Talk to me about travel sickness

[muddleduck]

DS2 (nearly 2) seems really prone to travelsickness. It has happened a few time on longish car journeys (usually just as he is dropping off to sleep) and we've also had a couple of horrors on a boat and a train .

I have two questions:

First is there anything we can do to help prevent this. I try to avoid feeding him for a while before car journeys but that is not always possible.

Second, would we be completely insane to take him on a long flight? We really want to visit some friends overseas later this year but the thought of a small vomitting child on a longhaul flight is pretty horrendous..

please help oh wise mners.

there are meds you can take beforehand that might help

or

you can do the placebo effect that works a treat on ds - give him a tiny bit of juice and tell him their is medicine in ti that will stop hime being ill...it actually worked!

I had travel sickness until I was 15! You can't prevent it. I brought ds some travel bands, these worked really well. My mum used to dose me up with medicine. It would knock me out

be careful what he eats beforehand too...ds is banned from drinking milk as it was not a nice effect...

The key to travel sickness (as I posted on another thread) is the relationship between your eyes and your inner ear.

There are tablets you can take and also I think syrups for kids but I have never used them.

I get car sick myself and the way to stop it is to fix your eye on the furthest distant object you can see. Then hold your gaze on that object (obviously you can blink). If the object disappears from view as you travel along, pick out another object and refocus. The best thing to look at is the horizon itself. After a few minutes the sick feeling will go away. For this reason I cannot read a book in a car. I always have to look out of the window. Do not look down that will make you feel very sick.

If your child is getting car sick make sure he/she is not looking down reading or playing a game on his lap in the back of the car. Try and teach him/her to look at objects a long way away.

Also if any of you have dogs that get sick in the car - the secret is to keep their head up and looking out of the wndow. If you allow a car sick dog to lay down it will vomit immediately.

Opening a window also helps with plenty of strong cool air. Do not open it so wide a child or dog can stick their head out though.

Same principles apply to seasickness but neither I nor my kids get sick on planes so not much experience to offer.

traveleeze work well for my DS (and ME!) they are like gummy candies so easy to get kids to take. they do make you feel sleepy though.

another good tip is ready salted crisps. eat a few just before a journey and that helps as well. don't know why but it does!

agree v. much with BetaDad. As a child opening the windows so there was a force 9 gale going through the car helped me a lot (tho was difficult for the others, of course, but better than the puking).

I still get sick in cars, but have only felt sick on planes where there was a lot of turbulence or no cabin pressure, and never been sick on one, so you might be alright. I still have had to long journeys in cars/buses and find the best way to deal with it is to try and go to sleep or listen to music if I can't (tho the headphones can contribute to the sick feeling if on a coach trip).

It's a bugger!

All three of my ds have had travel sickness in the car. Planes, although they've never flown often, have been fine.

I've tried wrist bands, but no joy for us.

Any books or games which distracts them from looking out of the front window are totally banned in our car. Our kids look at all their friend with DVD players in the back of their cars with great envy!

Get some proper sick bags, we grab a load of them whenever we go on a ferry. You can train your ds to puke in a bag from a very early age!

Travelling when the kids are hungry is a disaster. Regular savoury snacks are the best thing to keep nausea at bay.

We've never really gone with the medication option, just because they would have been taking it so often!

The good thing is that it improves with age. By the age of 7/8 it seems to have gone completely- although I know that isn't much comfort at the moment!

Good luck!