Wits end travelling in car with DD

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DD is 19 months and is constantly sick in the car recently, no matter how short the journey. She coughs and whatever she last had to eat is thrown up.

Has anyone got any tips for dealing with this? Both prevention and also any good covers. I put muslin clothes all over her but it’s obviously still really messy.

Editing to add she faces backwards in her car seat and my car is a VW golf.

Can you fix things so she faces forwards? Backwards is much worse for motion sickness. The front seat (if safe and possible) is smoother than the back. Giving her something 'dry' to eat (plain rice cakes) before and during the journey could help. As little liquid as possible, though she'll need to rehydrate on arrival.

Poor little thing, travel sickness is awful. It must be so unpleasant for her. You may find it improves dramatically when forward facing, but obviously you have a while for that yet if you are going by the guidelines of around 4 years old. Both mine were front facing much before that, but this is years ago. DH gets so sick travelling backwards on a train or ride, but is absolutely fine front facing.

Can you try facing her forward as legally you can from 15mo? I know rearwards facing is safer in an accident but it’s worth a try. I’m in my 30s and still cannot sit backwards on a bus, train, in a taxi etc. Facing backwards makes motion sickness so much worse!

We do need to buy a new seat so will ensure she can face forward. Thank you

I would try front-facing her. Yes, it's not as safe as rear facing but I think you're increasing the chance of getting distracted and being in an accident in the first place. Once she's 2 you can give her phenergan and try rear facing again.

Do you have low profile tyres?

what have you tried giving her to prevent travel sickness?

I’m a massive advocate for rear facing as long as possible. It’s much safer. But in your position I’d forward face. It’s not really safe for her to be sick so often and if rear facing you might not notice if she choked so I’d go for it

Front facing didn’t make the slightest bit of difference for us unfortunately but worth a try! Once they get to 2 there’s some options for travel sickness medication which has helped. And the sick bags on Amazon with a plastic ring, atleast you have a chance of catching it!

I had same issue. No food an hour before car, window open and forward facing sorted it.

Junior kwells if she's not too young

Rice cakes
Don't dress in anything that needs to be lifted over the head, button up blouses and cardigans all the way!
Towels over the seats in the firing line (elastic and safety pins to attach to seats.
Spare clothes, plastic bags, wipes (baby and upholstery)
Blanket + picnic blanket if you need to stop for a while.
Do not travel after feeding her carrots or tomatoes. Stick to dry toast and water. Try to plan travel so she can eat when you're there, if not, whilst she might sleep.

When she's a bit older you can try sea bands, anti sickness tablets, chewing gum. From about 4 we had a plastic bag lined bowl on the seat next to her which she could grab hold of. She quickly learnt to tell us when she was starting to feel sick.

Middle seat, forward facing helped my dd. Also, you can put one of those plastic tommee tippee type bibs on her to catch most of it

Is she still in a baby carrier or a more upright toddler seat? DD2 was basically untransportable by car in the infant carrier, but is rarely sick in her rear-facing MiniKid. In your position, I might look at the spin seats, as long as the seat sits pretty upright, so you have an easy option for trying forwards and backwards in the new seat.

Try covering the window next to her so that she can see out the rear window, but doesn't see stuff whizzing past in her peripheral vision. If you turn her forward, consider putting her in the middle seat so she can see out the front if your car allows a car seat there.

Keep the car cool.

If you go for a forward facing seat and need one for the front or middle so she can see out of the front window, Britax King Pro is probably the best seatbelt fitted option in terms of safety features.

If you have her in the front, airbag off if possible (check the car manual) and in any case push the front seat back as far as it goes to increase distance from the airbag. They can be really dangerous to small children.

Try reducing the temperature in the car, and removing the headrest of the back seat of your car so she can see out of the back window first. There are also medicines but you need to ask the GP as she's under 2.

You may want to find out about getting her eyes tested because severe car sickness can be a sign of short sightedness.

She needs to forward face.

All the above, and also avoiding winding roads and driving as 'straight' as possible if there is a curve, ie don't hug the edge of the road, provided it's safe obviously.

Ds was like this until he was about 8. We found forward facing helped. Little food or drink before hand. And window open. Not allowing him to look at books (this was before screens) or play with something where he was looking down.

So not the answer at her age but we have these for my DS. He doesn’t throw up often but we never had any warning and it would go all over the car. Now he can grab these, we can stop by a bin and we’re done.

https://amzn.eu/d/eD2TkuL

I used to get travel sick and made car journeys miserable for everyone else. The only thing that helped was to sit facing forwards, look forwards at the horizon, and have the window open a crack. You can imagine how much fun that was for everyone else in the car in winter.

I read it first as 19 years old lol. I get terribel travel sickness

Does your car have cruise control? I was constantly car sick as a kid and although I don't generally suffer as an adult, if DH has the cruise control on I feel sick almost immediately!

Turn her forward facing and use a high seat so she can see out the window. Try and use one that keeps her a bit more upright if you can, rather than leaning right back. 2 of mine are horribly carsick in seats that recline too much and the risk of choking on vomit for these 2 is higher than the risk of injury in an emergency stop/accident.

My youngest did choke once, it was only that her 7 year old brother got her out, leaned her forward and hit her back until she coughed, that saved her from aspirating vomit. It could have been so much worse. You have to weigh up risk vs benefit.

We travelled with a small seaside bucket for many years when DD was small.

Please don't forward face her so young. At this age sitting backwards could be the difference between life and death even in a 30mph crash.
Try to find a seat that can rearrange face and sit more upright. See if you can get anti nausea meds for the car for longer journeys.
If you have isofix in the middle seat this can help as well.

I had dd in the middle seatbelt, small fat free meals beforehand as we often travelled after dinner on a Friday, absolutely no activity for hours beforehand that involved spinning around (even then I couldn’t trust a row of roundabouts). Any activity had to involve movement rather than sitting and reading (which is harder for littlies).