Must-have Products for Travelling with Young Kids

Three years ago we moved 600 miles away from home. We had a three year old and an 18 month old at the time. The drive with two young children took about twelve hours and what a long twelve hours it was! Since I am a stay at home mom and the kids weren't in school yet we made trips home often. We aren't able to make it back as often now that they are in school, but we do go home pretty much every chance we get. I quickly learned that if I wanted to have any sanity left after the end of a twelve hour drive I needed something to keep the kids busy and entertained. I'll tell you about a few of my favorite items for keeping children entertained while traveling.

My favorite and probably the most obvious was our dvd player. We had one that came in the van we used to have. Boy was that nice! We could pop in a movie and knew that we were good to go for at least two hours. I didn't want them watching tv for the whole drive so we'd put a movie in once they got antsy and then later in the evening when we thought they might fall asleep. One of the things we all enjoyed was to pop in a fun sing along dvd. We'd turn it up and everyone would sing and that kept everyone entertained and made the drive go by faster. When we traded in our van for our SUV we gave up the built in dvd player. I hated to do that, but figured we'd manage somehow. We ended up buy two small dvd players the kids can take with them when we travel. The reason for buying was that I didn't want to hear any arguing over who wanted to watch what. They both have their own dvd player and their own movies and we are good to go!

Another thing I find helpful to take when traveling are the Melissa and Doug magnetic dress up sets. You can find these at www.melissaanddoug.com if you'd like to check them out. We have about four sets I think and you'd be surprised how long they keep my children busy. I have a six year old boy and he even enjoys playing with them. He has a male that he can dress in various outfits. He and my daughter will dress them up and pretend play for a bit with what they are wearing and then change them and on and on it goes. It's one of those things that they can pull out to play with and then put up when they get bored, but can pull them back out later. My daughter has her girls and all their clothing in a wooden basket with handles. Makes it easy to take a long wherever we go.

Another one of my favorites that is simple yet helpful is a coloring book and crayons. Both my kids love to color, especially my daughter. She just loves art in general so anything to do with crayons, paint or markers makes her happy. And it's easy to take along. Just toss some paper and or coloring books in a small tote or basket along with some crayons or markers and you are good to go. When my kids were younger we'd buy the color wonder paper and markers. This way I knew that there would only be ink on the paper and not all over my car. You can find them at pretty much any store like Target or Wal-Mart. You can also purchase them at www.crayolastore.com if you'd like. One thing we often do is tell our kids that they should make a card for whoever we are going to see. Typically it's the grandparents and they are always willing to do so. They will spend a fair amount of time doing art stuff and it's great!

There are so many things you can do to make traveling easier. We have a tote in the middle of our SUV between the kids' seats with various things. You might find books, transformers, barbies or baby dolls but any of them will work when you need to occupy your children for a small amount of time. I hope this helps the next time you are traveling with little ones!