3.5 hour car journey with 2 and 4 year olds

[Kowr]

Any tips? I’m driving, need all the help I can get 😀

In my experience they'll just fall asleep 10 minutes and it should be a non issue. Maybe play some songs toget them to switch off?

2 ipads, 2 sets of headphones and 4 big elastic bands for the headrest.

We've driven much further with our kids the same age. No different to a short journey, you just do more stops if/when you need to, be prepared for it to take longer than normal. Our kids mostly sleep in the car anyway.

Depends entirely on the time of day.
Set off at 6.30pm with dc in pyjamas, play I-spy for a bit and then suggest they nap and power on through the journey.

If it has to be morning, go after breakfast with a lot of jolly cds and break every hour for loo, drinks, packed lunch. If they need to snack while you are driving make melt in the mouth things like rice crispies.

Just done a seven hour drive yesterday getting home from a UK holiday destination with two DC who are 6 and 4. Lots of toilet breaks and food required. Got home eventually 🙂

My eldest gets travel sick so I always dose him up with medicine before we leave, but when he was very little he had the travel bands around his wrists which seemed to do the trick.
In the summer, I work out which side of the car the sun will be on and make sure there is a window shade on that side.
With a journey of that length, I’d probably try to get it done in two parts with one very long break in between (long enough so that they practically forget about being cooped up in a car seat).

They will be fine, it's not too long a journey and you can stop on the way - we usually aim to stop around lunch time, find somewhere not far off the main road where they can run about for half an hour, have a picnic and then get going again.

Mine usually sleep for at least 1.5 hours of the journey so that helps. Then we put an audiobook on so they don't get too bored - you can borrow them from the library.

I regularly travel 5 hours with my dc and have done since my eldest was 10 weeks old. What works for me are ipads, a few snacks and only stopping once I'm over halfway, unless a toilet is required sooner. My favourite rest break is at 4 hours, the boys are much happier getting back in the car knowing they only have an hour to go. Oh and don't over think it, you will probably find that they fall asleep.

3.5h isn’t allllll that long. Is your younger one still in nappies? Maybe a loo break halfway, but it builds in loads of extra time and faff.

Just have healthy, easy access snacks (I’d give them both a sectioned lunchbox but beware of spillage, 2 year old might need things handed back to them). Audio/story/music sing alongs. I spy/ counting cars games. I don’t believe in iPads and headphones, journey boredom is a collective family experience :)

Oh thank you all. Yes 2 year old in nappies. We haven’t got iPads at all and the older one has had periods of car sickness when she was younger (not for a while now though). So a break at just over halfway and hope they sleep through most of it. If anyone was interested, just to torture them some more, it’s to visit a really cheap (but good) sofa warehouse 😂

Absolutely this!

Audiobooks then if you don't have ipads.