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How to Survive -- and Enjoy! -- Long Car Rides
November 2, 2009 at 6:55 AM by Cafe Cynthia - Comments (4)
Photo by abjbrewer
When many of my mom friends drive long distances to visit family for the holidays or go on vacation, they often set out in the middle of the night. This way, their kids sleep and they don't have to listen to the whining about being bored and the "are we there yet" refrain. I guess that's one way to go on road trips with kids.
But then Mom and Dad are always behind one day of sleep for the entire vacation. To this mom, who's stockpiled, oh, about six years of sleep deprivation now, that's the exact opposite of "vacation."
I'd much prefer to drive when we are all awake and actually, well, try to enjoy the trip. My husband and I are thinking about taking our 5 and 6 year old to Maine at Christmas, but it's a five-hour drive. I don't mind that so much because I'll be napping to the iPod so I can tune the kids out; it's my poor husband I'll feel for.
If we do decide on the Maine trip, here are some of the travel strategies my CafeMom friends said I should consider if I want to save my marriage:
- "Buy a Travel Aqua Doodle -- it's soft for the car so there's no chance of injury during an accident."
- "My favorite thing to let the kids do is the Crayola Wonder Color Books and paper. The coloring books come with markers and many different characters to choose from. You don't have to worry about them writing on their clothes, faces and your car!"
- "Try doing a travel scavenger hunt. I did it with my kids 2 and 6. The younger one had to find pretty simple things while the other really had to wait and look."
- "When I was little and we went on long trips, my mom got a jewelry organizer and hung it from the front seat. She put in crayons, coloring books, toys and anything you could think of to do in the car."
And CafeMom iluvcallalilies recently blogged about travel with kids on her personal blog, The KC Mom. Here's how she occupies her kids on long rides:
- "Our favorite car toys are: View Master and Reels (I ration these out so they aren't lost), Toy Computer, VSmile Pocket, eeBoo's Tell Me a Story Card Game, Magna Doodle and dolls. Melissa and Doug also make terrific travel games with no extra pieces."
- "We use the Star Kids Snack and Travel Tray. It's soft and safe, has pockets on the sides to hold colored pencils and Crayola Twistables (not crayons that melt on summer days) and the small fat coloring books and pads from the Dollar Store. The girls love having a "desk" in the car to work with."
- "Make sure you have one element of "new" in the above list. Whether it is a new snack, new activity book, or new toy. On our upcoming trip, I stocked up at the library on new stories featuring favorite characters that the girls haven't heard before. The NEW holds attention a bit longer than familiar music and stories and it's exciting to anticipate something fresh. Bonus ... because I use the library I didn't spend a dime!"
Are you planning a long family car ride for the holidays? Where are you going and how do you plan to survive it?
Related posts:
Traveling With Toddlers: Part 1
FILED UNDER: driving, holiday entertaining, travel
Comments:
OH, and we also sing at the top of our lungs to everything from Veggie Tales to ZZ Top.. :)
We aren't doing one this year as I am due with baby #3 Dec 19th. But, we have done several in the past and have a couple planned for next year - including a 28 hour trip to Disney World. Our most frequent trip is the 1100 miles to Chicago. We take 2 days and just relax with it. We drive during the day. My kids don't sleep great in the car, so I would have miserable crabby children if we tried to drive overnight. They like to see everything. We pack a wide variety of things for them to do. We have a DVD player, packs CD's they like, Leap Pad games, notebooks with pens and pencils (I'm not a fan of crayons in the car), books. We also bring lots of snacks. We take more rest breaks than if it were just us traveling and bring stuff for the kids to play with at the rest stops. Even with the extra time, for us it is a lot less stressful than flying. Plus, the kids have a good time.
Travel DVD players and a new DVD (some public libraries have DVD's)! This is the only way I survive long car trips! Also check out the website http://www.momsminivan.com/, it has some cute ideas for travel.
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We are road trippers. My ten year old son is, and always has been, a very good traveler. Granted, I do take toys, a small DVD player and games to keep him entertained, but he is like me in that he loves to look out the windows and watch the world go by, and he appreciates the scenery and all the cool little obscure places we pass by or even stop at. Our first long trip was about 12 hours I think. The longest one we have taken so far was about 30 hours. Of course we stopped for the night and did a lot of sight-seeing along the way. He was only shy of 3 years old for that trip and he had a blast! We regularly take a ten hour trip up to visit my family and friends ask me how in the world I do it alone (most of the time we go for a long weekend just the two of us because my husband has to work) and I say "we just do it!" We have a lot of fun playing the alphabet game, counting cows, and getting semi drivers to honk at us. I think my love of traveling has rubbed off on my son, because we have a great time wherever we go, no matter how long or short the drive.
KTMOM Nov. 2, 2009 at 9:58 AM