Up until recently, Master R has suffered from motion sickness. The nausea comes on quite quickly, is unpredictable and provides no time to quickly grab a towel or bag. Despite prompting and practice he has never worked out that learning forward onto the xx .
As you know, we love to travel and have never wanted motion sickness to get in the way of our adventures. This has required some planning and the adoption of a few strategies to support our little man to decrease the likelihood of him getting sick as we drive.
Firstly, we needed to learn the cause of motion sickness. Generally it is caused by a conflict between what we see and the movement we experience. I still get sick in the car if I read because my eyes are fixed on the text but my proprioception and vestibular system is telling my body that I am moving. My brain tries with all it’s might to make sense of this, but it just confuses it more and results in nausea. Knowing this and observing that if Master R plays an iPad or watches a DVD in the car after a short period nausea will strike, has led us to make the proactive step of limiting electronic usage in the car.
If you have ever taken a boat ride it is more than likely that the captain has encouraged you to watch the horizon. This helps your brain to adjust to the boats movement and understand that it is on a boat. Of course, this strategy can also work in the car. Play i-spy or another game that encourages them to focus on objects outside the car and prevents sensory confusion.
Next step, organise your environment by keeping the air conditioner on so it circulates air through the car. Make sure you have some sick bags in the glove box (or nearby your child if you don’t think you’ll be quick enough), a bucket or towel. I generally pack a spare set of clothes just in case.
When I was a little girl I also suffered from motion sickness and can vividly remember the feeling that would suddenly wash over me. My parents used many of the strategies above (including reducing my access to my nintendo hand set 😉 ). They also used the power of distraction by utilising their secret weapon – the band aid remedy. Before each car trip they produced a special bandaid that had been ‘prescribed’ by the doctor (this was a very special ‘pretend’ doctor 😉 😉 ). This special bandaid was applied over my belly button which promised to reduce my nausea. Unbelievably, it actually did!! A few years ago I naively googled the bandaid remedy blush and discovered that it is not an evidence based practice nor is it widely adopted, or indeed adopted by anyone outside my family. You may have other distraction strategies that work for your child.
So once you understand motion sickness, have set the environment up and provided a distraction you are ready to try a car trip.
Love the band aid part, will have to try that one! 😀
It worked for me! I actually thought it was a real remedy for years *blush*
I was knitting on our last road trip and it was not a good idea!
Knitting made you sick? Did you need to refer to a pattern?
I took my son out deep sea fishing for the first time and he felt really motion sick. We tried bandaid plasters behind his ears and found it to be pretty helpful too.
Wow! I never thought about it behind my ears. I’ll try this one too
I realise it has been years since this post – but to offer you some insight, I believe the bandaid trick works by keeping the PSNS activated. When we flip into the sympathetic nervous system, we breathe into our upper chest – short breaths that make us more anxious and nauseous. When in the parasympathetic NS we breathe into our tummy and it helps us digest and relax. So the bandaid draws attention there and makes us tummy breathe..
In France, the belly button band aid was very popular… It really helps. Anti nausea pressure point wristbands are a lifesaver too…