My friend Heather is moving across the entire country with children aged almost-3 and almost-5. If I were her I would say that as “ages 2 and 4,” to maximize the Pity Factor.
She is looking for ideas to keep the children entertained on the trip. If your first suggestion is “OMG don’t do it at all! Fly instead!! With the children in animal crates!!” you can save your breath because I already tried it. They will be in the car at least six days, and that is final.
I suggest we see if we can make this easier for her in any way. Donations of prescription medications would be excellent too, but I was thinking more along the lines of travel tips and toy ideas.
My tip, based on taking two much-shorter trips (1.5-days in the car each trip) with a 2-year-old and a newborn, is to plan to stop at places that have a play area or a grassy run-around area, and include in estimated trip time the amount of time it would take for the kids to run/play/climb for 15 minutes or so at each stop. Plus assume triple the number of stops needed with adults. This makes the entire trip take much, much longer.
My second tip is to save some stuff aside and not bring out everything on the first day of travel, or else the children will play frantically with all the toys on the first day and be bored for the rest of the trip. (This is a pointless tip, because if it were me, I’d be desperate enough on the first day to bring out anything, ANYTHING I had.)
Now for things to buy:
1. Fresh TV/movies. Heather tells me that they already have a DVD player for the car, so I suggest buying several new DVDs. …This doesn’t seem like it’s brilliant enough to suggest, but that didn’t stop me from suggesting the kids could run around at rest stops. Blue’s Clues (photo from Amazon.com) is one of the ones I got for the just-turned-2-year-old on my own trip, so it may be too young for the 2- and 4-year-olds—but anything, ANYTHING they would like that wouldn’t be intolerable for the adults.
2. Water-drawing thingie. The H-2 Whoa is the one we had. It’s two-sided, so by the time you finish drawing on the second side, the first side is mostly dry and ready to use again. But if I were buying now, I’d buy the travel-sized Aqua Doodle (photo from Amazon.com). (In fact, I DID buy it, and we still keep it in our car. I like it less because it has pre-printed rainbows/grass on it, which can kind of ruin an outer space drawing. But it IS more sensibly compact.)
3. Findy thing. We have a Find It (photo from Amazon.com) and it’s one of the few toys we still own because it still gets played with. There’s also a pillow-type version by Iplay. Crafty people could find instructions online for sewing one themselves, or making one out of a soda bottle.
4. Brain Quest cards. I like these flashcard/activity sets because they’re all in linked bundles so the cards don’t get scattered everywhere, and because I’ve found that I can do them with a child for a surprisingly long time without wanting to leap from a moving car. Here are links to the age 2-3 set and the age 3-4 set and the age 4-5 set.
5. Coloring stuff. (Photos from Amazon.com.) There are a lot of travel-coloring options. Some are the Color Wonder type, which work great but have so few pieces of super-expensive paper. Some are dry-erase with bad reviews. My own favorite is a notebook or sketchpad: the pieces stay together, and they’re cheap, and they can be a novelty to a child accustomed to loose sheets of paper. Colored pencils are least likely to end up all over clothing or melted into the upholstery, but they’ll need sharpening so remember to bring a sharpener. I’ve given the Melissa and Doug triangular ones as gifts (with coloring/activity books) because they look so cool, but I don’t know if they’re any better than a set of Crayola.
6. CDs. Choose wrong (i.e. an album you end up hating but the children end up wanting on endless repeat) and you will want to remove your own ears. But choose right (i.e., an album you don’t mind and the children like) and you will buy yourself, if not peace, at least a CHANGE in the KIND of noise. We bought this Phineas and Ferb album (photo from Amazon.com) last summer, and it mostly kept the children from bickering when we spent an hour in the car each day driving to and from one child’s summer day camp.
7. Active stuff for the hotel. There isn’t a ton of space for running around in a hotel room, but it’s more space than in the car. I brought an inflatable beach ball (photo from Amazon.com) for the hotel: nice and small when deflated, and can be kicked or thrown into the side of your face while you’re trying to lie down for just a minute after a long day in the car.
8. WaterWow. WaterWow is a reusable paint-with-water: the picture colors itself in as you “paint” it with plain water, and then when it dries it’s uncolored again. I’m linking to the Thomas the Tank Engine WaterWow (photo from Amazon.com) because I know Heather’s son loves Thomas, but I’d look for it in the store: on Amazon, that one is nearly twice the price of some of the others, and then shipping on top of THAT. The Hero Squad one and the princess one are less expensive and have free shipping.
9. Hand-held gaming thing. Heather has a kid iPad with games, and that may be enough (though she anticipates arguments about whose turn it is to use it). I very reluctantly recommend a Leapster, too (photo from Amazon.com). Setting that gol-danged thing up made me cry and want to break things (starting with the Leapster itself, and ending with whichever employees at Leapfrog designed and tested the set-up procedure), but ONCE THAT WAS DONE it has become a great toy and the kids use it a lot. And since the toy is a little older, a lot of the games are really cheap now: Up for $7, Ni Hao Kai-Lan for $6.50, Ratatouille for $8.75, and so on. (Some others are nice and low but have shipping charges—but if you found several from the same seller and could combine shipping, it would still be a good deal.)
10. Pretty much any electronic toy they don’t already have and aren’t too old for. There’s usually a whole aisle at the store of toy laptops and electronic instruments and story-telling stuffed animals and learn-to-write pads and so forth, and I would just LOAD UP. (Also load up on replacement batteries.) Henry has played with this dog guitar (photo from Amazon.com) in the shopping cart more times than I would have suspected possible, and I can report that it is (1) kind of annoying but (2) not as annoying as when he’s NOT playing with it.
11. Book of travel game ideas.. I think I’d look first at the library: it’s hard to tell which of the “car games” search results are good. If the library didn’t have any to read-before-buying, I’d read the reviews of each book to see which sounded like the best fit. It looks like the main trouble is that a lot of the ideas/games are for older kids. You might have better luck looking at books that aren’t specifically meant for car travel, but just have a lot of ideas for entertaining toddlers/preschoolers. (All three linked photos from Amazon.com. I think I’d need to tear the cover off that last one because it is giving me a little bit of a headache just looking at it. Let me guess: it contains instructions for singing “99 Bottles of MILK on the Wall!”)
********
Okay, I think that is all my ideas. All I can do now is send wave after wave of panicky empathy in Heather’s direction—and also send her all of you, to give her more tips and ideas. (SIX DAYS in the car. SIX.)
redbox, can rent movie for about a dollar in one location and return it in another.
jill | June 6th, 2012 at 10:51 am
New, fun snacks that they don’t always get to have. A Frisbee or ball for the rest stops. Prayer.
Nowheymama | June 6th, 2012 at 10:51 am
This is only for emergency situations, where the kids are whining frantically and your partner insists on pushing on for 30 more minutes: ring pops (and wipes). They are fancy and fun looking, small enough of a choking hazard that I feel safe passing them to the back seat (the kids always resolutely put them on their fingers, and plus they’re huge), and they will keep your kids QUIET and HAPPY for a magical 30 minutes. The only problem is that after that, they are sticky and want another, so you must save it for the last 30 minutes. Good luck.
Suzannah | June 6th, 2012 at 11:30 am
Pack the swimsuits and stay at hotels with pools - indoor or outdoor. The entire family will need some physical activity after being cooped up in the car. Swimming at a hotel also makes travel FEEL like a vacation. Even when we head to the in-laws, we stop at a hotel with a pool. We swim in the late evening (just before bedtime). It wears the kids out and consequently makes them so calm. We also swim first thing in the morning to expend a little energy before having to sit in the car again.
Jolie | June 6th, 2012 at 12:49 pm
This isn’t so much a what-to-buy comment as method advice. My parents moved us across the country (10-14 days on the road) when we were 8, 6, almost 4, and almost 2. And my mom did exactly what Swistle suggests.
She didn’t give us all the stuff at once, but parceled it out over the trip. In addition, she wrapped all the toys/games/books so that there was excitement every time a new one came out. I know time is at a premium when you’re moving, but it totally helped. She put a full-sized trash can of presents in the back of the minivan so that they were handy when she needed a new “something”.
My parents also (whenever possible) booked hotels with pools. It was a great way to let us kids work off our energy at the end of the day and there was usually a hot tub for Mom and Dad to relax in. Then when pool time was done, us kids were exhausted and slept well.
We also tried to carve out a little time to sight-see along the way (Mount Rushmore, etc.) even if it was only to have a short diversion in the middle of the day. I remember significant portions of that trip (I was the six-year-old) and I remember it being an adventure, not boring.
Nicole | June 6th, 2012 at 4:00 pm
Mapping out Barnes and Noble locations near your route is great for the Thomas fans–I think that they all have a train table (and bathrooms etc.). I don’t know if this works with two, but having one of us sit in back with our son made a 2800+ mile trip SO much easier. He still mostly played independently but somehow having one of us back there kept things civil way longer than I expected.
Ali | June 6th, 2012 at 4:15 pm
Maybe some crafty things? I’m thinking pipe cleaners or toilet paper tubes to make binoculars to play I-spy with.
Barb @ getupandplay | June 6th, 2012 at 4:33 pm
Totally ripping this off from Here Be Hippogriffs, but here you go: a roll of aluminum foil. Cheap, novel, crunchable.
Melospiza | June 6th, 2012 at 6:23 pm
SIX. Holy cow.
I’d be inclined to make up 12 different goody bags and give a new one to each kid each day. With new toys and art activities (like you could put in each bag any combo of coloring book, activity book, notebook, pencils, markers, that melissa and doug magnet fishing puzzle, toy cars, maybe magnets for the big one, books with lots of cool pictures, aquadoodles, etch a sketch, silly putty, those magnetic create a scene things, etc) that way there’s a new bunch of stuff to play with each day and you dont have to worry about trying to sort it out on the road or whatever.
you could buy some large ziplok bags and sort them that way, and then keep the bags in a giant bin. if I were you–and I realize that I am a little more obsessive than most people–I’d probably ALSO put 12 ziplok bags in that bin, labeled 1-6 and the name of the kid, with PJs and a change of clothes (and dipes/wipes for the little one, if needed). Then you can put dirty laundry right back in the same ziplok and deal with it when you get there.
I’d ALSO bring outdoor toys dedicated for rest stops–balls, bubbles for chasing, sidewalk chalk–
and I’d go to costco or something before you leave and get some snacks that they aren’t usually allowed to have.
Also, Dramamine.
Good luck!
vanessa | June 6th, 2012 at 10:14 pm
I second the idea of crafty things. I’m flying by myself with an almost-3 year old and an almost-5 year old soon, and I bought them a pack of those lacing cards and a lot of new stickers and coloring books. Silly putty is good as well.
Before we travel I always go to the dollar store and buy a ton of things (two of the exact same toy). The kids tend to play with the cheap stuff the most- jewelry, goofy feather things, sticky notes, etc. I think they like the novelty of it, and I don’t care if it gets ruined , besides the wailing.
Also, the mom should bring earplugs. Not for driving, obviously, since that wouldn’t be safe, but just for 5 minutes of quiet sometime.
Chaya | June 7th, 2012 at 5:33 am
I recently read an article that suggested a roll of blue painter’s tape–the kids can do anything they want. And those color form things, but I’ve never personally used them. And pipe cleaners, although that may be more adult-intensive than you wish. Finger puppets? Magnets in shapes or characters and a cookie sheet or small cake pan and each kid can play? A felt board with pieces and characters?
phancymama | June 7th, 2012 at 6:24 am
I went on a 12 hour car ride with a two and three year old last year and made some activities for the car. Then we went through a cycle something like this….
First listen to music until they get restless. Then watch some tv until they get restless. Then pull out one of the prepared activities. Then make a very brief stop. Even a rest stop is enough to reset. This cycle would take about 2-3 hours. We repeated that cycle for the entire 12 hours. And then, four days later, the entire ride back. If possible, be sure to leave the -new- tv shows until the end.
I did a couple of blog posts about some of the activities I made for the car. If you’re interested, they’re here: http://testyyettrying.blogspot.com/search/label/car%20ride%20activities
I also made some busy book pages: http://testyyettrying.blogspot.com/search/label/busy%20book
Dala | June 7th, 2012 at 12:50 pm
A friend used to give her son a 9″ x 13″ pan so he could play with his cars on trips. The big edge saves a lot of things from diving to the floor FROM WHICH THEY MUST BE RETRIEVED RIGHT NOOOOOW!
Yes, about the hotels with pools, and also: If you are leaving a big city, don’t be in a hurry to get on the road, where you will sit surrounded by rush-hour traffic. Instead, get up and give your kids enough of a snack that they won’t be starving and cranky, then hit the pool. Then get dressed and have a proper breakfast, then hit the road.
DVD players are wonderful, but I would also recommend some audiobooks for naptime. Kids are more willing to close their eyes and listen, and then drift off, if they aren’t worried about missing anything on the screen. We love the Stephen Fry/Judy Dench versions of Winnie the Pooh and The House at Poor Corner.
Slim | June 7th, 2012 at 12:57 pm
We just got back from a 2-day trip with one toddler.
Along the crafty route, I have heard of pipe cleaners with beads. They can make themselves jewelry (this is obviously better if there’s a girl, but I see you mentioned a son) and the beads are less likely to get lost because they stick on the pipe cleaner.
We also just used some animal/alphabet flashcards that I got at the $1 section at Target. It was great for my 2 1/2 year old who knows some animals and SOME letters, but not all. When he got one right (or close enough) I’d give him the card and at the end he got to put the cards back in the box by himself (which took forever and was quiet, thank heavens). This was good for about an hour, by then I was sick of it, but he would have kept going.
Other than that, the iPad/iPhone saved us. We have Netflix streaming on it, and my son knows how to pull up the app and start up Thomas/Bob/Babar/Curious George by himself and it was AWESOME.
Christy | June 7th, 2012 at 1:11 pm
When my husband was little, his parents bought a whole case of unwrapped baseball cards. My MIl says it was hours before she heard from them in the backseat. I had a similar experience traveling with my kids using paper dolls, but 2 and 4 (or 3 and 5) seem a little bit little for the “joys of punching out dolls and clothes” or “unwrapping pokemon cards and swapping”
Jodie | June 7th, 2012 at 1:30 pm
My 3-year-old LOVES the Sandra Boynton CDs. We have FOUR of them, and Philadelphia Chickens is by far his favorite. The songs are pretty funny and recorded by actual, well-known musicians, so the quality is really great. There’s usually a bit of humor that flies right over the kid’s head, but that is great for adults.
Amelia | June 7th, 2012 at 6:28 pm
A few years ago we took a 6 day road trip cross country. We drove as much as we could at night, but for the times in which we had to drive and they were awake I did this: (The boys were 5 and 3)
I got a cheep battery clock from the dollarstore or the like, a fairly large one, and a dry erase marker (ended up having to use a baby wipe to wipe it off anyway but whatever). I used the color Blue (the boy’s favorite) to circle the number in which the short hand would be on when we’d get to stop. (Because I knew I’d be constantly trying to show my oldest the difference between the short hand and the long hand I took the clock apart and used tin snipps on the long hand, so the clock only showed what hour it was lol). This worked great and all but eliminated the “are we stopping yet, are we there yet, how much longer, yada yada”. Also watching the clock became a game, because each time the small hand would come to a number they’d get a new “prize.”
Prizes were healthy snacks, crap toys I’d normally never buy them, a new movie, Army men, pokemon cards or the like with pictures they wont really get the game but may find the pictures interesting, magazine and safty scissors if they can use them, if not just let them tear away. YES you’ll have a mess to clean up at the next rest stop, but I think it’s worth it. You could also try some kind of music player with personal earphones, but I always found my kids just shouted the whole time they had them on, and I spent way too much time leaning over the seat helping them to put them on.
Also, you know the handles that most cars/vans have above the door for you to hold on to/use to help you get out? You can tie a rope (think clothes line) across that, and then loosely tie another rope too it (not long enough they could strangle themselves with, think like a batting toy for a baby) and tie a soft ball to that, and let them wack the crap out of it. because it’s tied they can’t hit the driver with it, and you don’t have to keep finding it for them and giving it back, and it allows for some fun movement while still confined in carseats. I used a sippy cup leash (made for strollers and the like) and one of those balls with holes in it like this http://www.amazon.com/Rhino-Toys-Original-Jellies-Colors/dp/B000IDOM5I and the boys bat it back and forth at each other and spun it in circles and hung other toys from it, it was a huge hit!. You just want to make sure you leave a loop where you tie it to the line that goes between the two handles so it doesn’t get stuck in one spot.
Sara | June 7th, 2012 at 7:54 pm
Sara is a genius.
Grumpypants | June 7th, 2012 at 8:57 pm
I’ve heard Aquadoodle is awesome for car trips. My 2 1/2 year old got some mileage out of his Color Wonder sound studio on a recent 6-hour drive. And the car DVD player, omgodsend. We’re not a big tv family but at hour five youu bet your butt we busted out the Spot and Kipper DVDs. The Pixar shorts collections might be good depending on kids’ ages. Also, I Spy books. .
velocibadgergirl | June 7th, 2012 at 10:54 pm
A caution about the Pixar shorts: My kids liked a couple of them more than the others, and they wanted to see just those two, over and over and . . . the point of the DVD player was that I could stick in a disc and face forward for an hour or so, not that I could keep reaching back to try to navigate the menu backwards. rrrrr
Slim | June 8th, 2012 at 2:36 pm
When our triplets were three-years-old and our baby was 11-months old, we set off on a 21-day, seven thousand mile, cross-country (and in to Canada) road trip. We drove cross-country AGAIN when the triplets were six and the baby was three. And since then, we’ve driven at least another 6K miles up and down the eastern seaboard. Our road trips have been awesome and entirely doable because:
1. We stop no more than every two and a half hours to let the kids out and run around / switch drivers. (EXCEPT for when the kids are sleeping and then we drive and drive and drive until they wake up.)
2. Every night, we stay in hotels that have an indoor (heated) swimming pool. If you can find places that have free continental breakfasts = BONUS. (i.e., Courtyard and Hampton Inn!)
3. We have an abundance of snacks and books that we pass around the car. Now that the kids are older, they all have their own dry erase boards, composition notebooks, and coloring books that will keep them busy. I also use the time to drill them with flash cards.
4 All hail that which is the DVD player!!! While a variety of movies is great to have, on our cross-country trip in 2008, we watched Toy Story no less than 10 times. (I have no idea how the people in the covered wagons did it, without one of those devices on board…)
5. And for the MOST important thing of all, along with your GPS, road maps, AAA card, emergency supplies (1st aid, road side assistance, etc.), cell phone chargers, handy wipes, trash bags, kleenex, squirt bottle, traveling potty chair, blankets and pillows - be sure to pack your sense of adventure and good attitude. Just remember: They’ll have fun, if YOU have fun.
So have fun and God Speed!
Jen | June 9th, 2012 at 3:35 am
The 4-yo is probably old enough for letter games! A tin full of scrabble-like tiles wih magnets on the back will let the kid spell and make up words. Also a license plate game, and an I Spy game (you could make your own lists of things you might see along the way). A felt board of some kind for the 2-yo might be good, since felt sticks to itself pretty well. Color matching or making food, or identifying letters and numbers, whatever is in his/her learning scope.
Tara | June 10th, 2012 at 11:37 pm
When our kids were young, I found that they rarely tired of movies in the car. We would make them take a break for their poor little eyes, but I think they would’ve watched back-to-back movies the entire time. Maybe if she loaded up on Leap Frog videos, those baby geniuses will be reading by the time they reach their destination!
Melanie | June 13th, 2012 at 7:49 pm
My older two both had leapsters but when I went searching for something for my youngest for her third Christmas, I found the Fisher-Price iXL 6-in-1 learning system. (Here: http://www.amazon.com/Fisher-Price-iXL-Learning-System-Pink/dp/B00388IS1E/ref=dp_cp_ob_t_title_0 )
It’s way cheaper and the screen is more like the touchscreen on a phone or tablet BUT it can take a beating. I LOVE IT.
vegas710 | June 19th, 2012 at 11:50 am