The road to paradise can be a bumpy one, particularly if your child gets car sick. Over 58% of kids ages four to 10 experience some form of motion sickness, occurring more frequently in girls than boys. The good news is they will usually outgrow it.

Joanne, a mother of four young boys, who all suffer from motion sickness, knows only too well the challenges of taking car trips with her young nausea prone family. “We can barely go two blocks before we have to pull over because someone is feeling sick,” she explains.

According to the Hospital for Sick Kids in Toronto, motion sickness occurs when two different messages conflict in a child’s brain. One of the messages comes from a part of the inner ear responsible for controlling your child’s balance. The other message comes from the child’s eye. Motion sickness is a normal response to perception of motion where there is sensory conflict. It can occur when traveling by car, boat, airplane or amusement rides. I personally can get motion sickness just on swings.

If your children suffer from car sickness, here are some ways to deal with it:

How to Avoid and Treat Motion Sickness

• It’s recommended to avoid heavy meals up to two hours before traveling
• Avoid foods like dairy, protein, deep-fried or high in sodium like chips or french fries
• Have the child try to focus on a point outside the car on the horizon
• Make sure the child’s seat is facing forward
• Open the window - fresh air can bring a lot of relief
• Have the child close their eyes
• CD’s, cassettes and even watching a DVD all help the child focus on something else
• Frequent stops
• Medication -if taking gravel it should be taken before the trips starts
• Ginger (powder, fresh root, tea, liquid)has also been proven to be just as effective as dramamine in treating nausea

I’ve learned from our own personal experience that watching DVD’s and sleep are the best way to avoid car sickness. It’s also a good idea to keep a supply of zip lock bags and wipes tucked in the backseat pockets just in case you can’t pull over.

If you have a remedy, please share it with us in the comment section.

Cheers,

Julie

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 12:44 pm and is filed under Kids, Road Trips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.