Predictably unpredictable help wanted (cw: bodily functions)
July 29, 2024 8:28 PM Subscribe
The last couple of times we’ve taken a long family car trip, one of our kids has thrown up at a specific time-point into the trip. We’re about to take another trip, and I want to help our kid feel more comfortable, and avoid the throwing up if possible. Here are the snowflakes:
The trip is around 12 hours long.
The throwing up happens between 90 minutes and 2 hours into the trip, like clockwork. It happens both on the outgoing trip and on the return drive.
The strange thing is that after throwing up, the kid feels fine for the rest of the trip. 10 plus hours with no issues.
The kid just turned 6, so hasn't been able to give us much help in figuring out why this pattern is happening. We’ve tried shifting a lot of things to try to pinpoint a cause, and have been unsuccessful so far. The following things haven’t affected the pattern:
Splitting the trip up over 2 days (aka stopping every hour or so for air and running around)
Eating a light meal before getting in the car
Starting the ride on an empty stomach
Eating light snacks during the ride
Eating only when stopped
Sipping water during the ride
Drinks only when stopped
Ginger candy
Play activities only (no reading)
Windows open for airflow
Anti-nausea medication recommended by kid’s pediatrician (don’t remember the specific brand, but it wasn’t Dramamine)
Sea bands wrist bands
Rubbing alcohol cotton balls in a smelling bottle
(Still yet to try, which we plan on doing this time around:
covering the kid’s window completely
Kid’s chewable Dramamine an hour before getting in the car.)
So my question is, what gives? It’s like there’s a forcefield a hundred-ish miles away from our starting point that no one else in the family can feel. Any ideas on what could be causing a child stomach distress an hour and a half to two hours into the car trip, and only then? Any suggestions on additional things to try?
The trip is around 12 hours long.
The throwing up happens between 90 minutes and 2 hours into the trip, like clockwork. It happens both on the outgoing trip and on the return drive.
The strange thing is that after throwing up, the kid feels fine for the rest of the trip. 10 plus hours with no issues.
The kid just turned 6, so hasn't been able to give us much help in figuring out why this pattern is happening. We’ve tried shifting a lot of things to try to pinpoint a cause, and have been unsuccessful so far. The following things haven’t affected the pattern:
Splitting the trip up over 2 days (aka stopping every hour or so for air and running around)
Eating a light meal before getting in the car
Starting the ride on an empty stomach
Eating light snacks during the ride
Eating only when stopped
Sipping water during the ride
Drinks only when stopped
Ginger candy
Play activities only (no reading)
Windows open for airflow
Anti-nausea medication recommended by kid’s pediatrician (don’t remember the specific brand, but it wasn’t Dramamine)
Sea bands wrist bands
Rubbing alcohol cotton balls in a smelling bottle
(Still yet to try, which we plan on doing this time around:
covering the kid’s window completely
Kid’s chewable Dramamine an hour before getting in the car.)
So my question is, what gives? It’s like there’s a forcefield a hundred-ish miles away from our starting point that no one else in the family can feel. Any ideas on what could be causing a child stomach distress an hour and a half to two hours into the car trip, and only then? Any suggestions on additional things to try?
I used to get carsick as a kid. It was not unusual for me to get sick once and then be OK the rest of the day.
Unfortunately I don’t think it’s safe at age 6 but the one thing that worked for me, and that I make a practice of to this day, is to always sit in the front seat. Having a full view of the road keeps my mind and body a lot more in sync and prevents nausea.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:07 PM on July 29, 2024 [8 favorites]
Unfortunately I don’t think it’s safe at age 6 but the one thing that worked for me, and that I make a practice of to this day, is to always sit in the front seat. Having a full view of the road keeps my mind and body a lot more in sync and prevents nausea.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:07 PM on July 29, 2024 [8 favorites]
Is he playing on a phone or handheld game at all? Especially for back seat travel, the only sure safe activity for me is looking out the windows. I can't concentrate on anything handheld for more than a moment. I can tell when I'm feeling woozy and stop doing the thing, and haven't actually puked in a car since I was little. But at 6 your kiddo will not have this awareness yet, especially if all his attention is on an attention-grabbing device.
posted by fritley at 9:27 PM on July 29, 2024 [7 favorites]
posted by fritley at 9:27 PM on July 29, 2024 [7 favorites]
Speaking as a kid who used to throw up when we go back home to my parents' hometown and then no more, mysteriously, until I realized years later that we used to have to take the mountainous colonial roads and then later switched when highways came in: check the terrain of your trip (even the sea levels?). And yes, I also improved once I got my vomiting done and out of the way.
posted by cendawanita at 9:27 PM on July 29, 2024 [8 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 9:27 PM on July 29, 2024 [8 favorites]
Best answer: I was a carsick kid and I had to learn to look out the window - at at least middle distance and not, like, the near edge of the road. Even if I wanted to read (ugh, hurl, even now) or look inside the car. And it was always worse if I was too warm/overdressed for the car.
posted by janell at 10:06 PM on July 29, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by janell at 10:06 PM on July 29, 2024 [4 favorites]
Best answer: I suffer from motion sickness to this day. I rely on drugs. But before I realized there were effective drugs and especially as child I found it helpful to learn how to look out of the window. So I’d not recommend covering it but instead explaining to him what to look at.
posted by koahiatamadl at 10:12 PM on July 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by koahiatamadl at 10:12 PM on July 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
Speaking as someone who still gets motion sick in cars, is he looking out the window most of the time? Or is he paying attention to a tablet/game console/book/whatever inside the car? Reading isn't the problem, it's looking at the apparently stationary interior of the car while feeling the non-stationary motion of it. It's exacerbated by a lot of the things you mention (heat, especially, keep the car cool if you can), but that's really the main thing and nothing else really works for me aside from sleeping through the ride. Even Dramamine only really takes the edge off and doesn't allow me to do more than sleep.
Couldn't say why he feels better afterwards even if he continues doing the same things but the human body is weird and maybe throwing up just kinda tricks it into thinking he's 'cured' of whatever malady was giving him confusing signals. Or he realizes what the problem is himself but doesn't want to give up the distractions until he feels bad enough to throw up.
posted by Aleyn at 10:20 PM on July 29, 2024
Couldn't say why he feels better afterwards even if he continues doing the same things but the human body is weird and maybe throwing up just kinda tricks it into thinking he's 'cured' of whatever malady was giving him confusing signals. Or he realizes what the problem is himself but doesn't want to give up the distractions until he feels bad enough to throw up.
posted by Aleyn at 10:20 PM on July 29, 2024
Best answer: Play games that incentivize looking out the windows— go through the alphabet and find words on signs beginning with A, then B, etc.
Something like audiobooks may distract him and keep him looking out the window and his mind off any growing nausea.
posted by supercres at 10:33 PM on July 29, 2024 [4 favorites]
Something like audiobooks may distract him and keep him looking out the window and his mind off any growing nausea.
posted by supercres at 10:33 PM on July 29, 2024 [4 favorites]
My sister as a kid and to this day has to sit in the front seat to prevent car sickness.
posted by Balthamos at 11:14 PM on July 29, 2024
posted by Balthamos at 11:14 PM on July 29, 2024
Best answer: I was highly prone to motion sickness as a kid, and it can hit me as an adult as well. (It didn't help that my dad was a smoker.)
In my case, the carsickness is due to chronic migraine. Do migraines run in your family? Does your child show sensitivity to light, noise, strong scents?
Kids tend to show migraine as motion sickness and stomach issues, vs head pain, so if any of this rings true it's worth a conversation with the pediatrician.
With my own carsick kid, I offer chewable Dramamine half an hour before the trip. I dress her in light, breathable clothes and stretchy shoes. I fix her a little bento box of road trip snacks that are light and easy on the stomach, like crackers and pretzels. For beverages, water and juice boxes (but nothing orange, orange juice is rough on the stomach).
I encourage activities that involve looking forward out the windows, like spotting signs and finding cows.
I also keep a "carsick kit" in the trunk.
It's a plastic zip up bag with a full change of clothes (including underwear, socks and shoes) and a bunch of wet wipes. That way, if she does have an Exorcist moment, it's easy to clean her up and seal the barfy clothes away until we can get them washed.
posted by champers at 2:52 AM on July 30, 2024
In my case, the carsickness is due to chronic migraine. Do migraines run in your family? Does your child show sensitivity to light, noise, strong scents?
Kids tend to show migraine as motion sickness and stomach issues, vs head pain, so if any of this rings true it's worth a conversation with the pediatrician.
With my own carsick kid, I offer chewable Dramamine half an hour before the trip. I dress her in light, breathable clothes and stretchy shoes. I fix her a little bento box of road trip snacks that are light and easy on the stomach, like crackers and pretzels. For beverages, water and juice boxes (but nothing orange, orange juice is rough on the stomach).
I encourage activities that involve looking forward out the windows, like spotting signs and finding cows.
I also keep a "carsick kit" in the trunk.
It's a plastic zip up bag with a full change of clothes (including underwear, socks and shoes) and a bunch of wet wipes. That way, if she does have an Exorcist moment, it's easy to clean her up and seal the barfy clothes away until we can get them washed.
posted by champers at 2:52 AM on July 30, 2024
Ok. Are the kids eating, then you are packing and driving?
It may be like swimming, and your kid needs 90-120 min to be ok before driving.
posted by hal_cy_on at 3:13 AM on July 30, 2024 [2 favorites]
It may be like swimming, and your kid needs 90-120 min to be ok before driving.
posted by hal_cy_on at 3:13 AM on July 30, 2024 [2 favorites]
Chiming in as another formerly travel-sickness-afflicted child. Ninety minutes to two hours sounds about right to me - I'd have been feeling queasy for a fair while by then, but that's about when it would go critical. It was rare for me to throw up twice in a trip, however long - thankfully, given that I typically only had the one sickbox (an old ice-cream tub with a good seal to its lid) available. We did everything "right" that we could do right: open windows whenever possible, never reading in the car, always looking out of the window, sucking hard candy (barley sugar, mints, acid lemon drops), water on hand to drink. My parents used to give me children's travel sickness pills before we set out; they were chewable, nominally fruit-flavoured, and completely ineffective. I feel faintly queasy just remembering the taste. For distraction on the journey, since reading was out, we used to play I-Spy and car numberplate games, or listen to books on tape. I would still, inevitably, be sick on any journey lasting much more than an hour.
All of which is to say: what you're describing sounds par for the course to me.
As an adult, I still suffer from travel sickness, and because I'm *not* six, I can tell you about it.
Particular triggers include stop-start travel, winding roads, bumpy roads, being too hot, strong smells, reading (or sustained focusing on anything else inside the car), and travelling in the back seat.
Things that help, but not necessarily enough to stave it off: sitting in the front, looking through the windscreen, fresh air, a bottle of cold water (both to clutch and to drink from), salted or salt-and-vinegar crisps (potato chips), taking a long break in the fresh air to reset the clock a bit.
Things that solve it completely: a different, adult-formulated medication.
A couple of other thoughts:
- By the age of six I was able to swallow (small) tablets perfectly well with water, and would have far preferred a tasteless, easily-swallowed coated tablet or capsule over the flavoured chewables, which did *not* taste like strawberry, and which I couldn't avoid tasting no matter how quickly I swallowed them. Your kid might be the same.
- Minty sweets don't quell (my) nausea, but they are at least reasonably pleasant to throw up. Chocolate is weirdly terrible. So are apples.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 4:05 AM on July 30, 2024 [4 favorites]
All of which is to say: what you're describing sounds par for the course to me.
As an adult, I still suffer from travel sickness, and because I'm *not* six, I can tell you about it.
Particular triggers include stop-start travel, winding roads, bumpy roads, being too hot, strong smells, reading (or sustained focusing on anything else inside the car), and travelling in the back seat.
Things that help, but not necessarily enough to stave it off: sitting in the front, looking through the windscreen, fresh air, a bottle of cold water (both to clutch and to drink from), salted or salt-and-vinegar crisps (potato chips), taking a long break in the fresh air to reset the clock a bit.
Things that solve it completely: a different, adult-formulated medication.
A couple of other thoughts:
- By the age of six I was able to swallow (small) tablets perfectly well with water, and would have far preferred a tasteless, easily-swallowed coated tablet or capsule over the flavoured chewables, which did *not* taste like strawberry, and which I couldn't avoid tasting no matter how quickly I swallowed them. Your kid might be the same.
- Minty sweets don't quell (my) nausea, but they are at least reasonably pleasant to throw up. Chocolate is weirdly terrible. So are apples.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 4:05 AM on July 30, 2024 [4 favorites]
Best answer: You could try stopping for a ten-minute break before the earliest you've ever seen vomiting occur. If nothing else, this would tell you whether or not a break will reset the timer. Routinely breaking long drives also makes fatigue-related driving errors less likely, which makes it a positive addition to your children's early impressions of what normal human behaviour looks like.
posted by flabdablet at 4:18 AM on July 30, 2024 [8 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 4:18 AM on July 30, 2024 [8 favorites]
I would feel carsick a lot as a kid, though never to the point of throwing up. The two things I did were look up and away towards the distance, avoid reading, etc., and open the window to get fresh air. The latter might be a placebo, but it's still the first thing I try to do when I feel nauseous in a car. Today cars aren't really designed to have windows open while driving at higher speeds, which makes this harder, but when I was a kid windows were only closed when the AC was on and those were the times I'd get nauseous.
posted by trig at 4:22 AM on July 30, 2024
posted by trig at 4:22 AM on July 30, 2024
Best answer: check the terrain of your trip (even the sea levels?)
There's a specific effect at work here. The organs of balance are part of the middle ear, and can be affected by air pressure differences across the eardrum, sometimes in ways that induce low-level vertigo. So if you're changing altitude en route and kiddo's eustachian tubes are not completely on top of their game, that might be a factor.
when I was a kid windows were only closed when the AC was on and those were the times I'd get nauseous
If you're running AC with the windows closed, make sure the ventilation system isn't also set to recirculate interior air rather than drawing air from outside. Recirc is for temporary use when following a stinky truck or driving in dust or smoke, but a lot of people like to use it just to make their AC need to work less hard. But if you're in a car with the windows closed, ventilation set on recirc and a whole family of occupants, carbon dioxide levels are going to rise very quickly. Excessive CO2 will eventually bring on nausea in any human being, but what counts as excessive for any specific human being varies quite widely.
posted by flabdablet at 4:33 AM on July 30, 2024 [14 favorites]
There's a specific effect at work here. The organs of balance are part of the middle ear, and can be affected by air pressure differences across the eardrum, sometimes in ways that induce low-level vertigo. So if you're changing altitude en route and kiddo's eustachian tubes are not completely on top of their game, that might be a factor.
when I was a kid windows were only closed when the AC was on and those were the times I'd get nauseous
If you're running AC with the windows closed, make sure the ventilation system isn't also set to recirculate interior air rather than drawing air from outside. Recirc is for temporary use when following a stinky truck or driving in dust or smoke, but a lot of people like to use it just to make their AC need to work less hard. But if you're in a car with the windows closed, ventilation set on recirc and a whole family of occupants, carbon dioxide levels are going to rise very quickly. Excessive CO2 will eventually bring on nausea in any human being, but what counts as excessive for any specific human being varies quite widely.
posted by flabdablet at 4:33 AM on July 30, 2024 [14 favorites]
Most of what helped me as a kid has been mentioned, but one other thing - as an adult I now recognize that sometimes what gets me is certain ways that light shines or flickers when in a moving car. It's somewhat similar to the way I get photosensitive during migraines. Good dark sunglasses can really help with that. (As could, potentially, driving at a different time of day when the light hits differently.)
posted by Stacey at 4:59 AM on July 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by Stacey at 4:59 AM on July 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
For reading without spiking symptoms, Roald Dahl is very fun in all titles as an audiobook. The Penderwicks is cozy fun too, but the family dog deals with motion sickness which the family is very normal about. I hope it all works out.
posted by childofTethys at 5:23 AM on July 30, 2024
posted by childofTethys at 5:23 AM on July 30, 2024
My kiddo does this too! Winding, hilly, bumpy roads (a trifecta we unfortunately experience a lot) are the worst, especially if the driver is aggressively passing cars or swerving to avoid potholes; she also tends to get sick if she's sleepy and she's got the nods. The side-to-side motion seems to do something awful to her inner ears, and that triggers her car-sickness.
The thing that seemed to help the most was moving the booster seat to the middle so that she can see out the windshield.
We also:
- take a break before we hit the trigger time (for us the barfing is usually between 45-60 minutes)
- play I-Spy games and listen to lots of different music to keep her alert and not focused on feeling sick
- plan trips to take the highway (straighter, usually in better repair) rather than twisty regional roads
Good luck. Car-sickness is awful for everyone, and I hope you find a solution that works for you!
posted by notquitejane at 5:39 AM on July 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
The thing that seemed to help the most was moving the booster seat to the middle so that she can see out the windshield.
We also:
- take a break before we hit the trigger time (for us the barfing is usually between 45-60 minutes)
- play I-Spy games and listen to lots of different music to keep her alert and not focused on feeling sick
- plan trips to take the highway (straighter, usually in better repair) rather than twisty regional roads
Good luck. Car-sickness is awful for everyone, and I hope you find a solution that works for you!
posted by notquitejane at 5:39 AM on July 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
Best answer: One of my kids gets nausea from anxiety. When she was younger, there were at least a couple of times she threw up near the start of a long trip and I think it was just the excitement/anxiety of doing something big and out of the ordinary. I wonder if your kid is actually more anxious than carsick. On top of the anxiety that can come from doing something exciting and out of the daily routine, by now they probably have anxiety about throwing up. I feel like making special preparations (covering the window) or setting special rules (no reading) might tend to make it worse.
My kid also often feels sick if she gets up earlier than usual. Could that be a factor for your kid? Do you start these long trips really early in the morning? Maybe your best bet is just to try to make the trips feel as ordinary and no big deal as possible, while making sure there's a plastic bag next to your kid in case they need to throw up.
posted by Redstart at 5:39 AM on July 30, 2024 [3 favorites]
My kid also often feels sick if she gets up earlier than usual. Could that be a factor for your kid? Do you start these long trips really early in the morning? Maybe your best bet is just to try to make the trips feel as ordinary and no big deal as possible, while making sure there's a plastic bag next to your kid in case they need to throw up.
posted by Redstart at 5:39 AM on July 30, 2024 [3 favorites]
I was a child who got car sick. People will gasp, but this was before anyone in the family had handheld games to victim blame.
Unfortunately my experience is that no intervention helped, no drug no break time no special rituals, not even sitting in the passenger seat. As I got older I figured out how to say stop before I barfed, but I still felt awful. The only thing that ever had any real impact on my car sickness was turning 16, getting my driver's license, and switching seats to let me drive when I started feeling ill.
I'm a big grown up now, fully aware of my handheld game/phone status, and I still feel car sick if I'm a passenger for more than an hour. So I nearly always volunteer to drive.
All I ever wanted to do on car trips was to be able to sleep like my brother and mom could so easily. If I couldn't sleep I wanted to read. I was never able to do either. Road trips were always miserable. My heart goes out to your kid.
posted by phunniemee at 5:48 AM on July 30, 2024 [3 favorites]
Unfortunately my experience is that no intervention helped, no drug no break time no special rituals, not even sitting in the passenger seat. As I got older I figured out how to say stop before I barfed, but I still felt awful. The only thing that ever had any real impact on my car sickness was turning 16, getting my driver's license, and switching seats to let me drive when I started feeling ill.
I'm a big grown up now, fully aware of my handheld game/phone status, and I still feel car sick if I'm a passenger for more than an hour. So I nearly always volunteer to drive.
All I ever wanted to do on car trips was to be able to sleep like my brother and mom could so easily. If I couldn't sleep I wanted to read. I was never able to do either. Road trips were always miserable. My heart goes out to your kid.
posted by phunniemee at 5:48 AM on July 30, 2024 [3 favorites]
When my neighbor's daughter was little, they would feed her a steak dinner the night before a trip. Turns out there's some science there: https://www.eatthis.com/motion-sickness/
The non-drowsy dramamine is called "Bonine" in our neck of the woods. IIRC the instructions actually recommend starting to take it the night before a trip? Or something like that; get a bunch of it in your system.
The folk etymology I always heard about motion sickness was that your brain registers the difference between still visuals (looking inside the car, reading, etc.) and your ears/whatever sensing organs are insisting that you're moving... Brain figures "shoot, we've been poisoned, evacuate the GI system." Maybe that's why some people feel relief after the first barf episode.... your brain can cross out "poisoned" as a thing to worry about.
posted by adekllny at 6:02 AM on July 30, 2024 [3 favorites]
The non-drowsy dramamine is called "Bonine" in our neck of the woods. IIRC the instructions actually recommend starting to take it the night before a trip? Or something like that; get a bunch of it in your system.
The folk etymology I always heard about motion sickness was that your brain registers the difference between still visuals (looking inside the car, reading, etc.) and your ears/whatever sensing organs are insisting that you're moving... Brain figures "shoot, we've been poisoned, evacuate the GI system." Maybe that's why some people feel relief after the first barf episode.... your brain can cross out "poisoned" as a thing to worry about.
posted by adekllny at 6:02 AM on July 30, 2024 [3 favorites]
Given the age of the child this could actually be migraines, especially if she sleeps after throwing up. You can try making sure that she is not getting too much light, and that the environment in the car is as quiet as you can make it. If you have jaunty fun music playing loudly to keep the kids revved up and enthusiastic and the driver alert, try what happens if you go with the driver wearing headphones and a quiet, dim environment for the kid.
Chances are sensory overload is at fault, and while it might just be visual and proprioceptive motion, cutting light and sound stimulus may make the other stimulus overload hit her less hard.
You may need to find something auditory for her to listen to, if you want her to try closing her eyes - an appropriate collection of audio books with her own headphones and pillows/soft luggage to get comfortable on might help.
There is an argument that providing the kid with a sick up bag will remind her that she's going to feel nauseated and therefore they should be withheld or it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy, but it sounds like her pattern is consistent enough you may want to condition her to think of throwing up as something she does easily, and without much discomfort once per trip, and get her confident that she won't puke on her clothes or surroundings or distress anyone when she does puke. As a former kid that puked a lot, learning to be an expert at dealing with my own nausea helped a lot.
Watch out for what she is eating. If every trip has involved a rest stop for treats at the one or two hour mark, where she gets pop, or a bag of gummie worms for the back seat, the barfing may be partially triggered by what she is eating. So make sure what you feed her isn't sweet and isn't disgusting coming up again. The backseat snacks could involve saltina crackers and cartons of now slightly warm milk, instead of orange or purple pop, and the entire problem could go away.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:17 AM on July 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
Chances are sensory overload is at fault, and while it might just be visual and proprioceptive motion, cutting light and sound stimulus may make the other stimulus overload hit her less hard.
You may need to find something auditory for her to listen to, if you want her to try closing her eyes - an appropriate collection of audio books with her own headphones and pillows/soft luggage to get comfortable on might help.
There is an argument that providing the kid with a sick up bag will remind her that she's going to feel nauseated and therefore they should be withheld or it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy, but it sounds like her pattern is consistent enough you may want to condition her to think of throwing up as something she does easily, and without much discomfort once per trip, and get her confident that she won't puke on her clothes or surroundings or distress anyone when she does puke. As a former kid that puked a lot, learning to be an expert at dealing with my own nausea helped a lot.
Watch out for what she is eating. If every trip has involved a rest stop for treats at the one or two hour mark, where she gets pop, or a bag of gummie worms for the back seat, the barfing may be partially triggered by what she is eating. So make sure what you feed her isn't sweet and isn't disgusting coming up again. The backseat snacks could involve saltina crackers and cartons of now slightly warm milk, instead of orange or purple pop, and the entire problem could go away.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:17 AM on July 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
And then there is the old method of doing your driving overnight, setting out at the kid's bedtime, with the kid in pajamas, and having the trip be so monotonous with nothing to see in the dark that the kid just sleeps, and although the trip gets finished in daylight, by the time they wake up the kid is pretty much acclimatized to the motion so they don't get sick at all.
This normally requires a driver who is good at adapting to shiftwork, and confident they won't get sleepy and become dangerous, and they take the day before the trip off work and sleep all day, while the other non driving adult does all the packing and preparing and child wrangling.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:24 AM on July 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
This normally requires a driver who is good at adapting to shiftwork, and confident they won't get sleepy and become dangerous, and they take the day before the trip off work and sleep all day, while the other non driving adult does all the packing and preparing and child wrangling.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:24 AM on July 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
This used to happen occasionally to my daughter, and unfortunately we never found a solution. She just grew out of it by the time she was 3 or so.
posted by number9dream at 7:06 AM on July 30, 2024
posted by number9dream at 7:06 AM on July 30, 2024
Another pressure point that helps with nausea is earlobes. Tell her if she feels queazy to pinch both earlobes between her thumb and forefinger (no fingernail) and squeeze really hard for a count of ten. Repeat as necessary, with at least a count of ten between activations.
Really works.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:18 AM on July 30, 2024 [3 favorites]
Really works.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:18 AM on July 30, 2024 [3 favorites]
Best answer: So one of the biggest issues with kids and motion sickness is you can't put them in the front seat so they can see the horizon. For a few bucks (and possibly some showmanship as they are quite silly-looking) you can try some motion sickness glasses that create a level horizon in forward and peripheral vision.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:45 AM on July 30, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by Lyn Never at 7:45 AM on July 30, 2024 [3 favorites]
Bonine is the way -- it works, for me, way better than dramamine and also doesn't turn me into a zombie.
posted by capnsue at 8:19 AM on July 30, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by capnsue at 8:19 AM on July 30, 2024 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Our daughter is just the same. It has improved as she got older, but the best way to prevent it is for her to be at the window with the wind in her face. So we drive with car windows open, which isn't ideal for A/C or listening to the car radio (but she wears headphones anyway). This is most important at slow speeds, urban traffic or twisty roads. We can usually get away with the windows closed on highways. Travel drugs never worked for her, the side effects were too bad.
The other thing is *planning* for travel sickness. Just assume it's going to happen, and pack accordingly. So she will always have ziplock bags within easy reach, and paper towels. She knows the drill so well we may not even know she had been sick. (Same on aeroplanes.)
posted by snarfois at 8:40 AM on July 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
The other thing is *planning* for travel sickness. Just assume it's going to happen, and pack accordingly. So she will always have ziplock bags within easy reach, and paper towels. She knows the drill so well we may not even know she had been sick. (Same on aeroplanes.)
posted by snarfois at 8:40 AM on July 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
It is worth having the good emesis bags for this as well. Bonus: you can pee in them if you have to.
posted by Lyn Never at 10:05 AM on July 30, 2024 [5 favorites]
posted by Lyn Never at 10:05 AM on July 30, 2024 [5 favorites]
Oh boy, I have been living this via 2 kids for 14 years. Our solution includes the following:
1. bonine (no water required) 30 mins before any ride >1 hr (keep in car if we forget to do ahead)
2. cold ginger ale with the child throughout ride (or coke), both are special
3. emesis bags in every car side pocket
Those goofy glasses didn't help. Sea bands didn't help. Looking at horizon didn't help (enough). Opening windows became impractical. Sitting up front helps but is also impractical for a young kid.
Good luck. We are just awaiting the day they can drive themselves...
posted by rabidsegue at 10:23 AM on July 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
1. bonine (no water required) 30 mins before any ride >1 hr (keep in car if we forget to do ahead)
2. cold ginger ale with the child throughout ride (or coke), both are special
3. emesis bags in every car side pocket
Those goofy glasses didn't help. Sea bands didn't help. Looking at horizon didn't help (enough). Opening windows became impractical. Sitting up front helps but is also impractical for a young kid.
Good luck. We are just awaiting the day they can drive themselves...
posted by rabidsegue at 10:23 AM on July 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
Seconding the emesis bags. Our kids get carsick because they don't ride in cars very often, but they've both learned how to use the barf bags. It's not fun when they vomit, but it's contained and not messy at least.
posted by ch1x0r at 11:58 AM on July 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by ch1x0r at 11:58 AM on July 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
Bonine (aka meclizine) is not listed for kids under 12 so I would check with your pediatrician before giving it. I'm hoping the kids dramamine works for you - one of my kids gets motion sick like me and it had made a huge difference.
posted by brilliantine at 1:51 PM on July 30, 2024
posted by brilliantine at 1:51 PM on July 30, 2024
We've had some nightmare car trips involving multiple sickness episodes on an 8 hour journey, it's the worst! What eventually worked for our kid is a combo of Sea Bands, a lot of Preggie Pops lollipops (I figured if they work for pregnancy morning sickness they must be doing something right), and absolutely no screens ever. We don't play car games because that's not our jam, we just force the kid to listen to our music choices and lots of podcasts. The kid is 14 now and not totally out of the woods on motion sickness, but he says the lollipops legit help. He also uses the lollipops & Sea Bands for school field trip bus rides and so far, so good (and his teachers have never had a problem with it because they'd rather have a kid sucking down lollipops than actively puking on the bus).
We've tried children's Dramamine a few times but it makes him tired and angry and has not been worth it, but that might be an issue unique to him.
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 6:27 AM on July 31, 2024
We've tried children's Dramamine a few times but it makes him tired and angry and has not been worth it, but that might be an issue unique to him.
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 6:27 AM on July 31, 2024
My daughter and I both get carsick in certain types of long car rides but not other car rides. The things these puke rides have in common are:
-heat/sun
-jerkiness--stop and go traffic is the main trigger, I think.
We can both do heat/sun on a smooth ride, and stop and go traffic in the cold, but stop and go traffic on a hot summer day... barf.
posted by millipede at 2:36 PM on July 31, 2024 [2 favorites]
-heat/sun
-jerkiness--stop and go traffic is the main trigger, I think.
We can both do heat/sun on a smooth ride, and stop and go traffic in the cold, but stop and go traffic on a hot summer day... barf.
posted by millipede at 2:36 PM on July 31, 2024 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: I wanted to circle back and report that we made the trip, both ways, without kiddo throwing up!
So thank you, all, for your care and insight in helping to troubleshoot this.
Here are all the things we did this time around:
- moved carseat location to the center seat for a better horizon view, and coached on how/where to look.
- gave children's Dramamine an hour-ish before getting in the car
- made an exercise stop after an hour of driving
- kept car entertainment to mostly audiobooks during the first half of the ride.
- limited car snacks to non-sweets
- temperature control: light, loose clothing, and keeping the ac on/temp down in the back seat
- made sure to keep the air fresh/non-recirculating
- put a bag of peppermint Stomach Settle drops within kiddo's reach for them to eat whenever they felt like they might need one, and kept a stash of barf bags within reach.
- we did get a pair of the motion sickness glasses, but kiddo didn't end up keeping them on long enough for them to make a difference.
posted by jolenex4 at 9:59 AM on August 14, 2024 [4 favorites]
So thank you, all, for your care and insight in helping to troubleshoot this.
Here are all the things we did this time around:
- moved carseat location to the center seat for a better horizon view, and coached on how/where to look.
- gave children's Dramamine an hour-ish before getting in the car
- made an exercise stop after an hour of driving
- kept car entertainment to mostly audiobooks during the first half of the ride.
- limited car snacks to non-sweets
- temperature control: light, loose clothing, and keeping the ac on/temp down in the back seat
- made sure to keep the air fresh/non-recirculating
- put a bag of peppermint Stomach Settle drops within kiddo's reach for them to eat whenever they felt like they might need one, and kept a stash of barf bags within reach.
- we did get a pair of the motion sickness glasses, but kiddo didn't end up keeping them on long enough for them to make a difference.
posted by jolenex4 at 9:59 AM on August 14, 2024 [4 favorites]
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posted by btfreek at 9:05 PM on July 29, 2024 [4 favorites]