Bonus blog: Travelling with the littles
My parents used to live in the Eastern Cape and my in-laws in the Western Cape. Over the years we did a fair few miles of long-distance travelling with our children when they were under 6. It’s a unique challenge, for sure!
How to keep them occupied and most importantly, happy, without a screen for 12 hours at a time?! We developed a number of hacks over the years I want to share with you in case it’s useful to you as the holidays are upon us!
Tap into their obsessions
Under 6s always have that one obsession that they have to have regular doses of. It could be a picture book, or a fluffy toy, a particular TV program or a piece of machinery. My son was obsessed with lawnmowers (he pronounced it maw-nee-naws) and tractors. I made him an A5 sized flip file with pictures of lawnmowers and tractors. I did my usual cheap trick of buying up magazines from the local charity shop and cutting out the relevant pictures. He flipped through that little book a lot!
Drawing stations
How do you create a place to draw in the car? My clever husband made these plywood boards that fitted over the kids laps and then painted them with blackboard paint and it worked like a charm – mostly. The upside was chalk can get washed off anything. The downside was that chalk can get lost dropped and lost easily… If you can troubleshoot how to keep the chalk contained well, it’s a win!
When they got a little older, we gave them whiteboards with a whiteboard marker with a string attached. This is for a more responsible 5 year old who is coached on NOT drawing on the seat or their sister.
Stories
We made use of our many stories on CD (back in the day) and listened to stories narrated by well-known actors that served to entertain us too! The Three Little Pigs read by Rick Mayall was a favourite of us all! These days with Audible, children’s podcasts and YouTube you’re spoilt for choice.
Similarly, we’d have sing-a- longs to their favourite music. Can be slightly more tedious (Baby Shark, anyone?), but if you’re smart introduce them to your music and then everyone is happy!
Books
Bring along their favourite books to flip through. The cardboard, more hardy books that can stand a bit of chaos in the back seat might be best.
Snack packs*
This, far and away, was the best hack we made use of. Pack a couple of lunch boxes for each child with a selection of their favourite snacks. I would choose stuff that were real treats, like those triangle cheesies or mini cheddars. In each box (identical for each child, of course) there would be some fruit and veg cut up and some treats of a sweet and savoury variety. Carrot sticks, cucumber sticks, strawberries, naartjie pieces, dry wors and bell peppers were all enjoyed. And of course, sweeties!
Important: Think through any choking hazards very carefully.
*One thing to consider when you’re packing your snack packs is what the terrain is like that you’ll be travelling through. For example, if there are a lot of twists and turns, go easy on the rich food, or any food for a while! We once left my folk’s house and they immediately asked for strawberries and strawberry yoghurt (I don’t recommend yoghurt AT ALL in the car. Been there and made that messy mistake!), a couple of hours and twisty roads later and we had a “strawberry vomit” on our hands. Which obviously we still talk about to this day. Urgh.
Keep it Clean
Put their car seats on top of old towels. It saves so much time cleaning up afterwards. Have old cloth nappies or towels available to wipe up anything you need to wipe up (without needing to go into detail at this point). Have a LOT of wet wipes on hand, as well as some water for a spot of rinsing off things and children. As well as some empty bread bags (reuse, recyle) for putting dirty clothes or tissues or wet wipes into.
Those were our travel hacks, what are yours?
If you’ll be on the roads this holiday, stay safe and have a wonderful time!
