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!

Tell him no. I don't care that he used to be travel sick and he didn't mind. He's not his son. It's fucking misery. If I was old enough to realise that he had a European tour planned for me I'd be dreading it every day.

My mother used to drag me on coach trips. I've been sick in some of the premier beauty spots in Britain.

I can still remember that metallic taste you get in your mouth, the pangs and the drooling and desperate gulping that tells you you're going to vomit.

She never used to bring anything with her like bags or towels so I'd often be sick over myself or on the floor of the coach and then some more practical person would clear up and make me die of embarrassment.

All the while she'd be saying: 'Ooh! That's never happened before. She's normally such a good little traveller.'

Now I know her much better I realise the reason she didn't bring anything was that superstitiously she believes that being prepared for something will make it happen. If you pretend it won't happen, it probably won't . She's like that over lots of things.

Plus, if she accepted that I was going to puke at least once on the journey she'd have to recognise that she was being selfish and not go, or go alone and she didn't want to do that.

I've also realised that she wasn't interested in most of the destinations. It's just that coach trips were part of the summer for her. No one else in my family was interested but I couldn't say no.

She dressed up traipsing round some fucking crumbling pile covered in drying vomit as some kind of educational activity for me. She used to proudly tell people: 'Limited's been to Blenheim Palace and Leeds Castle and knows ever such a lot.' No mention of the puking.

I used to dread her coming back from the newsagent with a booklet of coach trips from May to October and ticking off about three or four.

The last time was when I was about 13 and I'd spent a two-hour journey there and back in misery but without being sick. The final coach stop was in sight and it must have been relief that made me chuck up all over myself.

I was absolutely hysterical and point blank refused to set foot on another coach.

She must have been so shocked at the anger in front of the whole coach that she never suggested it ever again.

She sounds horrible. She isn't. She's lovely. She just liked coach trips and liked having someone with her - even a spew generator - and used to hope that maybe this time it wasn't going to happen.

Sorry for the essay. I'm scarred Whenever I see the Stately Homes threads I always think of that time. I know they're about something much more serious, but I just do.

Oh, and I love haverer's suggestion. Seeing as your DH is so blase about being travel sick it'll bring back happy childhood memories for him

I send DS on school trips with a plastic box with a lid, in his rucksack, for emergencies. His teacher was very pleased to hear that there was a plan when his travel sickness was raised at one stage .

YANBU

DS gets car sick so we limit journeys. It's no fun for anyone having a puker in a confined space that isn't a bathroom.

FWIW I developed emetophobia from situation like this with my Dsis puking in the car. Took years to get over it.

I was once sick on a nightmarish hairpin bend halfway up a mountain in Italy. My dad, who was with us that time, caught it in Woolworth's bag that he'd secreted about his person for that inevitable eventuality.

She then blamed him for making me sick by bringing the bag and creating bad ju-ju.

She's a great mum. Just addicted to fucking coach trips and denial.

I agree with beast that your DH is being selfish and prioritising what he wants to do over how your son feels.

Boots own travelsickness pills work for us - me and DD both bad carsickness...

Sometimes I do wonder if it is the placebo effect too though, as once I had to give DD just a bit of a sugary sweet because I didn't have the pills and she was fine... but next trip with no pill/no sugar she still puked...

oh, and my dad stopped taking me in the car the day his outline could be seen on the car windscreen due to a particularly violent projectile vomit incident - another thing gone down in "family lore"....

DD is 6 and has been very travel sick since she was a baby. So far the only thing that we have found makes a difference is sitting her in the front seat- she made it over 200 miles last month before being sick on a drive up to Scotland :) And not letting her read or use a DS etc.
We just keep a small bucket in the car lined with a nappy bag/dog poo bag and a bit of kitchen roll. When she is inevitably sick we can catch it, bag it and replace the bag without stopping the car. She usually feels better after she's been sick anyway.
When she was a baby, and when she was not such a good aim with the bucket, we used to give her a disposable bed liner sheet- the kind used for bed wetting- as a 'blanket' because they were soft and obviously absorbent.
Good luck- it can get wearing but we are used to it now!

god, go by train. Much nicer anyway.

Have you tried sitting in the back while he sits in the front?
Ds hasn't been car sick but feels very sick on journeys, if it's a long journey I sit in the back which makes me feel sick but I'd rather I did than him.

Oh my god, I feel for you.

My son has only been sick in the car twice, the last time was about six years ago and I'm still wobbly when we travel with him because he'll frequently sigh and say "I feel sick".

(emetephobia, here).

Your husband is being a twat.

Madeofstardust, your outline story made me LOL.

I give DS2 (7yrs) a Sturgeon tablet two hours before a longish journey and he is fine but I always travel with bowl, towel, wipes, change of clothes and a bottle of water just in case.

OP, have you tried the motion sickness tablets?

They do make kids sleepy.

I have been exactly where you are and really sympathise with you. I used to feel stomach pains myself at the thought of going anywhere in the car with ds. And the mess and the smell!! It really limited our lives for a while and still does (eg. he can't go in long school trips).

Ds was worse between the ages of 3-5 and has got a lot better recently (he's now 9). That said he has taken to worrying he'll be sick - we did an hour journey in the summer and had to stop every ten minutes for him to retch but then two weeks later he managed two hours without stopping as he was distracted by spotting yellow cars.

We used to stop every half an hour when he was younger. Long journeys to day trips don't happen (on the rare occasions they do we tend to make the journey the night before and stay in a hotel).

No tablets or bands worked for us. Air travel is the worst for him and we give him Phenergan for that but such a high dose that we have then carry him off the plane and the rest of the day is written off as he is so drowsy.

In the car, he always sits in the front. Never has milk before he travels, nevers looks at a book or watches a screen. We chose a car with big windows, lots of light and high seats - he was involved in the test drives. Rarely have the heating on and he never wears a jumper or coat in the car.

As he has got older he tells me it is worse if he goes to sleep in the car as the moment he wakes up the nausea starts.

Good luck - my experience says (sadly) limit long travel for a while.

Incidentally - train travel absolutely fine. A recent trip to London was a breeze and a huge relief!

DD grew out of it around 15 so dont hold your btreath, people....

DS1 has the same issues (started around 3yrs old) - my sympathies OP.

We always take Sturgeon, sick bags stolen from airplanes and wipes. And some travel sweets to help with any yucky post-sick tastes in the mouth.

I feel for you, both I and bot DC's get travel sick
We still travel with a potty in the back seat ( DC's now 12 and 10) which still comes in handy on the odd occasion.
Don't travel just after meals or ice cream or fizzy drinks ( i know your DC is only 3 so prob not applicable to you). They must spend their time looking out of the window - we played a lot of eye spy ( colour eye spy at age 3) to help make sure this was happening.
Take a spare set of clothes and nappy wipes and bags for the clean up.
Use stuff from the pet shop to clear up pet accidents to get rid of the smell.

TBH things improved no end once we could give them sturgeron at age 5.

Also I found a long acting one that you take the night before which they can have from that age too, which works MUCH better ( a long days drive to a long way south in France and they didn't even feel quesey)

But to answer your question I see both sides of the coin. I wouldn't want to never go in the car, but I would limit which journeys I took

OP have you tried giving him sweets? I know it sounds silly and bad for his teeth but it really works. And how about turning off front airbag and sitting him in the front? That works too. I would try more solutions before avoiding car journeys altogether.

I was really travel sick when I was little couldn't even go 3 miles without puking and made worse because I never got used it as parents did not have a car. I say just crack on and let him be sick and he will get used to it. If your child isn't that bothered then don't worry and if doing long journeys leave very very early so he falls back to sleep.

I can still feel carsick if not driving but I now just close my eyes and zone out. I am certainly not damaged from being carsick.

Oh it's horrid I suffer with this too. My parents kept a potty in the car for me to be sick in - when I started potty training Dd1 I felt instinctively sick even looking at a potty! My grandparents lived 5 hours drive away over a mountain range. I loved visiting them but the journeys were hell. One trip I was sick 6 times, dsis2 3 times dsis3 twice. My mother was in tears. Gp moved opposite us thank god!

And I say unto you fenergen oh you most foul but effective medication, do you have it in the UK? Also I agree on a view out the front window and regular stops for fresh air but the only 100% effective treatment is actually driving which you are obviously a bit off yet. My brother cannot get into a bus without getting sick at 40 so you definitely do not necessarily grow out of it.

Yes to Phenergan in the UK (ds was prescribed it for travel) - but we find it only works if we give max dose and keep topping it up which renders him so drowsy we can't do anything when we reach our destination!

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned already but you could try blue tinted glasses. My sons wear them on the advice of a doctor we know and it does help.