Car Sick Kids and Driving to FL

tmaxwell

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jun 12, 2014
Does anyone know a way out of Disney that avoids Orlando traffic? Every year we leave Disney and I have two kids puking in the back of my car. I need to avoid I4 when I leave at all costs! I don't care if it adds an hour onto our time or if we have to pay tolls. I'm just done cleaning up puke due to I4 windy roads and construction. Even if it takes me up towards Jacksonville.

Thanks so much!
 
Not what you asked, but do you give the kids bonine? I'm blessed with a family of pukers. Everyone gets bonine before we leave, and I have plastic Walmart bags stashed around the car, just in case. Another possibility might be to leave at an odd time--say, 1am--to avoid traffic and the associated slowdowns.

Sorry, I can't help you with a traffic route. I do feel your pain, though.
 
I find that if I leave really early around 4Am or after 5pm that the traffic/construction is much more manageable. I would give the kids dramamine for the drive.
 
Where are you going? We use 417 (toll road) to avoid most/the worst of I-4, but we are going towards i-95. You do end up on I-4 for a while, but it isn't nearly as bad as it is right around Orlando.
 
So we drive every year with two kids who get car sick. One year we were on our way home and my DS couldn’t stop vomiting. I called his pediatrician and she said to give 1 tsp. of Benadryl (which we thankfully had on hand due to his allergies). I was extremely confused and she explained why it helps with motion sickness, but I was still skeptical. Well, it worked wonderfully. He was great the rest of the trip home. No more motion sickness or vomiting.

This was about three years ago. Hasn’t vomited again on any of our rides since.

So now, 1/2 hour prior to our trips, we give 1 tsp. of Benadryl to DS.

For my DD, who doesn’t like the taste of Benadryl, we bought her Sea Bands, and she hasn’t had any issues either.

Good luck!
 
We use dramamine. It doesn't always work, but 9 out of 10 times it does. Chewable tablets
 
On our last road trip - I downloaded audio books for the kids so that they were not looking down at a screen but still distracted. It helped too!
 


We have driven from the Northeast to Disney twice with our five kids and someone always pukes. But, the kid's dramamine chewable tablets are a lifesaver and really work well for us. The puking usually takes place when we haven't given them the tablets, or when we were just unprepared. Edited to add, a lot of the puking was by our baby who we couldn’t give tablets to.
A big culprit for car sickness is dehydration and an empty stomach. My 5 year old actually woke up out of a sound sleep vomiting. We had left in the middle of the night and put the kids directly into the car after having them use the bathroom. It was 2:30am so we didn't offer them anything to eat or drink, hoping they would go back to sleep immediately. Big mistake. She was not sick with a bug or anything- just needed some food and drink in her belly. Make sure your kiddos drink some gatorade or something re-hydrating after walking around the park all day.
 
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How does everyone handle the puking once it starts? I can’t imagine the mess and stink. On a long car ride that sounds like a nightmare. We’ve wanted to drive out west to the Rockies, but don’t because of car sickness and the potential mess.
 
How does everyone handle the puking once it starts? I can’t imagine the mess and stink. On a long car ride that sounds like a nightmare. We’ve wanted to drive out west to the Rockies, but don’t because of car sickness and the potential mess.

Hi @quandrea, for our then baby, we had to just be prepared to clean a mess. He was 9 months old (and again when he was 22 months), and already had issues with vomiting due to constipation/dietary sensitivities, so we knew he would definitely throw up, and he did. Several times. At 22 months he also developed a fever while we were traveling so that complicated things more. You can’t hand a baby a bag, so we packed extra clothes for him in the main part of the car and brought a container of Clorox wipes. Also kept the area around his seat clear and made sure we had rubber mats on the floor of the car, rather than fabric. We used baby wipes to clean him and the Clorox wipes to clean off his car seat straps, any part of the seat of the car that was victimized, and the floor mats if necessary. The fumes aren’t ideal, but desperate times.... At 22 months he was already forward facing because he’s very tall for his age so I was able to catch some in the bucket a couple times and this helped a lot.

For the older girls, we purchased small beach pails at the dollar store and each kid had one within reach. I find the plastic bags awkward since they have to fumble with the opening, and you just never know when a bag will leak. The buckets worked well since we could just empty them under a bush/somewhere isolated away from people in the parking lot of wherever we pulled over, and I would use the Clorox wipes to clean the bucket out after. It was pretty easy actually and no mess with the older kids. The hardest part of the kids getting sick is having to make unplanned stops. It slows you down but you just need to factor this into your travel time and pack some patience.
 
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We just drove across the country for Christmas and found that our DD get carsick now! (Ironically, she didn't this summer when we drove to Disney...)

Chewable Dramamine helped so much. We accidentally found out that large Ziplock bags work great for the puke - they are thicker than grocery store plastic bags (what we use for a trash bag on long car trips), and if you get the zipper-top kind you don't have to fumble with the handles to close it. Also keep some Kleenex and water on hand for the kid. Sucking on candy canes helped too. We'll also keep Saltines in the car from now on, as well.

Hope this helps!
 
We drive back thru Atlanta and never end up in the traffic on I-4. Maybe head north before you head east? Is that right?
 
Are the kids doing things in the car, reading books, playing board games? Have them stop doing that.

Also, as mentioned before, put away the phones and computers and other devices with video screens.

Reading while in the moving car always got me carsick.
 
Are the kids doing things in the car, reading books, playing board games? Have them stop doing that.

Also, as mentioned before, put away the phones and computers and other devices with video screens.

Reading while in the moving car always got me carsick.

This is excellent advice! As a substitute, consider audio books that the whole family can enjoy. For younger kids, you could go with "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" or similar classics. For older kids, "Harry Potter" or books like that can be good choices. My gang is older (youngest turns 13 next month), so we're considering "The Great Courses", which are currently having a sale. They have a wide variety of subjects. I was pulling for "The Joy of Mathematics"--I'm a total math nut--but I was roundly shot down! For normal people, they have everything from history to cooking to foreign language.
 
If you take I95 you can take take 528 east towards the airport directly to I95 (you’ll be on I4 for 10 mins or so). If even that 10 minutes is too much you can take 417(Osceola pkwy inside WDW) to 528 to I95.

If you take 75 just take 429 to the turnpike(toll road) to I75.
 
After reading all this, I think we will stick to flying to Florida and my dream road trip through the rockies will just have to wait.

I admire those of you with the grit to take these road trips on.
 
If you have "known pukers", bring some plastic bags for them to hold. When they throw up they can do it in the bag instead of all over the car. I can see being caught off guard the first time, but subsequent times?

Our kids don't commonly get carsick, but things happen. We always keep some plastic bags in the car just in case.

We drive from NYC to WDW each year but we leave WDW pretty early in the morning and find that there aren't really issues with traffic and construction at that time. You can really breeze through I4 and get to I95 pretty quickly.
 
After reading all this, I think we will stick to flying to Florida and my dream road trip through the rockies will just have to wait.

I admire those of you with the grit to take these road trips on.
I think it's a wise choice. For us, vacationing would be hard to manage financially if we were not willing to inconvenience ourselves and drive. 7 plane tickets is pretty steep. With that said, my sis lives in Colorado and I wouldn't think about doing that drive until my youngest is at least 6 or 7.
 
How does everyone handle the puking once it starts? I can’t imagine the mess and stink. On a long car ride that sounds like a nightmare. We’ve wanted to drive out west to the Rockies, but don’t because of car sickness and the potential mess.
Sounds miserable for everyone. I personally wouldn't take very long car vacations if we all were subjected to vomiting and severe nausea. :eek:Doesn't make for a pleasant vacation for anyone imo. Would take very short car trips instead until the situation changed.
 

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