FAMILY ROAD TRIP & CAR JOURNEY HACKS FOR KIDS | ELLIE POLLY

Morning everybody, welcome back to my channel and welcome to a video that I've decided to do for a specific reason. So I am going, we are going on a long car journey on Friday. Today is Monday so in a few days time we're taking our two year old son on a road trip to Disneyland Paris. So I wanted to get clued up and I wanted to know the best ways to keep him busy and entertained in the car. So I've done my research and I've put together and got ready what I think are the best hacks to keep babies, children happy, busy, to keep your car a calm place on a long car journey. So my first tip is probably my favourite one because it benefits me as well. This is a DIY car bin. So all I've done here is I got a cereal container, I happen to have one in my cupboard but they are really cheap in the supermarket as well. So it's just a plastic cereal container with a flip up lid and I've put a bin, not a bin bag, I've put a plastic bag inside there as well to line it and I'm just gonna put that on the footwell in the back of the car and it's just gonna be a bit of a travel bin to have in the car. My senses tell me it will mostly be full of wipes and packets of food, empty packets, but it just stops you stuffing everything in those bits in the doors and making a mess that you actually have a bin to put it in and then I can just easily take the inside of it out and get rid. Also because it has a clip on lid, if you were to go around a corner and the bin was to go over, nothing would come out because it's all closed. Okay my next one is a really clever one I think and it's to protect the cup holders in your car and to stop you from having to clean it out so often. So all you have to do is get a silicone cupcake case. So you just put one in the bottom of each drinks holder and then you can put your drink or whatever else you're putting in there inside and it means you can easily take it out to empty the crumbs or any sort of sticky juice that might be in the bottom. So it's just something easy you can do to make your life easier and keep the car cleaner. My next tip is to keep special car toys in the car. If your son's anything like mine, if he sees toys that he doesn't see all the time, they're immediately more interesting and more unusual. So I have a little trolley, a little tray thing of toys that I keep in his footwell. You can see it here. So I got this little trolley thing, Thomas thing from a charity shop, I think it was like £2 and then all his car toys live in there. So because he doesn't see them very often, he's always excited to see them. So I can get them out in a car journey or it's also really handy if you're going to a friend's house and they don't have children, so there's not going to be any toys there. I can just lift this out of the car and bring it with us and that way you've got toys wherever you go if you're stuck in a situation. If your little one is playing with toys in the car, then these might be really handy for you as well. So these are those little plastic shower suction holders that you can really easily find, really cheap as well. So I've just suckered them to the window and they're stuck there and he can reach them and I can just put a couple of toys in there, a couple of cars, you could even put snacks in there for him to pick at as you go and it's just an easy extra storage place for a long car journey. If we're on a long car journey, like we are about to be, I always like to take his shoes off, especially if he's going to be sleeping the majority of the way. I wouldn't want to sleep in shoes, so I always take his off as well, but often if there's luggage everywhere and wrappers all over the floor and whatever else, it can be easy to lose a shoe. We've all lost a shoe, right? So make sure you store your child's shoes behind their car seat. There's that little wedge of space behind the car seat, especially if it's reclined, you'll have a little bit more space. Just put the shoes behind there, you know where they are, you won't lose them and you don't risk any crummies falling on them on the floor. So this one I'm going to show you so I can demonstrate exactly how I did it, but this is a DIY tablet holder and this is the best one that I could find. So all you need is one of those plastic folders with the corners with the elastic on. All I've done is I've measured the size of our tablet and I've cut a hole in the front of the folder that is slightly smaller than the size of the tablet because I don't want it to be falling through. So I just cut that out and then all you have to do is slot your tablet inside, put the elastic back on and it's secure. So now all you need to do is thread something through to attach it to the headrest of the car seat, of your car seat obviously, Leo being behind me. So you can do anything to do this, you could use an old lanyard, a lanyard is really useful because it just has a clip so you could put the lanyard through and then attach that to the headrest. If you don't have a lanyard handy, just use a bit of ribbon and just tie it in a bow. So that literally cost £2 and there you go, you've got a tablet holder ready to go. Again it's really slim so it can just fit in the car when you're not using it. If you're not using a tablet and if you're using a phone, which often Leo watches things on my phone as well, the tablet battery isn't as good as on a phone, then I find it's so easy to just slot your phone in the bit under your headrest. So that is the perfect size for just slotting a smartphone under that little bit of your headrest, it stays nice and sturdy in there and he's happy as Larry. And my last tip is relevant to the tablet, iPhone, technical entertainment. So obviously if he's watching something on your phone or on a tablet and you require signal or 3G or WiFi, that doesn't always happen in the car. So we've spent money in the past on downloading movies and things but it's not cheap and one really easy way that I have found around this is by just using my screen recorder app. So if you download the app Screen Recorder, you just pull down the corner here and it looks like this and you can record absolutely anything that is on your screen. So I did this for a few of Leo's favourite YouTube videos, mainly about trains and cars. And that way you've got them forever and you don't need any WiFi or any signal to play them, perfect for emergencies. Obviously this is only for personal use, I would never share or publish a video that I'd used on screen record, it's purely for personal use for my son. But when you are in the car for a while or if you're leaving the country, it is a handy tip to have. And there you go, that is it, that is my top tips for going on a long car journey with a little one. I feel like I'm ready, I feel like I'm prepared now, everything's in place. If you haven't subscribed or if you don't follow me on Instagram already, then make sure you do and you will see how it all goes. I'll also obviously be filming our holiday in Disneyland, so if you subscribe you won't miss that either. Thank you so much for watching, I hope it was helpful. If you have any more amazing car journey tips and hacks, please comment below and let me know. And I'll see you in my next video.