Road Trip With Kids Survival Tips
“Are we there yet?” Basically, every parent’s worst nightmare to hear that coming from the backseat of a car. That’s why you need road trip with kids survival tips so that you can make it to Grandma’s with your sanity intact.
If you’ve ever been on a long ride with kids in the car you know that this is a very real problem.Kids get bored. It’s just in their nature. However, there is nothing more frustrating than only being 5 seconds into an 8-hour car ride and hearing that.
We live far away from family, so my husband and I have become experts in keeping our children occupied in the car. It’s now to the point where our children are excited for long car rides. We haven’t heard the dreaded “are we there yet” in a long time!
Here are my road trip with kids survival tips for you to use.
Coloring booksÂ
I have a stash of coloring books that I rotate in the car between long car rides. I do this so that my sons don’t get bored looking at the same books. The dollar store is a great place to get a lot of inexpensive and fun coloring books. You can also get plenty of kids coloring books right to your door.
You’ll want to build up a little stash of a few different kinds of coloring books so that each of your children has something that keeps their interest. You can rotate them out each car trip so that they don’t get bored with one book.
Cardboard boxes
This is the only way that we store our coloring and activity books in the car. You can decorate them however you want, and make them look pretty. But it helps to keep everything organized and within your children’s reach. So you never have to worry about the I can’t reach conundrum.
In each of the boxes I keep the coloring books and activity books as well as some crayons and pencils. I always try to avoid markers. Especially in the car. The last thing I need is to come into the back seat of my car and realize that everything is now colored with a purple marker. So we avoid markers and stick with crayons and colored pencils.
Board books
We like to keep a lot of board books in the car as well. They hold up really well to being thrown around by our 2 year old. And they still are interesting to our 6Â year old.
You can get board books for all ages. These are fantastic. But just like the coloring books and activity books, I like to rotate them in and out of the car to make sure that our children don’t get bored with what’s in there. Doing this with each long road trip really helps to keep them occupied.
I-Spy books
Any kind of books that encourage the children to interact with each other and their surroundings are a must have for us. It keeps the kids happy and enjoying each others company when we’re all stuck in close quarters.
Snacks
I love to stock up on snacks before long road trips! Because like any parent knows, along with “are we there yet,” “I’m hungry” is an awful thing to hear coming from the backseat of a car on a long road trip.
We learned that for us the best thing to do was to buy a whole bunch of different snack foods in bulk before the road trip. We bring a variety of snacks with us once again to keep the children occupied and not bored. Our personal favorite snacks are pretzels, craisins, apple chips and any other kind of snack that won’t make a gigantic, sticky mess in the car.
For my husband and I, we like to bring gigantic thermoses of coffee so that we don’t have to stop and pay the outrageous prices at gas stations for coffee. If it’s a really long car trip, will pack peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or some kind of lunch meat sandwich in the car for all of us. No matter what, we like to come prepared when it comes to snacking in the car.
Blankets
Always keep blankets in the car. Having blankets makes sure that you don’t need to bundle up your kids and risk their car seats not work. It also helps in case of a car breakdown in the cold weather; you and your family will be safe and warm.
But the best part of the blankets is that they’ll help kids go to sleep, and help them to avoid complaining about the temperature of the car!
And when all else fails, we have either the iPad or a movie to watch.
I absolutely love my minivan. For many reasons, but on long car rides, the biggest reason that I love my minivan is that we have a DVD player.
We only break out the DVD player when we are very desperate for something to occupy the children or if the kids are in a really bad mood or are really tired and just won’t go to sleep. We don’t like to use the DVD player often, but it is absolutely a lifesaver when we’re at our wits end for a long car trip!
Basically, the best things that you need for surviving a long car trip with children or things to keep them occupied and things to keep them fed. If you are able to plan ahead for both entertainment and food, the chances of hearing the dreaded “are we there yet” are very slim.
What are your best road trip with kids survival tips ?
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