Traveling with little ones is always an adventure. My children are 5 and 3 years old, and we’ve taken road trips of various lengths the past three summers. The first was a short trip two years ago when we drove 4 hours to Great Wolf Lodge in Texas. The next summer we drove about 9 hours to Galveston to take our first family cruise, and this year we drove 13+ hours to Florida. Full disclosure: we’re probably flying to our next vacation. A big concern I have on long car rides is making sure my kids are as comfortable as they can be in their seats. Vacations are supposed to be fun for everyone, and starting off with a long drive can be rough, even for adults.
1.Snacks and Drinks. An absolute must with little kids. Dry snacks are the easiest for kids: crackers, goldfish, pretzels, veggie straws. This is also another great use for tackle boxes. We usually have a snack bag and a little cooler for drinks within reach of the kids.
2.Car potty (a natural progression after snacks and drinks). Call me crazy, but my kids are the worst about waiting until the last minute to tell us when they have to go to the bathroom. I fully understand that this is not something that everyone will want to do, but bringing a training potty in the car with us has saved us from cleaning up some serious messes on multiple occasions. To keep it as sanitary as possible, just line the potty with a plastic grocery sack or large zip lock bag for easy clean up. Adding some paper towels for absorption is also a great idea. Remember, this isn’t for regular use, it’s for emergencies.
3.Tablets loaded with games, books, and movies. I know people have strong opinions about screen time, but if there were ever a time for a kid to zone out on Team Umizoomi or Bubble Guppies for a few hours, a road trip is that time. My husband and I have iPads that we’ve downloaded movies on from Netflix and Amazon Prime, but our kids each have their own Kindle Fire that has their games and books (they don’t have a lot of storage space). I have also found the key to this one is headphones, if for no other reason than my own sanity so I’m not listening to multiple things at once, they’re a must.
- If you only have one tablet or phone for movies, but you have multiple kids, I would suggest using some kind of holder for it. This one is available from Amazon and it connects to a headrest.
- Or you can take the DIY approach, and make an iPad holder using a ziplock bag, duct tape and zip ties, which is what we did:
4.Coloring Books and Crayons. Honestly if you don’t mind cleaning up messes, you could get as crazy as you wanted with craft supplies. On our most recent road trip (from Oklahoma to Florida) my daughter was asking for scissors and a stapler… who knows what she could’ve come up with.
5.Bring a carsick bag. This is right up there with having a car potty– in an emergency, we all wish we had one. This mama has a great post about what to include in a car sick bag.
6.First aid kit. It takes less than two seconds for someone to trip over their flip flop in a rest stop parking lot. It’s not if you’ll need bandaids and Neosporin, it’s when.
7. Blankets. It’s highly unlikely that everyone is going to be comfortable at the same temperature, so make everyone’s life a little easier by throwing a few blankets in the car.
8. Window shades. My kids are really good about taking naps in the car, but it would be hard for anyone to sleep with the sun shining in their eyes. We have these from Walmart and we really like them.
9. Keep them comfortable. This one may seem like common sense for some, but be sure your child’s car seat or booster is comfortable. I don’t know anyone who wants to spend hours sitting on a seat made of hard plastic that’s only covered with a thin layer of cloth. I hope this was helpful!
Happy traveling!
