This is a guest post written by Lauren Dzuris. Lauren runs FindMyCarSeat, a baby car seat website that helps soon to be parents find the perfect car seat for their child, while giving them tips and advice on everything from pregnancy to caring for your baby.
Ah, it’s finally summertime! This means the children are out of school, and we’re able to use our vacation time at work. When the family is free for a week or two, what is better than spending that time together somewhere else like on a vacation?
Summer is a very popular time for families to get together, for traveling and for getting out of the house. What makes it difficult though if you’re trying to stay within a certain budget is flying to your destination. Usually as a family, it is much cheaper to drive than to fly. The only problem with this is how are we supposed to keep our children entertained for several hours straight in a car?
Don’t let your trip start out bad by having a dull car ride. Instead have some fun with a few of these ideas! These will keep your little ones entertained and having fun on the way there and on the way home!
Nintendo: It seems like almost every kid has some kind of Nintendo these days. Whether they want to bring their Nintendo DS or their PS3, it will make a good companion throughout the trip! Have this ready for them, fully charged and a few extra games for them to play.
Books: Reading is great for children. It gets their imagination going and their brain thinking. Bring along some books they’d like to read or perhaps some children’s magazines. This will keep them busy for a few hours!
Portable games: Go to your local superstore and you will see that in the game selection they will have portable games. These games are great and can be taken on a road trip. They are designed for the car and make it much easier to play than a real game.
DVDs: If your child doesn’t have a portable DVD player, maybe it’s a good idea to rent a vehicle with one to take on vacation. Today, several cars (mostly vans) have DVD entertainment systems in the back. These are fairly cheap to rent, it will help you avoid putting miles on your car and it will be great for the whole family!
Classic games: There is nothing wrong with the classic games that we used to play in the car as a child. Whether you want to count the license plates from different states, guess which cars are on the road testing your knowledge or you play the alphabet game (you choose a letter to begin like “a” and say apple and then the next person uses a word that starts with an “e” since apple ends with “e” and so on.) you will have some fun and bring back some memories of when you were a child! Have some games thought up beforehand and get ready to play them!
Keeping children entertained seems to either be very easy or very hard to do. Think of how you’ll keep busy and ways that your children can keep busy and having fun. Road trips don’t have to be boring! They can be a great way to bond, play and have fun before the vacation even starts!
Lauren is a stay at home mom that works part-time on her website FindMyCarSeat.com. She enjoys spending time with her children, taking walks around the neighborhood and scrapbooking.
Been years since our children were at the age that they had to be entertained but this post did bring back memories of how they either read books or listened to Sony Walkmans (yes I know that dates me) to entertain themselves.