Long car journeys can cause stress for kids of all ages, especially toddlers. This blog highlights different products and activities you can use to distract them and keep toddlers entertained in the car. Using these various tools and ideas, you can keep kids engaged and help them self-regulate and enjoy the trip.
1) Drawing
Drawing is an activity that keeps children focused and stimulates creativity and calmness.
It is essential to plan this activity if you have a long trip. You can buy colouring books of your child's favourite characters or make your own by printing out different colouring activities and themes from the web.
2) Reading
Reading is a highly educational and exciting activity that stimulates language and promotes motivation and tranquility for children.It is essential to know the child's interests to choose attractive books for her.
In younger children, you can use picture books, or even the adult who does not drive can read them a story and encourage a space for questions about what they are reading. With this last idea, you can create a fun family moment that will remain engraved in their memories.
3) Music
Music is healing and can take us through different emotions and memories. Listening to happy and fun music can make us feel more positive as well as more relaxing music can help us sleep or release tension.
It is vital to have a playlist for different moments on a trip. You can generate a moment to sing with the family and play karaoke or follow the song, and you could also listen to relaxing songs when it's time for a nap.
4) Healthy Snacks
It is essential to prepare healthy food to go with you during the trip. Boredom sometimes generates anxiety and desire to eat, so it is vital to have things that benefit our health when we get the urge to snack.
Avoiding excessive sugar consumption in children is crucial because it can make them more nervous and energetic, and that is not what we want when spending long hours in a car.
5) Sensory Bottles
One of our products that can help younger children on long trips is our calming sensory bottles.
Our sensory bottles are especially beneficial at this time as one of their significant benefits is to create a relaxing and calming experience.
The motion of the bottles promotes calm and positive energy, ideal for long trips where there are often moments of boredom, frustrations, fights with siblings, etc. A positive aspect of our bottles is that they are of an ideal size and weight to be easily transported and come with a reusable bag to take them with you everywhere.
One of our best sellers is the ocean sensory bottle composed of glitter, sand shells, and pearls, making you feel like you have the ocean in your hands ( there is nothing more pleasant than that !!!!).
6) Spy Sensory Bottles
For older children (over three years old), Spy Bottles is one of our favourite products that can go with them on a long trip.
Each colourful Spy Bottle comes with a laminated card featuring a list of all the tiny objects to discover, asking questions such as "How many can you find…?". It inspires mess-free sensory play and not only encourages your child to find the object but to count how many there are too.
Little nature-lovers will love spotting little creatures amongst the grass in the Explorers spy bottle, while ghosts, spiders, snowmen, and reindeer offer a great Spooky Hunt Halloween edition and Christmas spy bottle.
7) Games
Another fun option is to bring fun games according to the age of your children. They can be memory games, word search, crossword puzzles, card games, etc.
You can create a folder with many fun activities printed, so they have different alternatives to choose from.
Here I share a website that I found with some fun ideas that could be helpful as a guide.
8) Fun stops
We know that we must make specific obligatory stops on any trip with children, such as going to the bathroom, but other types of stops are essential for relaxing.
That's why what I propose at this point is to make fun stops in which the children can relax and come back to the car with positive energy.
One option for this is to look for fun things along the way and stop (playground, museum, etc.) or stop in a natural environment and propose a game such as a nature hunt (the adult says different elements that the child must find, for example, a yellow flower).
9) Toys
The last option I propose to make your trip more enjoyable is to bring a basket with some of their favourite toys (can be legos, dolls, cars) and even include some new toys to awaken their novelty and excitement. Having this prepared will help keep them entertained and make them feel more secure by having things they bring from home that make them feel more comfortable and at ease.
