Travel tips with 19m old

[phantasmania]

Hi, just looking for some clever tips for traveling with a toddler. This is our first trip away. Plan is driving over 3 days in a van across France in July to a villa with pool then onto a wedding for 3 nights in a venue with shared bathroom . Dd will be 19mths, she's running around and loves the water but is a very high need sort of child, sleeps about 5/24 hrs and gets carsick atm (really hoping this gets better by then, I'm hoping being higher up in a van will help). Any ideas around, food, entertainment, and general toddler hacks would be greatly appreciated! Many thanks

Honestly I'd fly! 3 days with a travel sick toddler that just wants to be free to run around no thanks.

We did consider that. That's not workable due to the wedding and villa locations. We would still have significant journeys in hire car plus multiple flights. At least with the van we can stop anytime and cook/go to bed and luggage space isn't an issue.

Try driving at night mostly when she's asleep? Mine never had predictable naps, but slept well in the car - and threw up 10 min after waking almost every time...

Take lots of changes of clothes, a snuggly blanket or towel to put over dd, avoid motorways where possible so you can always pull over. With enough time and lots of breaks, should be fine.

We did quite a lot of driving last year with two young (and not particularly good in the car) kids and will do the same this year. We are big fans of getting up at the crack of dawn 5am (particularly if you have a toddler who is waking early anyway) straight in car in pjs and get a couple of hours in before stopping for breakfast. (Car all packed night before) They will either drop off or be quite calm anyway as tired. Give them a banana or food to munch on if play up. We used to quite often drive through lunch etc so they were eating in the car, and also time it so we would drive though naps or at night. Then try and have big breaks where they can get out and run around. Sticker books or new books are good to distract them too. Lots of little snacks!
Never travelled for longer than one day at a time though so not sure about 3 days! Also not experienced travel sickness, sorry.

Thanks! That's helpful, will definitely do some night driving/ early starts and sticker books and make some food/entertainment packs. It's hard with rear-facing car seats!
Phenargan is for 2+ isn't it, would it be really bad to give it 2/3 months early if we're having a really bad day?! We could prob do the journey in on day but thought it would be better to break it up so no more than 4 hours driving a day.

Definitely drive at night/nap times as much as you can - my 21 month old gets carsick too and we drive 4/5 hours to my parents a lot, this makes it much easier! You can try the childrens seabands - we have them and I don't know how much they help but they work better on some people than others - they say to fit from 3 or something but fit my dd fine and she is very slender. Take her clothes off when you drive (or at least just a vest) - much easier than dealing with loads of sicky clothes, especially when you're travelling. If you can get her to eat something dry like cream crackers then that helps but its hard when they're a bit young to understand. Get lots of music that she likes for the car to help distract without needing to look at something still (makes the sickness worse).

Great advice crabbo- thanks!

We're in the same position, will be driving to the south of France in summer with a 17 month old, in shitting it! We're going to leave about 6pm and drive overnight, not sure if he'll be comfortable sleeping for so long in the car though.