Family Travel Tips: The Little Mermaid and the Car Sickness Emergency Box

We’re on our way home from the beach right now– one of many road trips we have been on this summer. We’ve learned on several of these longer drives (including one crazy morning in Cape Cod) that our little Cole has a tendency to get carsick! It is brutal, you guys. Those of you who have been surprised by a kiddo throwing up all over your car know how miserable it can be to clean up, especially when you weren’t prepared for such a mess. Cole’s road trip carsickness adventures have taught us a few things:

Our family can overcome unexpected, gross, inconvenient challenges. Woo hoo!
Preparedness is key (Hello, Car Sickness Emergency Box!)

Let’s address that first point with a little trip down memory lane to the first carsickness event of the summer… don’t worry, it has a happy ending! We woke early to drive to Oceanside to look for agates. About 45 minutes into the drive Cole became carsick, and without warning, threw up all over himself. We hadn’t brought any additional clothes (I was trying to pack minimally- lesson learned!), and had TWO wipes left in the pack. When I told Isla we would likely have to scrap our plans, her eyes welled up with tears, and I knew her little heart was breaking, as she had been SO excited for this outing. Rather than give up, we took a few deep breaths and chose to assess our options. We dug around in the back of the car and found a paper bag for Cole’s soiled clothes, one towel to cover his car seat, a shirt from a bag of Isaac’s clothes headed for donation, a hooded mermaid towel, and a hidden pack of wipes! After cleaning Cole and his seat the best we could and dressing him in the found items, we loaded back up in the car, rolled down all the windows, and pushed forward (driving much more cautiously through the curves). We made it to Oceanside and enjoyed a beautiful morning of beach combing. Isla was in agate heaven and Cole ran around the shoreline happily as a little mermaid. Isaac and I basked in the satisfaction that this potentially terrible experience turned into a memorable morning that helped teach our kids the value of persistence, flexibility, and creative problem solving.

Subsequent carsickness events inspired us to try and be a little more prepared for the dreaded clean up process. And voila, the Car Sickness Emergency Box was born!

We bought a Tupperware container and filled it with:

2 towels
2 garbage bags
2 large ziplocks/2 small ziplocks
1 paper bag
1 new pack of wipes
2 bottles of water
1 sleeve of Saltines (though it somehow didn’t make it into the photo)
A first aid kit (Not really for car sickness, but figured it was good to have one in the car anyways. We also added a few blister pads to this kit.)

In addition to the items in our box, we now MAKE SURE to pack at least 1 change of clothes for each of the kiddos in our diaper bag.

We tucked the emergency box in the back of the car and that is now where it lives.

Are there any other parents out there who have dealt with children’s carsickness? Any tips? Anything we should add to our box?