Find out how to survive journeys with children? tips and hints for long car journeys with your kids

Find out how to survive journeys with children? tips and hints for long car journeys with your kids

Here you have guidelines to help make your long car journey with babies and young children better:

Picking the right time of day for your car trip can help with your baby or toddler's mood for travelling. If you can drive at nighttime while your young child sleeps quietly in the back, could make all the difference. Failing this, be sure that your young child is fed and dry before setting off. The more comfortable she is, the more content she will be to sit for a bit longer.

With children and kids, you seriously really do need to stop if you're journeying for upwards of two hours. Even if they don't require the loo, the opportunity to run around and stretch their legs can cheer them no end and minimize boredom. How many stops will you need? Add at minimum 45 minutes for each one to ensure that you get a realistic arrival time.

Portable DVD players are ideal for car adventures – you can have ones that hook over the back of the front car seats, or even dual ones to make sure two children can see a screen each. Have a stash of their most favourite DVDs and you're all set to go. MP3 players and iPods are a very good investment, too, and can be played through the car radio, plugged into a couple of speakers - or, if your tolerance for Kipper stories on loop was exhausted a number of miles back - listened to on good headphones.

Stock up on necessary stuff for instance baby wipes and water.Lots of baby wipes are required. Besides bottles of drinking water, we get several big jerrycans of 5 and 10 litres of water in the boot, pretty much permanently. Eventually you’ll be pleased you did too. (Spills, puke, poo, sand, mud etc.) We also keep a roll of black bin bags in the boot as frequently a complete set of clothing or shoes needs separated from all the rest until such time it can be dealt with perfectly.

If small children are sleeping as you approach a destination and are going to must be awake for quite a while once you get there, start to wake them early on to make sure they have time to surface slowly rather than having to be instantly tell after you arrive