Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Road Trip Ideas for Toddlers


My last post was about our wonderful 4th of July. What I did not mention was that it was 10.5 hour car drive to our wonderful destination. If you are a parent you know traveling with kids, especially long car rides can cause anxiety to rise.

I have always accepted the saying You fail to plan You plan to fail. I decided that I would plan ahead for this road trip.
I made a trip to the the DollarTree and I purchased a toy for the kids for each hour of traveling, minus 3 hours for nap-time.




The toys included:









A Paddle Ball- Boy & Girl both loved this. I had to remind Boy once to not aim at his Sister's head!




Refrigerator Magnets- you can purchase a cheap cookie-sheet and let the kids go to town arranging them on the sheet.




Dry Erase Board On The Go- Only Boy could play with this and it kept him busy for hours. I just gave him a baby wipe to use when he was ready to erase.













Stickers- I placed them on their hands, face, and legs. My kids love stickers!












PipeCleaners- The kids loved figuring out how to take these off! I had fun tying them all up!













Glow Sticks- When it got a little dark the kids found these very interesting and of course Girl found that it felt good on her teething gums.




Ring Pop-Was the desperate hour toy/ candy. The kids sucked on them FOREVER & could not finish.

Things I tried not pictured:
Foil-I would make figurines of animals for the kids. Girl just watched (did not want her to place in mouth) and Boy could hold them.
Crazy Maze -Boy tried to get the ball through the maze. Girl liked the way it rattled.
iPad games-Boy loves Angry Birds and Build a Train
iPad shows- Downloaded Mickey Mouse & Yo Gabba Gabba

These all helped keep the kids busy. Mommy & Daddy were able to talk & enjoy the beautiful car ride.




























13 comments:

Epic said...

They're so cute. I just noticed that you have the same Britax as we do, I quite love the 'cow-moo-flage'! I'm popping by to visit from Katherine's linky!
Cheers,
Char
http://1epicmom.com

Katherines Corner said...

Thank you for sharing these great ideas at the Thursday Favorite Things hop. XO

Brooke Arellano said...

Beautiful pics!! I hope the 10.5 drive wasn't too tough:) Stopping by from the hop and am now your newest follower:) Hope you can come check out Crazy Mama Drama !
http://crazy-mama-drama.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Crazy-Mama-Drama/259491484156846

- said...

Here from the blog hop. It's so nice to meet you and your family.

Veronica Lee said...

Love the pics! Beautiful!
Hi! I'm a new follower of your lovely blog.

Happy Weekending!

Unknown said...

Thank for following me! I am now following you back!

I needed these tips last week. We drove 800 miles from Indiana to NYC with three young children! I'm definitely going to keep this mind for next time!

Emily Cook said...

I love this! Great ideas! We use similar strategies and I especially love the dry erase board!

Wrote this one after our last long car trip- to FL- WITH the stomach flu!
Emily

http://www.weakandloved.com/2012/01/things-i-should-not-have-to-say-in-van.html

Unknown said...

Wow! Never thought of the cookie sheet and magnets before, great tip! I'm following you back, thanks for stopping by my blog earlier.

xoxo

Valerie said...

So cute!
P.S: I've nominated you for a blogging award! Check out www.MakeMineACosmo.com for details!

Epic said...

Hey hon,
I wanted you to know that I've nominated you for the Versatile Blogger Award. For details, just go here: http://1epicmom.com/2012/07/14/the-versatile-blogger-award/

Cheers,

Char

Lena said...

Wow, 10.5 hour trip with kids would be tough!!! I'm dreading our 3.5 hour one in August...But these are some great ideas for traveling with kiddos! Thanks for sharing!

Mindi and Adrian said...

Wow great ideas!!! I'm going to have to try these when it comes to our 12 hour trip this fall with our 3 1/2 year old and 18 month old. It's sooo hard being in the car with them for that long. You were uber organized. Thanks for sharing! Coming over from the hola blog hop.

Corinna said...

Great ideas! We took a 7.5 hour ride to Virginia last year with the little one and grandpop had a goodie bag full of toys to keep her occupied. Within twenty minutes, she'd explored everything inside the goodie bag but she was content for the drive :)