Traveling with children on a long car journey, i need a survival kit!

[TitsalinaBumSquash]

I am enlisting you all to help me put together a car survival kit for the journey to our holiday, its a 5-6hr trip depending on traffic and i have 2 boys aged 5 and 3.

Usually they sleep in the car on long journeys for at least an hour, and we plan to stop at least once maybe twice if toilet breaks are needed ect.

They have some old Gameboys that i picked up cheap on Ebay but i fear they wont be enough especailly for the 3yr old who gets bored pretty quickly.

So Mumsnetters, your mission shuld you choose to accept it is to come up with a list of things i need to take so i dont end up in the asylum after the holiday.

This thread will not self destruct in 5...4....3...2....1.....

when we used to travel between glasgow and plymouth we used to leave at 3am. the boys tended to sleep till about 7-7.30am when i needed a break. then they watched a film, we'rd have another stop and then another film for them! travelling at that time in the morning also means you miss most of the traffic. good luck

Oh marks place as was just about to post the same but I have a 1, 4 and 7 to keep entertained - do I need to invest in DVD players?

Main problem is keeping 1 year old entertained as he's not interest in films...

we got a dvd player that is split - you get two screens and one player with space for 2 dvds then you can put 2 different films on 0 the oldest wore earphones. Does the one year old like baby programmes? You could get a disc more suitable for him. Also, leave plenty time to plan in regular stops - some of the services have playgrounds where the children can run around for 15 minutes. Lots of snacks and drinks and some toys for the little one - maybe something you cn fix in place like a pretend steering wheel that can't be dropped on the floor.

DVD player all the way!

We ended up with 2 so that the girls could watch one (aged 4 and 5) and DS (aged 2) could watch something else.

I spy can last FOREVER (tedious, but keeps them quiet)

Travel aqua draw (bottles of water for filling the pens!)

Lots of snacks and drinks

And leave early or late to maximise the sleep opportunities!

We have done a 16hr car journey with our 3, and although it was hard work, we coped!

Plenty of stops - preferably at a services with an outdoor play area. 10 mins for the kids to run around, and a chance for you and DH/DP to have a wee and grab a drink!

Thanks for suggestions, have planned route to france with stops with play areas etc it just finding something that will keep little one amused that doesn't mean me having to constantly pick up of the floor!

Right off to look for two dvd players do you have lap ones or head rest ones?

DVD players (with headphones) highly recommended. As DCs are still quite small I would probably choose the ones which can be hung from the headrest. You can get carry cases for this.

We put all the DVDs in a case (or three) rather than leaving them in their boxes. This makes them less attractive/obvious to Burglar Bill. For the same reason we also hide DVDs when we all get out of the car.

Our DCs also really like story tapes or CDs. Again we put the CDs in a case rather than have them rattling around.

We have 3 DCs but a huge car so separate DCs so that each has plenty of space. We put a cooler box between the two in the middle row to use as a bit of a table.

All of ours suffer from travel sickness so we are strict about Joy Rides plus we have nappy sacks (great sick bags), clothing spray and wet wipes to hand.

Oh story books didn't think of that and one can use Iphone and one can use the IPod.

Right off to look for girl stories and boy stories...

Your local library will have loads