Is this terrible?

[Milkie&Cookie]

Great input Debbie! I was worried about the whole impaling prospect.

Seriously tho - does everyone's kids just sit still in their seats with nothing to do? For 8 hours?!? DS is really good in the car, but he needs something to keep him busy for a long trip.

What do all of you do who have SUV's? Do you have cargo nets? i have a lease and investigated getting one and they wouldn't let me. I wasn't thinking about cargo at the time because I wasn't aware of the risk. I was thinking about keeping the dog in the back LOL. What about the normal day to day crap. Backpacks for school, purses, cellphones, CD's, toys, ice scrapers, strollers?

 

[NOAHSMOM]

I give my son a shoelace.....he loves to tie his "guys" up and has some great scenario in his mind and that at least takes up an hour or two. I think small/new things from the dollar store are great, perhaps have your son pick a few things out and only use them on the trip? My ds was an excellent sleeper in the car during trips, so I have no suggestions for your dd.

 

[MomToEliEm]

We usually take an annual road trip from Texas to South Carolina each year. We don't like projectiles in the car, but on the trips, we often relax our standards some. We have a DVD player, we allow sippy cups, we have a cooler of drinks and food on the floorboard, there are small toys and coloring books. The only thing on their lap is one of those soft travel trays (which we like for coloring on).

I know it isn't ideal to have all those projectiles in the car, but I am making a parental decision to allow some in order to make the trip bearable. Traveling in the car for 20 hours can be hard on a child if there isn't much to play with.

 

[Defrost]

Seriously tho - does everyone's kids just sit still in their seats with nothing to do? For 8 hours?!? DS is really good in the car, but he needs something to keep him busy for a long trip.

We stop a LOT on long car trips. About 90 minutes is all *I* can stand, I always stop about that frequently even if I'm driving alone. I know people get really anal about "driving straight through" (seriously, I once met a guy who "borrowed" a catheter and urine bag from his job as a medical supply clerk and actually catheterized himself so he wouldn't have to stop to pee during his road trip!!!). Personally, I've never found it has that much affect on the drive time. We stop, we use the bathroom if we need to, we walk around a bit if we don't, and it's well worth the time.

When my kids were really small, we would always take a ball and get the toddlers/preschoolers to chase it around at rest stops when they got cranky.

We have audiobooks, we have Gameboys (see? I am a bad tech, too!) we have crayons, we play "Wizard Dueling" (it's a Harry Potter thing) and other car games, and we stop frequently. Most trips are pretty good!

What about the normal day to day crap. Backpacks for school, purses, cellphones, CD's, toys, ice scrapers, strollers?

Everything gets stored in a storage bin (like the glove box, or the one under the cargo area in my Mazda5). Backpacks go on the floorboard, along with my purse. If I want my purse where I can reach it easily, I buckle it in with my seat belt. iPod goes a cup holder. Of course, in a rollover everything on the floor or in cup holders will go flying, but humans aren't crash test dummies - we need our stuff! It's a risk I'm willing to take; I just do my best to minimize it as much as I can.

When I haul larger things, like the case I use to carry my childbirth class materials, it gets buckled into a seat with the seatbelt locked. And yes, I buckle unoccupied boosters or cram them between the second & third row seats. Last week I hauled our computer, and I put it in the passenger seat, and then moved the seat forward until the box was crammed up against the dashboard (it was the ONLY way it fit!)

Oh, and my cell phone stays in my purse or my pocket; I have a bluetooth headseat.

Hope that helps!

 

[beebear23]

I've been doing 6+ hour trips w/C since he was 4 weeks old. We usually do it every 2-4 months. For the past 4+ years it was just me and him(the first year my mom usually went w/us so she could visit her parents). So I needed stuff to keep him busy. I'd geta box or a backpack and fill it w/toys and buckle it into the seat next to him. Then stop every couple of hours and stretch and put the toys back in the bag/box b/c he throws them out w/in the first hour of the trip. He sleeps, we talk, sing, play. He reads books. He's been begging me for a DVD player for the truck, but I'm adamantly opposed to it, so I've been trying to distract him other ways. LOL..

 

[snowbird25ca]

Dd hasn't been on car trips longer than 2hrs, although we travel 1.5 hrs each way in a day a couple times a month when we go visit my parents. She has her blanket, and a soft toy, but aside from that we've just talked about the scenery and told stories and what not - she's a huge talker for 3yrs old and loves watching for things to talk about.

Ds we took a 5.5hr trip for a wedding when he was 6.5mos old (left dd with my parents.) We gave him some soft toys, one of which was one of those leap frog caterpillars that has a continuous play setting on it - 10mins of classical music.. and little activities on it. He enjoyed playing with it, and if he started fussing we'd put the music on. He ended up sleeping most of the way there - we stopped for gas & to feed him once.. on the way back the next day we ended up making quite a few stops because he got fussy and wouldn't go to sleep.

So I guess activities for the car hasn't been a big issue thus far - mind you, we always played car games involving scenery when I was a kid, so I hadn't thought much about activities aside from soft toys. For older kids you can pick different things to count - and it's a race because whoever see it first gets to count it... horses work well, cows - if you're driving in the dark cars with a burned out headlight work well. I'm not sure what your scenery will be like where you're driving, but something novel always makes the trip fun. :thumbsup:

Our vehicle is awful for projectiles when we go camping because pretty much every available inch of space is taken up by stuff we've packed. We put soft stuff in the vicinity of the kids, and heavy/hard stuff on the floor. Aside from that, there's only so much you can do sometimes...

My take is that some things you can reduce the risk in doing, but you still have to do - packing lots on a long distance trip means using up all available space. But you can reduce the risk by packing lighter stuff closer to occupants and heavy/hard stuff on the floor and further away. And by not adding any extra risks into the equation like that desk, it also increases safety.

So I guess what I'm saying, is that not all risks can be completely removed, but if you can't remove a risk, you can often deal with it in a way that reduces it. (Hope that makes sense.)