"Are we there yet?" in various formats for 8 hours straight. Packed snacks, tablet, books, everything. Nothing worked for more than 20 minutes. By hour 5 I was considering just opening the door and letting him run alongside the car. Somehow made it but swore we're flying next time even though it's more expensive. Anyone have actual strategies that work or is this just the age?
Did you try the license plate game or alphabet sign game? My kids hate screen time so these kept them occupied way longer than I expected. Kept them engaged with the actual drive instead of just zoning out.
Honestly man sometimes you just have to accept that the drive sucks and there's no way around it. We gave up trying to make it entertainment and just accepted the complaints. Made it way less stressful on us.
Magnetic games were our secret weapon. The little ones that stick to car trays. Our 5yo played with travel chess for like an hour straight.
8 hours is brutal. We learned the hard way to break it up into 2 or 3 days. A 2 hour drive each day was way more tolerable than trying to power through it all at once with a 5yo.
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The snacks and tablet combo is exactly right but you need to deploy them strategically. Don't give everything at once. We do snack at mile marker 10, tablet at 30, new snack at 60, etc.