Since the girls were little, we’ve had bouts of travel sickness that have afflicted the middle two girls at various times. To some extent it has always depended on the car we have – and moving to people carriers solved a lot of the problem – but both Maddy and Amelie have always found long trips tiresome at times. When we went to France, Maddy struggled terribly with the car being driven on the other side of the road, I’m not sure why it was a problem but it was and also that she was lower down and couldn’t see out so easily. Amelie, on the other hand, has always been very motion sick when travelling. Right from when she was very little, going into the car soon after a feed or her breakfast would cause huge quantities of vomit, so much so that I would do the 8 mile trip to playgroup for the others with a wailing hungry 3 month old rather than risk the mess that giving her any food would involve 🙄 (Bad mother!)
Lately, they have the most difficult on twisty roads, especially one on the run over to our HistoryEtc group or very long trips. When I was a kid I could read in the car for hours at a time, but Amelie can’t and even Maddy, who has mostly outgrown the problem, gives up. Fran on the other hand, who has never suffered from travel sickness, can read in the car for 6 hours straight 😆 When you don’t suffer from a problem it is hard to be sympathetic. I don’t get sea-sick either; Max and I went to France when I was 6 weeks pregnant with Fran. I don’t even remember it being a bumpy ride, but he clung, green hued, to the railings for most of the trip and still maintains the ferry barely made it across the channel, it was so rough 🙄 😆 In fact, I distinctly remember a trip home from Guernsey when I was a kid where the view from the ferry window alternated between all sea and all sky and I didn’t feel sick then, so I guess we can safely say it’s not an issue I have. And I don’t get morning sickness either, so Amelie and Maddy can’t blame this on my genes 😉
I was offered the chance to try out Sea-Band sets for free and thought it might be worth a try, just to see if it helped either of them at all. I’m a pretty hefty sceptic when it comes to complimentary therapies, but acupuncture makes more sense to me that most of them so it followed that acupressure might be worth a try too. I know when I have a headache or feel stressed, for example, there are points I naturally press on to try to relief pain and I’ve been a huge fan of reflexology when pregnant since I had Maddy. Maddy and Amelie both said they’d try a set out and, since the journey wasn’t a very long one, I got them to go and spin about in the garden for a while and read in the car, just to up the ante a bit 😉 Both of them are too old to be experiment on without knowing why, so they did understand why they were wearing the bands, but both said they felt better than normal when they got to our destination – and in fact Amelie chose to wear them again, which is a reasonably good sign I’d say and she said they were nice and comfortable too. I quite liked the handy storage case that comes with them. It seems that when it comes to this particular remedy, my children have over-ruled my scepticism.
If you’d like to find out more about the Sea-Band, a natural sickness remedy which uses pressure points to allieviate symptoms, they have a blog or you can follow them on Facebook or Twitter. I also have two sets of adult and child sized bands to give away, so if you’d like to try them out, leave a comment in the box and I’ll choose two entries with a randomiser 🙂
Disclosure: We were sent Sea-Band sets to try out free of charge. The opinions are those of the children and were entirely their own.
Oooh, yes, I very much want to win a set of those for DS, who is mostly OK, but then makes a horrendous mess 30 minutes into any windy-country-roads type journey. So far, he’s always done it when we’ve been on our way to stay somewhere, so there has been a bag of spare clothes in the boot. That lucky streak can’t last, though…
Travel sickness is awful – really blighted my childhood. I still get it now unless I’m driving. Nothing seems to work. Bands look pretty though. Morning sickness is worse I would say (for me) as is unrelenting for weeks on end and you’re restricted in what you can do about it. Does mean I can empathize well with patients on this one – most say nausea is much worse than pain. Certainly is disabling.
Sadly my eldest two seem to be inheriting my fragile stomach so starting to have to travel with spare clothes and buckets. Bands would be great to try for them as I do really want them to avoid the awfulness of travel sickness where possible.
Cool that they worked, even better that they were free! Think you mean acupressure rather than acupuncture though. FWIW we found that ginger biscuits also worked remarkably well for a nauseous/carsick child – he would get through half a packet sometimes on a 200 mile journey, but that was much better than the alternative…
Good point, will amend!
I used these in pregancy they were fab!
Sounds like they are worth a try. My middle two get very car sick, which they have inherited from me. I can’t read in the car, and as for morning sickness, I had it really bad 4 times and it’s so much worse than car sickness, because it never stops for weeks on end. I hope my daughter doesn’t inherit that from me but as she gets car sick she probably will 🙁
I would love to be able to read in the car, but I have been prone to motion sickness since I was a child. Being a grownup and be able to sit in the front seat has made things much better but I still can’t read more than a few street names on a map before I feel queasy.
Oh yes, these really do work! I suffer from horrendous travel sickness, and unfortunately 2 ds’s have inherited it too (dd seems to be ok!). I also cannot read in a car – dp drives me mad as he’s always asking me to read maps etc, but even looking down for just a few seconds triggers me off!
It’s a shame as the kids can’t play their DSs or read in the car to pass the time, as looking down at them sets off the travel sickness. The best thing is to sit up front but of course there’s only one passenger seat!
I remember as a child my mum used to make me drink tea with ginger in it before setting off, but I was still sick (and the result is that now the smell of ground ginger triggers nausea!). When I was a teenager we discovered these bands, and although I was sceptical, they worked!! They also worked for morning sickness with me and, ahem, hangovers!!
I’ve also found giving my kids ginger biscuits to nibble on before a journey helps, or some crystallised ginger. Also, cold water to sip and the windows down. HTH!