Kids Car Games

When you are planning a long car trip with a baby try and organize it in such a way that you leave soon after the baby has been fed, so that they're not hungry and you won't be forced to stop and feed the baby until at least a few hours into your travel. Generally babies will sleep when they have a full stomach and the car is moving. However it is always a good idea to have a CD of soft music with you, just in case you need something to lull them to sleep with if they are having trouble settling in the car. Also it is a very good ideas to set up a travel planner or checklist of important things to remember in advance, so that you can take it on each trip.

Taking a long car trip with a toddler can be one of the most challenging experiences that you will undertake. Toddlers tend to have a short attention span, so once they are bored and become restless they can become a real handful.

For toddlers make sure that you bring snacks, food and drinks along with you for the entire trip and keep them handy so that you don't have to stop to get them. Most of the time this will keep the kids content, occupied and prevent the temper tantrums that toddlers are renowned for.

With younger children remember to pack some of their favourite toys, books, games and/or colouring books to keep them entertained. You can also make your child feel more comfortable and familiar with the surroundings of the car by bringing along their favourite blanket, doll or teddy bear.

A really good idea that we have found useful is to keep this favourite toy or teddy bear with you in the front seat as a sort of insurance policy, and only bring it out and give it to the child when you are well into your trip and in dire need of some peace and quiet.

Most toddlers love nursery rhymes and songs so always keep in the car a CD which you can play and all sing along to. This will help to not only keep your child happy and entertained but may also have the added benefit of putting them to sleep.

It may not always be possible but when you travel with a toddler try to leave around the middle of the day or whenever it is normally their nap time. This will increase the chance of them falling asleep in the car and hence give you a few hours of peaceful driving.

To keep older children and teenagers entertained in the car requires a little bit more work and forward planning. The best way to keep them quiet, however is to play some car games that will make the time pass by quicker.

An old favourite game is spotto where the children keep a lookout for a list of predefined objects such as a green car, telephone box, etc and the 1st person to see one gets to cross it off their list. Make the list up before you leave home, but do not make the items too hard as the kids may get bored after a while.

Other good games for the car are word games. One such word game involves choosing a topic such as capital cities and then each person takes it in turns to say a non-repeated capital city that begins with the letter that the previous person's word ended in. (ie: Paris => Seoul => Lima). When the game finishes you can just start again using a different topic.

For a good list of kids car games that you can play on your next holiday check out Kids Activities or seven ome other Games that are Educational.

Create a CD full of the family's favourite songs or classic tunes and have a sing-a-long in the car. You can even try karaoke in the car where each person takes it in turn to sing their favourite song by themselves.

Get from home a lot of trivia questions from a board game or book and have a trivia contest in the car between all of the passengers.

As a last resort you can always rely on a DVD or computer game to keep them entertained. Generally children and teenagers will not make a sound when they are watching their favourite DVD or playing a gaming console. The only problem with gaming consoles is that you must make sure that each child has one, and that you have packed plenty of batteries or a battery charger with you in the car.