Works For Me Wednesday – Toddler Travel Tips

Yay! It’s Wednesday again, which means Shannon, over at Rocks In My Dryer , hosts Works-For-Me Wednesday. If you have a problem the gals who meet there have a solution!

As we prepare for traveling with toddlers during the holidays, I figured I would share four of the tips that have made our road trips a bit easier.

1. Make sure they have something to drink, but not too much or you’ll be stopping every 30 minutes for a potty break.
2. Make sure you have a healthy handy snack for the beasts- Woody and Tigger love raisins, apple slices, or pretzels. The snacks stave off hunger pains, but aren’t loaded with tons of sugar which would make them wiggly and whiney.
3. Make sure you have a small blanket for each one. Making them share a large blanket is just asking for arguments and trouble.
4. Make sure you provide entertainment. Now we don’t have one of those fancy-dancy DVD players in our vehicles, so we make due with old-fashioned items. In my car, I keep a medium-sized storage bin between Woody and Tigger’s car seats. The bin holds all of their entertainment needs, i.e. books, magazines, toys, etc. In an effort to keep everything in the bin, I limited the size of the toys, the freebie toys that come with kid’s meals are the ones used most frequently. The magazine they absolutely love is Highlights. Their grandmother gave them a subscription for Christmas last year. When new issues arrive in the mail, they are immediately placed in a vehicle. Let me tell you they have provided hours and hours of entertainment.

These four things have really helped me both in town, and during those four hour road trips to my parent’s house. Content, happy children – works for me!

If you want to read my previous Works For Me Wednesday ideas, like Gloves for the Christmas Tree, Taming Talking Toys, Frugal Mom’s Photo Shop, or Organizing Toys ~ click here.

Edited to add: After reading Amy’s comment, I remembered another toy that has been a great help -the Leapster L-Max. The rules that apply at home, are still enforced in the car, so there’s a limited of “screen time”, but the boys do love playing the learning games.