Travel sickness tips please!

[Sops]

Can anyone give me any travel sickness tips please.

We are going on a 3.5 hr car journey tonight and my children are nearly always sick- it's no fun for them or us!

I've tried joyrides and ironically they actually guarantee they'll puke. Those acupressure wrist bands don't seem to do anything. Travella (homeopathic) helps but doesn't rule out vomming altogether.

Our car is beginning to smell like a puke bucket. Anyone got any good ideas?

Thanks.

DD1 gets travel sickness, she doesn't read/look at books/colour in or do anything thatrequires visual concentration as this makes her vom for certain

Stugeron

and

no reading/ipod-ing in the car

Look out the window, no reading/DVDs etc.

Open window a crack.

We have chewable tablets called something like Travelease (in a dark blue packet) - they are quite good. You can get stronger stuff in liquid form. I'll remember the name in a minute. But I think you need a prescription - though possibly only for young DCs. My pharmacist said use as a last resort - we haven't yet.

Can you get them to sleep? Medised??

Towels over laps for puke. Train them up to puke in to tupperware with a click-lock lid.

OMG this is giving me flashbacks to summer holiday this year. Projectile vomit hit steering wheel.

I have a 2 year old and a 5 year old who are both hideously car sick. The 5 year old takes joy rides and they always work. The 2 year old has been prescribed Phenergan by the doctor (she takes a spoonful the night before we travel) and touch wood this has so far been completely successful. You can buy it over the counter.

We have the traveleeze like Stirlingstar. They are chewy strawberry things. Work a treat. My dd usually can't get more than 1/2hr down the road without needing to puke, never had any problems since taking them. Only seem to be available in Boots though.

Phenergan is the stuff I was trying to remember.

\link{http://www.chemistdirect.co.uk/traveleeze-soft-and-chewy-pastilles_1_4600.html\TRAVELEEZ}

I never let them read or colour or anything but watching a DVD usually helps a bit.

How bad do you have to be to get a prescription from the doctor?

DS is probably sick every time we travel for longer than 1.5 hrs. But can sometimes vom after only a short while. DD seems to be getting better as she gets older but still pukes frequently.

It's getting so they both say they don't want to go places because they hate the journey

I'd personally be banning the DVD. Try a song/story tape??

Don't know about the prescription - but worth a try or ask chemist as think might be over the counter for older children.

How old are they? I've seen the puke-in-to-tupperware work really well (with friends of ours). At least that will avoid the lingering smell, and gives them a bit of sense of control.

Also, tell them that the tablets WILL work. Placebo effect helps.

We tried story tape several times and it was definitely worse than with the DVD- now we try to make them watch DVD even when they don't want to! It is better with- but still very rare to have a vom-free journey.

Tried telling them that the travella work but it's not very convincing when they've just projectiled all over the seat in front of them.

I try to get them to catch it in something and dd manages OK (she's 6) but ds (4) pukes suddenly, violently and the entire contents of his stomach (certainly seems like it) so not at all easy to catch!

Trouble is so many friends and family live a couple of hours away.

Sorry - I was sounding a bit short.

Maybe DVD is part of your answer then.

My DS1 is the pukey one - he's coming up to 4, and he's too young for the tupperware trick too - he finds it very distressing and seems to be sick quite violently, as you describe. Try the towel-on-lap approach for him?

You could try keeping their stomachs quite empty - no meal before travelling, nothing to eat in car. Plain toast if needed. Can you time journey for them to sleep, to avoid complaints of hunger?

IMO, homeopathy not a good option (as would ONLY give you a placebo effect). Can you get to the chemist today to try traveleeze or similar?

You didn't sound short- don't worry.
The homeopathic has worked on some trips- even some quite long ones, and certainly better than joyrides which were a complete disaster! With joyrides both were sick within 20 mins of taking them, so a little nervous of trying anything that might have the same effect
I will head up to chemist in a sec and try the traveleeze

Phenergan can be prescribed once they're 2. We've been using it for almost a year now and my daughter, who was sick on EVERY journey over 10mins long. hasn't been sick since.
We forgot the joyride for my eldest daughter once and she was sick. Felt very guilty about that as she's been using them for 2 years now and they've worked every time!

Blimey, every journey over 10 mins !
You must have cleaned your car out a few times then.

Luckily we're in London and tend to use trains as much as possible as they're fine on those! But yes, we got quite efficient at cleaning up a sicky car. I used to count down the weeks until the littlest one was 2 as the gp had told me she could then have medication for it.

We find that a little plastic beach bucket works great for catching; always carry a 2 liter bottle of water in the car as well, so you can empty contents on the side of the road and rinse out

DD mastered aiming well at round 3.5 & whilst not pleasant, disruption is now minimized

Traveleeze also works on long trips - but she sometimes catches us out on shorter journeys

Just been and got the traveleeze, pharmacist says different ingredients to joyrides so hope will do the trick.
Thanks everyone.

Sops,they should be fine hopefully. My dd (12) took them for a school coach trip to France and was absolutely fine.