How do you survive a car journey with your grumpy toddler

[Twims]

I have a 17 month old toddler who knows what she wants and what she doesn't want - she doesn't want to sit in the car for more than 30 minutes - however we regularly travel to see relatives over 3 hours away so what are your tips for keeping her happy and amused.

We give her snacks - if she had her way she would ricecake after ricecake after rice cake for the whole 3 hours! and is rather annoyed when you a) run out or b) decide that 3 packets of breadsticks is enough!

We also play classical music to try and get her to sleep (try and drive over a nap time) but this doesn't often work.

Stopping isn't really an option as we are on a main A or motorway and would rather just get on without the drama of a "second" trip in the car aftr our break

Please help

we always leave after bath time , put them in their PJs and hope they fall asleep on the way.

Failing that - nursery rhymes/children's songs on tape (they will drive you mad but she might like them) or story tapes - there are loads of suitable ones - like Dear Zoo which have songs as well as the story

Classical music, jesus I'd be grumpy too. I know there are many who think it a moral issue to make children listen to our choice of music, but my two love a good old kids singalong CD and DP and I can belt out The Grand old Duke of York too. Can one of you sit in the back with her to play, read, draw with her?

my dd is the same age
does she watch in the night garden? a cd of that played three times gave us at least an hour of peace on our 9 hour trip back from scotland

it hideous tho isnt it? i feel your pain

I've regularly done a 250 mile trip with my DD (now 2.3) and have found the things that work for us are (a) travel over nap time or at night or (b) stopping every so often to let her out to run around, climb on and off chairs in the cafe, buy a ITNG magazine in the shop, eat a couple of Macdonalds fries etc. We used to be able to have a bag of toys and books in the front of the car and pass a new one back every 10 mins or so, but this no longer works, especially since ITNG is no longer a favourite.

It is a real pain to stop if you don't want to, but the result is that DD gets to get out of the car seat, run around and let off some steam and is normally happy enough to get back in the car with a new magazine from the shop.

I too travel on motorways so don't really understand your point about not being able to stop - the services are usually fine.

Does she not sleep? We have a (fairly regular) 7-8 hours each way Uni trip and our DD (22 mo) has no problem.

We try to stop every couple of hours, have something to eat, check nappy, bit of a run about then back in the car. She tends to go to sleep and only wakes when we stop.

She used to be a nightmare in the car as a small baby BTW.