Can you give me some advice for LONG DRIVES with small kids?

My wife and I will travel about 22 hours with 3 kids ( 7, 5, 2 ) in june. Can you give me please some advice ? I will bring a portable DVD and video games, but what else can I do to keep them at peace?





I plan to divide the travel in 3 days of 7-8 hrs, to give them time to have lunch and maybe arrive early to a hotel so they can go to the pool and relax...





Any ideas? Please ?Can you give me some advice for LONG DRIVES with small kids?
I am the mother of four children (all grown now) and we frequently traveled long distances in the car when they were young, so I have a few suggestions which worked for me (by the way, we didn't have dvd players back then!).





Before we ever left on a trip, I would get (or make) a map and mark the route so they could see where we were going. I would pick towns with funny names or places with history attached to them as ';markers'; - example, by the time we get to Bent Fork, we will be half-way there. I would also have them look up some of the places in the encyclopedia (no internet back then) so they would know something about them. Sometimes I would let them choose (between several hotels equal in cost, amenities, and quality) our hotel. Or, before we could afford hotels, I would let them look in our campground atlas and help select one.





Another thing I did was to assemble a ';goody bag'; for each of my children. I would gift wrap and put small, inexpensive things suitable for each child in the individual bags (example - crayons, coloring books, puzzle books, small cars, little handheld puzzles, etc.) Then I would pass out the items at specific times (two hours into the trip, etc.). They could unwrap them and play with them.





We made cassette tapes of the kids' favorite songs and played them. We also made tapes of stories/books they liked. We read and told stories to them (live). We played every car game you can imagine - car license bingo, ';20 Questions,'; I Spy, and ';A is for Apple.'; We sang camp songs - ';99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall,'; etc.





We stopped every 2-3 hours for a little break and let the kids get out of the car and walk around. We also carefully selected places with playgrounds/play structures when we stopped for lunch so the kids could slide, climb and run around for a while. I made sure to pack snacks like string cheese, crackers, and fruit to pass out when they said they were hungry so they would not eat too much junk food. We had water and lemonade to reduce the demands for soda.





As I said, all of my kids are adults now, so it's obvious that they did not kill one another while traveling, and we clearly did not kill them (or they us) either.Can you give me some advice for LONG DRIVES with small kids?
we had the same crew with the same ages and would travel from the midwest to florida and or california. The key was to rotate the kids thru the back seat, making sure no one was stuck in the middle and everyone got their turn at a window. In addition to the DVD and video games, we also played games with colors of cars and state license plates. Sounds hokey, but it worked. The best thing to do was limit their time in the car and make sure to have swimming pool time in the afternoon and adventures each evening (mini golf or someplace unique to eat dinner). We always made the trip part of the adventure and shared the planning with the maps for them... We actually got each one of them their own map from AAA, so they could follow where we were. Even the 2 YO would look at her map, could not read it, but felt like she could....





Good luck on with your adventure..
try to get them to sleep in the car if possible, the portable dvd and video games should keep them fairly preoccupied,


just make sure there is enough to go around so they aren't fighting over some of the items,


maybe you could tell them to bring anything they would like to play with in the car?


in all honesty though driving gets uncomfortable for everyone at some point so just plan some stops in between where they can get out and stretch their legs.
We bribe our children. For every hour they are good, no fighting, they can earn a surprise. Sometimes it is a special snack, sometimes it is a special toy, or a new book. I try to shop at a dollar store for all of my goodies. For our cross country trip, I am stocking up at ebay also. They have DS games the kids don't have, very cheap.
When we used to take long trips like that my parents would put our little TV in the car and my sister and I would watch that. Let your kids pick 2 or 3 movies that are there favorite. So you would have a total of about 9 movies for the trip. Also, avoid any situation in which a fight could start.
Dramamine.
We drive to Disney every year with the kids. This year we went in March and drove for almost 24 hours (we stopped at a hotel for the night). I have a 8 year old, 5 year old, and 3 year old twins. I was also 4 few weeks pregnant at the time, so I was very nauseous.





Pack a separate luggage of colouring books, car games, DVDs, CDs, books and new toys they have never seen before, keep this at the front. Don't dump all the toys out immediately, wait until you seriously NEED them (when the kids become crabby). Bring another luggage to keep at the front of the car with snacks and drinks (dry good preferably). Again, don't pull this out until you truly need it.





A portable DVD player is great, but have you ever considered getting a car TV? I find those more practical because they don't have to be held by anyone, you can control the sound from the front, and it's at a height where everyone can see it. You can get a good one for $200-$300. Trust me, it's SO SO SO worth it.





Stopping so many times may become a hassle, we stopped once and just getting everyone from the car to the room and then back was really annoying and we were exhausted by the time we arrived to our destination. We did a 24 hour drive with only an 8 hour stop to have a decent sleep and a decent breakfast. Next year we won't even do that.





Good luck!
Hi, I'm 12 and I have 3 siblings, a 5 year old, 6 year old, and a 11 month old. My 5 year old brother gets very entertained with video games, If you have a 5 year old son, that should entertain him. also to entertain your children, you should print out coloring pages that they want with any things they wanna color with.





Make sure you stop in some places so the kids don't have to get uncomfortable. Be prepared for your kids complaining, cuz that hapens with me and my brother and sisters. bring some music cd's of their choice. Try to be patient with them. Play some games with them, like: I spy, tell them to look for certain things, etc.





Let them pick what they want for the trip, like their favorite books, if you have a writable CD, you could download some episodes of their favorite shows. Here are some links: http://pbskids.org/findit/search_results.html?q=downloads%26amp;x=57%26amp;y=11





http://www.tv.com/search.php?type=11%26amp;stype=all%26amp;tag=search%3Bfrontdoor%26amp;qs=episode+downloads





Hope I helped!