Reading other blogs I found some helpful advice on what to bring to entertain toddler in a car.
Here is what we did for our 15 month old on our round trip from Oceanside, Ca to Tillamook, Oregon; 16 hour road trip. She was teething the way to Oregon. Her top and bottom morals cut through. She was pretty sad the first leg of the trip.
We broke the trip up into 3 days and stopped more than I would without a child, about every two hours. On the return trip we took 2 days. The last day of travel was miserable for Lyra. She was feeling very trapped, as anyone would in strapped in a car seat for hours. We drove eight plus hours. She screamed much of the last hour, no toy was comforting.
What to bring? Lots of blogs have written about wrapping toys up to give while on the long road trip. Since Lyra is not into unwrapping gifts yet I used her empty shoe boxes to wrap up new or favorite toys with recycled ribbon from her 1st birthday. Here is some hopefully helpful information regarding the toys we brought.
Home
- Favorite books
- Cars and Kazoos- Left over 1st birthday party favors. Mommy and toddler played music together while daddy drove
- Dinosaurs
- Teething necklace- mom's chewbeads black necklace
- Bath toys- DON'T Forget the Bubbles!
Barnes & Noble
- Mother Goose Piano book- Nana bought this book before our trip at the Grove in LA. At the time I though, oh boy another toy. She is so spoiled. However, this book turned out to be a toddler favorite. We always new when she woke up because we heard tinkering on the plastic keys. She sat in her chair for hours playing the piano. Every so often we offered encouragement as the keys she struck demonstrated a glimmer of a tune. The book also offers toddlers a book to finger through and look at the pictures and not destroy.
Target
- LeapFrog Fridge Phonics Magnet Set- I thought she would play more with the magnets. Instead she pushed the song button repeatedly each drive. We heard the Wheels on the Bus and Alphabet song in a continuous loop.
Dollar Tree
- Foam alphabet letter puzzle - She loved popping out the letters and giving them to me to put in so she could pop them out again.
- Flute
- Elmo bath book
- *Found 6 disposable bibs in a pack, a steal really!
Apps
*Used for emergency situations when she would not be content (i.e. screaming). Don't judge :)
Ipad
- OkiPlay Peekaboo You- Lyra really enjoyed this app a lot because it was a newer Peekaboo app to her. I had add her pictures and a picture of her father to the app which features a peek-a-boo farmer with your photo of choice. She enjoyed the farmers laughter when the character appeared.
- Peekaboo Forest
Samsung Phone
- Peekaboo Sesame Street
- Itsby Bitsy- Great Interactive app
- Wheels on the Bus- Great interactive wheels on the bus song. Lots of additional games come with this app, yet she is not ready for them.