Our TOP 5 ‘Must Haves’ in the car when you travel with little kids!

Our Top 5 Must Haves in the car when you travel with little kids is probably very similar to most families! The little things that we carry all came from experiences..the good, the bad and the vomit covered UGLY…hahaha…

Do you remember what travelling and roads trips were like before kids??

Things were a bit dreamy…relaxing in the car, stopping when and if we wanted…feet up…maybe reading a book or listening to our favourite music…

After kids….well, things changed quite a bit…

 

I remember people warning us and giving us travel tips…but we really didn’t “get” it until we started to experience it all ourselves…

One of our first experiences resulted in the start of our own “MUST HAVE in the car” List…

We were travelling to visit some friends in the country and the road was like a rollercoaster…up and down…up and down. After a while my stomach started to churn and I said to Wayne, “I wonder if Ashlee will get car sick like me?” Literally 2 minutes later we found out!

Yup… there was vomit everywhere…not chunky…but that milky smelly spew that all parents have ingrained in their nostrils… we pulled over, opened the back door and thought “CRAP”!

We were not prepared… and soon discovered the first MUST HAVE’s for our list…must haves that we did not have with us and that we now ALWAYS have in our car.

I remember staring at our little girl (who was not upset at all) and thinking…what the hell am I going to use to clean all this up…. I did not have a towel…I had no wipes…no tissues…it was turning into a smelly mess…and we were feeling like pretty crappy parents.

No# 1 – TOWELS

We have 2 old towels in the car at all times now…one, folded up under the front seat…it is out of the way, does not take up any room and is there for emergencies…car sick spews, spilt drinks, little accidents…we then have another old towel in the boot…just to be safe…

The second thing that we didn’t have on the day that Ashlee spray painted the inside of the car was a Change of clothes.
No# 2 – CHANGE OF CLOTHES

Yup…my own mum’s words were ringing in my ears… “Never leave the house without a change of clothes…”…so that is number two.  Making sure there is a spare set of clothes that are handy, readily available…it is not fun digging through the van, luggage and bags on the side of the road….so, on top of the towel, under the front seat, we always put a little bag with knickers, tshirt, pants and socks…they live there now…our ‘just in case’ stash… you just need to remember to change them for bigger sizes as the kids grow.  Which we discovered on another trip when we tried to squeeze Kate into a small size 2 tshirt when she was now a size 4…oops!

No# 3 – WIPES

When the kids were small and in nappies, we always had wipes with us….but after nappies, we found that didn’t have wipes when we really needed them… sticky fingers, food all over their face, little spills, dirt and grime after a play at the truck stop….so handy…we always have a pack in the door of the car, or in the console or glove box.

No# 4 – SPARE WATER

This might seem like a no brainer…everyone carries water!? On the fateful day of Ashlee’s car spew, she had a little water bottle, I had a water bottle with only a little bit left…I used all that water in the clean up and needed more….then I was left with no water for the rest of our journey…and we were in the middle of nowhere…I remember thinking to myself “I wish I had a spare bottle of water”….so now…yes, we always carry an extra bottle of water inside the car.

No# 5 – SPARE SLEEPING TOY/COMFORTER

Yes…you guessed it… Ashlee had spewed all over her “pinky”…a small little teddy that she slept with at night and in the car…it was now covered in vomit, wet and useless…I think I may have had a small heart attack thinking about what the hell I was going to do on the car trip home… so now… A spare “pinky” and a spare ‘Snowy” (which is Kates little teddy) can be found in the console…I think we went through a year at one point when we did not use the ‘back ups”…but on that day when we did…geez, we were so grateful they were there.

They are our 5 Must Have items that remain in our car at all times.

We would love to hear about what items you can’t leave home without…

Happy Travels,

Cheers

Adele

“Home to our Family Travel Journals & Log Books”