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Long Car Journey with a Toddler
We're going on holiday in a week (no, in 5 days 
), driving down to Cornwall. Now, I know that a 5 or 6 hour drive is nothing to you long-distance-travelling Americans, but to me this seems a LONG time for a 16-month-old to be in the car.
I hope she'll sleep for some of it, but do you have any hints/tips/tricks/strategies for dealing with a toddler on a long car journey?
Thanks
Zillah
Comments
JUST been there, done that! LOL!
Well, we have a DVD player for the truck, and we just spent 4 hours with the kids watching (us listening) to Shrek and a couple of episodes of The Dukes of Hazard (an old American TV show from the early 80's. DS2 loves it!). Literally just spent. We got home 30 minutes ago!! LOL! We got the DVD player when DS was 22 months, was a true lifesaver when we drove to see my folks (two ENTIRE days of driving with three kids, so think about 10 hours or so a day).
Other than that, lots of snacks, juice, and music. One of you could sit back there with her and play and read books. Favorite toys (play cell phones were my kids' favorites) are good, too.
Good luck!
Little toys, little books
When my DD was three months old we went on a twelve hour car drive to spend Christmas with my M&FIL. I was a wreck with worry...but, as it turns out, my DD is a fantastic traveler, so we've hardly ever had trouble with her in the car. And until she was three she slept like a baby as soon as we started moving (and woke up as soon as we turned off the engine).
My tips: We always brought plenty of snack food and a laid in fresh supply of small, hand-holdable toys and those tiny board books to play with. Having new toys to play with and new books to look at on trips always seemed to help.
On our 1000 mile drive from Missouri to Oregon I got her some of those wooden lace-up toys--wooden planks with pictures of animals, holes drilled all around the edges, and brightly colored shoe strings--she loved playing with those in the moving truck.
My mother always sang to us in the car when we'd travel. Children's songs, folk songs, made up songs, etc. She can't hold a note in a bucket but she always sang to us anyway and we LOVED it.
My DD likes it too, especially the long, brainless ones that you can sing for a long time and not have to think about it, like Old MacDonald, There's A Hole In My Bucket, Found A Peanut...the droning on and on ones! That were probably invented by people traveling with small kids now that I think on it.
I don't know if those are "American songs" or if those are known in the other English speaking countries or not...I'm thinking that the Hole In My Bucket is an American folk song. But I'm sure there are Brit equivalents. I used to love to sing all the verses to Molly Malone, Lock Lomond, singing Boys and Girls Come Out To Play in a round is FUN, etc.
Also, if you stop for refueling, to eat, or to potty, letting the kid out and running them around for twenty or thirty minutes often helps alot.
Here's hoping your dear one sleeps the trip!
______
"If you want your children to be bright, read them fairytales-- if you want them to be brilliant, read them even more fairytales" Albert Einstein
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