minimum dairy. Don't eat just before travelling.
From age 5 Stugeron are very good and I don't think they're drowsy.
Agree with pp, sleeping is better than puking.
I always used Joyrides with ds and now travel sick dd has been prescribed antihistamine to knock her out for long journeys as it's the only option for under 3s.

I'd agree with the sleeping not puking if it's a long journey but he's sick on shortish journeys. What happens then is he's groggy all day so can't enjoy what we're doing anyway, gets tantrumy because he's all drugged up and tired and I wonder why we bothered at all. It's causing trouble between me and DH because he wants to carry on regardless and I don't want to. He wants to go to europe which means 2 hours drive to airport, 2 hour flight and 1 hour the other end drive, either with lots of sick or drugged child struggling through all the transfers, and we have a newborn. I feel like weeping actually

Completely agree with AllDirections - I still have severe motion sickness. It was worse as a child and my parents used to drive to the south of France for holidays - I still feel a bit annoyed at that.

I know some things work for some people but the more 'severe' cases just aren't curable (in my case anyway) and all the sucking sweets, looking out of windows don't help. Sometimes they might stop someone actually vomiting but they will still feel terrible.

If you absolutely must travel, front seat definitely helps!

I have bad car sickness - the key thing is to have a good view out of the window, preferably the front window.

My sister has awful travel sickness, to the extent that anything longer than 10mins makes her ill, any transport, so changing mode wouldnt help for her. No difference with bands or tablets, apart from stugeron. The age limit on it is 5, but she got it prescribed when she was younger than that, so its worth having a chat to your doctor :)

Agree with the ice cream tubs! Although aiming ability varies by child. Apparently i was generally ok but my sister would just throw up everywhere for a long time. My mum would always have to spend the first day of our holiday cleaning sick off car seats.

Window open helps, looking out the front window helps, can you fit his car seat in the middle of the back seat or in the front passenger seat? Absolutely no reading, screens or anything involving looking down and focusing on something.

Others have said top tips - keep cool, stripped down to t-shirt, windows open, hand up to window, even in the coldest weather. We tried other meds but joyrides turned out to be the best, but not great for reasons you have mentioned. Go slow and steady on any twisty cornery bits - they're the worst. Passenger to sit alongside him in the back and distract constantly with songs nonsense etc (very wearing!). A passenger alongside can also spot the early signs and have receptacle at the ready and/or warn driver to look out for somewhere to pull over.

I would be annoyed at DH persisting with car travel plans. There is a place we would all love to revisit but haven't been for 3 years because it is only accessible by a long drive on twisty roads. When we plan any trips, our first thought is whether we can get there by train. If the answer is no, sometimes we just don't go there and choose somewhere else instead. Like yours, my DS gets incredibly distressed at how horrible he feels and it's just not right to put him through it.

We have tried all these methods, cool car, singing, no looking down, even new carseat to support his head. But AIBU for wanting to avoid long car journeys?

How is your DS on trains?
Would your DH be as gung-ho about it if he was the one cleaning up the sick, changing the clothes etc (it sounds from your OP as though all this falls to you)?

Do limit car journeys if you can. Then no screens, best possible view out the windows (middle seat in back?), windows open, water to sip, an ice-cream tub to aim for and be prepared to stop and let him get some fresh air.

Look for days out nearby, special events etc. I spent a lot of time feeling car sick as a child (and have to be drugged to drowsiness to fly as an adult) and its not fun at all. It does take a long time to dissipate after stopping moving.

Oh and both of you staying calm and baby wipes to clean up when he is sick.

Oh yeah, meant to say YANBU!!! (my first every reply in AIBU, how could I have forgotten!)

YANBU to want to limit car journeys. And get your DH to help with the cleaning too.

That depends. For now, no. But he could be affected by travel sickness until a cure is found, so if in say 5 years you are still avoiding them, I would say YWBU.

"the key thing is to have a good view out of the window, preferably the front window."

This worked for DD. I simply moved her booster seat to the middle of the back seat so she could out of the front window and it was like a miracle cure.

See if there's any particular foods that set it off. DS used to vomit for distance and volume - usually before the engine was even turned on. Apple juice was a problem (amongst the usuals - dairy, etc). So we'd keep food light before (less/less smelly to mop up too.

Keep windows open and air the car thoroughly before getting in (DS once moaned about the smell of the car - the smell was because of the rivers of vomit!).

Dress him lightly, keep at least one change of clothes, take off his shoes (easier to wipe sicky feet than pick bits of carrot out of laces or velcro). Keep sturdy plastic bags close (and cloths, bottle of clean water, wet wipes, air freshener...). Teach him how to 'use' a sick bag. I'm sure you can buy waxy paper bags for such things (or ask anyone you know who flies to bring one back).

Travel sweets are useful too, if he's old enough to suck a boiled sweet. Especially if you tell him about the magic quality of travel sweets. Keep him occupied - no books, dvds or handheld games - they make me sick! Chat, play i-spy, ask what he wants to do tomorrow... Distraction helps.