Travel Sickness under 2

[CrazyStupidMum]

Hi everyone,

Looking for some advice and hopefully some things that will help.
My DD is 22 months old. Within the last couple of months when we are in a car journey that takes longer than 25/30 mins she gets car sick and vomits.
3 times recently I've had to pull over and completely strip her down and mop sick up out of the car seat.
It's such a shame for her..
I've tried not giving her food before the journey (sometimes this is unavoidable) she has plenty of fresh air in the car and I try to keep her distracted.
She is in a rear facing car seat and I'd like to keep her rear facing for as long as I can for extra safety.
I've looked online and all the medicinal remedies for children cannot be given to children under 2.
We are due to visit family soon in just over a week's time and the drive will be approx 2 hours.
Any ideas of what I can do?
Thanks everyone x

Does she watch a screen or read in car, or play with something in her lap so she is looking down? Try to keep her gaze up, play colours with the cars she can see, calling out "white" "black" .....
Don't give her milk on that day , sweets or fatty food.
Try to keep her cool too, so do not overdress her. Keep all windows a bit open.
Take breaks.
Could you travel while she sleeps? so very early morning or after 8 at night. Sleeping is the best way to avoid travel sickness.

Plenty of plastic bags, wipes, and bottled water to clean whatever needs to be cleaned and wash your hands as well.

My daughter started with this at 18 months about 25 mins is her limit. She's just 3 and we give her piriton before long journeys as recommended by pharmacist and am hoping to move her to kwells tablets at 4/ unfortunately think she inherited this one from me as I was car sick from a similar age until my teens!

Unfortunately rear facing won't help with the sickness but obviously this is safer so it's a hard one.

Try the travel bands they work really well for mine. Also travel in the afternoon and keep the windows open

Ahh, I sympathise- mine was the same. The doctor prescribed phenergan which definitely helped. Do you want them having medication all the time, but it might be worth asking about it for longer journeys. It's so miserable for all concerned!

Full sympathy, DD1 started this at 13 months. We realised when driving a hire car from the airport to Val D’Isere (so very windy roads) that she hadn’t been ill once despite a massive traffic jam and diversion, and put this down to being in a forward facing seat. We struggled on until she was closer to 2, but in the end gave in and put her forward facing. Not ideal, but we live rurally and do a lot of driving so she was getting very upset every time we even mentioned having to drive somewhere.

Things that helped while we tried to ride it out: windows open, no screens/toys (games like I spy colours instead), dressing her lightly with a painting apron on top, letting her have a bowl to hold to catch the sick and small sips of sugar free lemonade.

We moved to forward facing very early for this reason. 7 years on my son occasionally still sick but being able to see out and distract helps as does fresh air. Some people are just prone to it, it's not nice i used to have the same.

We were prescribed stemitil. Didn't always work and tastes horrible (judging by my son's reaction). But you'll struggle to get them to prescribe anything.

The poor love. I sympathise. I've had travel sickness all my life and unfortunately I've never quite grown out of it. Still happens to me very frequently, although I haven't been sick from it for over a decade due to sheer willpower haha!

When I was a tot, my parents gave me joyrides. They are absolutely disgusting but I suppose they must work. Ive just checked and it says "not recommended for under 3 except on medical advice" so perhaps if you speak to her doctor, they could approve them? Or something else?

Also agree with the travel bands! I wore them for years. They do help. The rear facing car seat is probably contributing, think of when you sit backwards on a train. I always found it helpful to be able to see out the front window so I actually sat in the middle seat in the back for that reason. But I know it's recommended now to rear face so it's a difficult one to weigh up. Definitely get as much fresh air as possible, try to stop for breaks if you can and let her body reset. And yeah, keep her temperature down. When I get motion sickness now, I stick my hand out the car window so it drops my temperature. It helps a lot.

Good luck!

Oh sorry we have a puker too. I was so happy when she was old enough for the tablets! I had a good chat with the pharmacist who said that piriton works as an anti-emetic and you can I think give from 12 months? It took about 3 hours to kick in for DD but we managed a 6 hour journey.

I also keep a bag in the car with wipes, ziplock freezer bags so you can seal off stinky soiled clothes/wipes and frebreeze. We bring several changes of clothes and tall Tupperware pots which are great to puke in then close up. Although at that age my DD couldn’t manage to aim very successfully…

Good luck, it’s miserable for all concerned!

Hi Everyone,
Thanks so much for all your responses.
I've stopped giving my daughter toys since the sickness started.
I have the windows open so there is a good breeze.
I always carry spare clothes anyway but I've started putting her in old clothes to drive in and literally changing her when we get there.
I find when me or my partner sit in the back with her she is possible more distracted.
I wouldn't want her to have medication all the time, maybe just for the really long journeys. But I'll speak to the pharmacist maybe.
She wouldn't really hold a bag or tub to be sick into, she's too young to understand what's going on bless her. At the moment when she's sick she just starts swooshing it around with her hands, rubbing in into the car seat and her clothes.. whilst I watch helpless in the rear view mirror trying to find somewhere to pull over!! X