This post is all about how we managed motion sickness for our toddler from 16 months until 3 years plus. The advice ranges from items to prevent motion sickness and what to have on hand in case it happens based on our personal experiences.
Our Toddlers Journey with Motion Sickness
Around the time we transitioned our toddler from an infant car seat to a rear-facing convertible car seat, he started throwing up on car journeys over 20 minutes. It became debilitating thinking about driving anywhere out of our neighborhood, feeling bad that he would feel sick and also knowing we would need to clean the car seat once again.
We again experienced our toddler getting motion sick when we took a long haul flight to London with our son at 18 months. Our 9 hour flight was delayed landing in Heathrow and while circling waiting for our landing, our son threw up all over the airplane aisle. We felt so bad for our son, and everyone else seated nearby as there was very little we could do while the seatbelt sign was on.
Since we are a family who travels frequently, by car and airplane, we started testing natural remedies to help our son manage his motion sickness. For a toddler, there are very few recommended medicines, and these should only be administered after consulting your pediatrician. We did initially get recommended Benadryl for long journeys, but after one use, noticed our son did not respond well. As a result, we found a few key things that really helped keep motion sickness at bay.
Natural Remedies for Motion Sickness In Toddlers
- Limit milk ahead of any drives or flights. Our general rule is no milk 2 or less hours before we drive and longer if possible. This became easier as our child turned two and was more reliant on solids, but it was still difficult and took some planning for our milk-loving boy.
- Remove the mirror above the car seat. Although the mirror above the car seat was helpful to keep an eye on our toddler while he was rear-facing, we noticed it wiggled while we drove. We decided it was likely not a good item to have in his eyesight while we were driving.
- Do any longer drives in the evening or around naptime. If we could get our toddler to sleep for most of the drive, it prevented him from getting sick.
- No snacks and limited water while driving. We do our best to not eat anything directly before driving or while driving. An empty stomach really seems to help prevent motion sickness in our toddler. If you must eat food (long car or plane ride) we try to avoid any dairy and sugar.
- Motion sickness glasses have been a lifesaver! We have religiously used these since our toddler was two. We still use them on most car rides, and every plane ride. There have been very few incidents where our toddler has still gotten sick while wearing these motion sickness prevention glasses. Thees are absolutely worth a try.
- We let our toddler watch his tablet on longer journeys but he needs to take breaks. I would say for every hour he watches a tablet, we try to take a half hour or more break. I talked more about our approach to screentime when travelling here.
- When in doubt, pull over and take a quick walk. Now that our son is four, he is better at communicating when he feels sick. We try to respond quickly if our son says his tummy hurts and pull over for a break.
- Have supplies readily available if you child does get sick. We keep throw up bags, baby wipes, paper towels and a change of clothes handy.
We also tried a few other items, like motion sickness bands and suckers but we didn’t see meaningful results. However, each child is different, so these may be worth a try!
