ideas/things to entertain 19-month-old DS on 4hr train journey

[whiteorchid]

Taking books, cars, snacks. Any other ideas for what I could take? Am worried it's going to be a looooong 4 hours....

The advantage with this age group is you can read the same story over and over again. We took dd on the train to Berlin at 22 months- 17 hours all told. By the time we got to the Ardennes I knew her picture book by heart and was able to read and admire the countryside at the same time

It also helps if you have a head well stocked with songs and nursery rhymes.

crayons and paper? Too young maybe? ummm... other small age appropriate toys, make sure he has never seen them before and remove a toy each half hour? sleeping pills?

I meant remove a toy form your bag of tricks every half hour and not from your son!

Nursery rhymes on an MP3 player (with soft earphones).

Wow, cory, 17 hours, I'm impressed. Surely I can get through 4 hours then! Thanks for the tips. I've just bought him a new furry puppet book from Tesco's - should keep him entertained for at least five minutes...

a small pot of playdough works wonders for entertaining on the train at that age.

Buy a children's magazine (e.g. cbeebies one or animals) - they usually come with a free toy, plus (and this is the important part) STICKERS!!

Store catelogues (childrens ones e.g. early learning centre, great little trading company - they love looking through them and pointing to things they recognise (e.g. other children, balls, shoes etc).

Small food e.g. raisins that take ages to pick away at!

Pack or two of organix tomato flavoured noughts and crosses ('crisps') - that keeps em quiet for ages!

Playdough

A small drawstring bag full of small things that he can pull out and put back in again e.g. small soft toys / finger puppets / shoe lace / tape measure / teaspoon etc

jigsaw puzzle

I would be careful with jigsaw puzzles and playdough on the train. Do you really want to spend 4 hours crawling under other people's seats trying to retrieve little bits? Or try to scrape playdough off the carpets when you are approaching your destination and everybody else is hauling their luggage down the gangway? I have had disastrous experiences with this sort of thing. My tip would be- avoid small bits unless firmly attached to something.

Those sticker pictures are much better.

Any chance of him sleeping? Can you time the journey around a nap? I always try to time long journeys around ds' naptimes and so far it's worked!!

We also try to make him a small playpen (usually by blocking bits of seating area off with the buggy!) so he can run around a bit. Works so long as the train's not too crowded!

Those mini Aquadraw mats are very good.
No mess and for a 19month old, it'll take him a while to do one mat