Travel sickness in toddlers

[PunkyPod]

Dd is 22 months and I'm starting to get a bit concerned about her travel sickness.

When's she was little and in the rear facing seat she would scream and scream on most journeys. Nothing seemed to calm her much. It was hell! Once she outgrew that seat and went into forwards facing she seemed a lot happier. Still not great on long journeys (over an hour), a lot of screaming but overall it was better. Then she hit 12 months and started vomiting on random journeys. Sometimes on motorways, sometimes on local stop start journeys. The older she's got the more frequently it happens. I'd say on any long distance journey we have to prepare for a vomit.

Today she did it on the 15 min run from my parents.

The only time I think we didn't have any hint of it was a 6 hour journey a couple of weeks ago when we rigged up her new car DVD player so she was looking upwards for a majority of the time. Naturally I'm not going to set that up for every tiny car trip.

So I'm asking for advice....what should I do? She's not ill or upset after it happens and is never sick twice in one journey.

Are there any tips to help her?

I would avoid giving food too close to car journeys. Also you can try wrist bands that press on a specific acupressure point to help with nausea. Here's the link for the product - www.sea-band.com/ Also, there are tonnes of different ones on amazon to choose from. I hope it gets better soon.

Thanks Caroline. I'm going to check those bands out.

Also I'll pay more attention to her eating prior to journeys.

Not that I want to medicate her, I really don't. But I'm wondering if there's anything she can take to settle her stomach? Any homeopathy even.....

Am feeling pretty low about it. Ofcourse I hate to see her poorly but it's also so limiting. I don't want this to be a feature of her childhood or make her nervous of the car.

DS gets carsick - he can be sick on the way to school (interesting). It was so bad we did have to medicate for longer journeys - and used Joyrides, as suggested by the Dr (yes, we went to the Dr it was so bad). The things that set him off in particular are having anything dairy based before travelling - they bounce very quickly. DS didn't start throwing up regularly until he was 3 - he did learn quite quickly what it felt like when he was going to be sick, so we always carried a bowl (with a fitting lid) that he had very close to hand - and he very quickly learned to use that as it was much better being sick in that, stopping, sorting the bowl out and having a wipe and a sip of water, rather than having to be totally stripped at the side of the road and put into clean clothes.

We didn't find the bands helped in the least.

Thanks for that. Dd doesn't tell us it's happening although I've come to guess when she's feeling dodgy coz she does some strange coughs and whinges a bit (although her moaning in the car is standard). I'd really like her to be able to do it in a bag or bowl but she's a bit young to hold it and coordinate herself yet. So it always ends up with having to change her completely and the car seat usually being ruined. I can even handle changing her but she has to go back in the car seat to finish the journey. The seat is soaked and stinks so I feel terrible putting her back in :(

Your poor son even feeling bad on the way to school :(

Will have a check on the dairy too....

She's a bit younger than DS was when he started it - so its not surprising that she can't cope yet! It is such a relief when they can though - and the number of times we organise ourselves into the car and then check on the location of 'the bowl' before setting off is now countless. Just to give you some hope, he's just 9 and has more or less grown out of it - I think we've had 4 or 5 incidences in the last year.

Re the seat - its a faff, but worth considering as she's so young still - can you make some towelling 'covers' that effectively just provide a layer between her and the seat and still make allowance for the straps etc - if you could you could have several so the wet one could be whipped off and replaced with a clean one.

I sympathise with the complete change - I can go round the country noticing laybys where we've done that with DS. And DH was sick in most of the rest of them when he was a child. I was also carsick as a child - and still can get travel sick if its not a good driver or I try to read the map on the 'wrong' type of road. DS didn't really have a hope.

Goodness you have all really suffered haven't you! I'm thankful to hear your son is suffering less now.

On the last big trip we did I layered the seat with muslins to catch the worst of it. Just so happened it never reached the seat coz her teddies copped the worst of it on her lap! I'm going to look at layering it up with some towels. That's a good idea. I might take a trip to the GP too. I don't want her to have medication but I feel like I need to hear the options.

DH doesn't get sick. I sometimes feel dodgy when reading or on a stop start journey. She's really got a raw deal poor thing.

I've got some of the bands on order so will pop them on and see if they make any difference. I'm willing to try anything after yesterday!

Its definitely worth trying - I find them fantastic on boat trips / ferries where I otherwise get awfully travel sick (I remember watching the dawn come up over Holland on one particularly long trip as a child when the French ports were on strike so we had to go via Holland on a longer trip overnight). But they don't work on DS at all. And the Joyrides that the Dr suggested allow him to go to sleep in the car, but he gets to the other end and isn't at all drowsy - and so much better for not having been sick! He hasn't had them for about a year now though.

In answer to your question punkypod I've heard good reports about the homeopathic remedy nux vomica but I'm not a homeopathy so I'm not certain that it would be the correct remedy for your DD. As a herbalist & nutritionist though I do agree with mistlethrush about the dairy, and would recommend a bit of cooled ginger/chamomile tea to settle the stomach (if she'll take it that is!!)

Thank you, I'll do some research