Author: stayathomedad

So as it’s half term next week and most of the toddler classes will not be running we have decided to go and visit friends and family. However this entails a four hour car journey. Below are the tips I can give you from our long car journeys so far as well as memories from when I was younger. However, as our daughters are getting older and more active I could really do with some additional tips for surviving long car journeys. Hopefully I can then compile a comprehensive list for surviving long car journeys.

 My tips for surviving long car journeys:

Pre-Journey tips

These are tips for planning the journey so that you are as prepared as you can be.

• Timing: If at all possible time the journey to avoid rush hour and to fit in with your childrens schedule. For example when we went to Europe via Dover we determined that a 6.30am ferry was the best option for us. This would mean leaving at around 3am, but it would also hopefully mean that our daughter would sleep most of the way there. As it happened she didn’t sleep that much, but she was quite calm as she was tired. The timing meant that we missed rush hour on the M25, were on board just in time for breakfast, she got to run around on the ferry after breakfast and expend some energy. By the time we had to get of the ferry and back in the car for another long stretch she was ready for a rest. This journey, about eight hours in total, worked out better than we thought it would.
• Route planning: Plan your route in advance or at the very least have a reliable Sat-Nav handy. Getting lost is stressful. It’s even more stressful with a crying toddler in the back seat. It is therefore important to know where you’re going. On the eight hour trip to Europe I mentioned above we had planned the journey and printed out directions, but we hadn’t used our Sat Nav as we didn’t want to use roaming charges on our mobile phone. We took one exit too early, it was confusing right in the heart of Antwerp, and ended up taking a 45 minute detour as it took us a while to realise our mistake and  correct it.
• Packing: Pack the car in advance as much as possible as it will probably end up taking longer than you think. Have everything you think you might need, such as changing bag, change of clothes, snacks, etc, within easy reach.
• Baby Car Mirror: A baby car mirror is really good for both the adult and the child. What it does is allow you to see any child in a rear facing car seat through the rear view mirror. It attaches to the headrest in front of the child so they can have fun looking at themselves in the mirror too. We have found ours to be really useful.

Passive in car tips

By passive in car tips I mean tips that include little adult participation.

• Toys: Toys are a good distraction especially for younger children who do not get as easily distracted by music and other activities. Having said that toys do fall easily out of little hands and if you don’t want a crying baby, because they’ve dropped their toy somewhere you can’t reach I suggest having a bag at the front with a wide selection of little toys that can be passed back to your child.
• Music: At the moment our daughter really likes listening to music and she often asks for the music to be put on. We have a lot of children’s CD’s by the CRS Players, which we managed to find in a charity shop. This is lucky as she absolutely loves these and they are now hard to find although they are available on itunes.We have put them all on our ipod which we can connect to the car stereo so that we don’t have to keep switching cd’s. My daughter has her own playlist on the ipod so we can go quite a distance without the music going off. I expect that once our daughters are a bit older we might need to give them their own ipod with headphones so they can listen to what they want. Especially as we have two in the car as they might otherwise fight over the music choice. It would also be nice to get a break from the childrens music.

• Food: This used to be a big no-no for us, but we have found it to be helpful on many occasions especially when stuck in traffic and unable to stop. We always carry a snack box with us which include drinks and snacks like breadsticks and bananas. Easy food that they can hold and eat without making too much mess.
• Video: Although not on our radar yet I imagine a portable dvd player or Ipad will be required at some point in the future. Again they would probably need to have one each as they will otherwise fight over it.
• Books: I think we will try this with our daughters, however I’m a little unsure as reading can lead to car sickness. Whenever I used to read in the car I got sick. That’s not to say it will happen with my daughters and having books nearby can also be good for when you need to stop.

Active in car tips

By active in car tips I mean tips that will probably require adult participation.

• Sing alongs: Although my eldest daughter loves listening to music on the in car stereo she sometimes wants a change. She likes mummy and daddy singing to her and she’s reaching the age where she is starting to sing along herself.
• Games: We haven’t started his with our daughters yet, but I don’t think it will be that long till games like I Spy become popular. Another game I enjoyed when I was younger was the game where you try to spot certain things, like trains, dogs, etc before the other people in the car.

Other tips

These are my tips that don’t fall in the above categories.

• Scheduled stops: Try and have a scheduled stop every two to three hours so that the children can stretch their legs for a bit. It’s also good to have some lunch/snacks outside the car so you can enjoy some time as a family, without them talking to the back of your heads. Of course you should also plan for unscheduled stops. When our eldest was younger we took her on a journey that lasted six and a half hours when before she was born it took three hours. We had stopped at a service station and between nappy changes and feeds we were there for nearly two hours. Five minutes after we left the service station she did a dirty nappy. By the time we had reached the next service station and changed her nappy she was ready for another feed.
  
• When you arrive: Don’t expect too much normal behaviour after a long car journey as it can affect your children in different ways. Sometimes they can get exhausted from the journey even if they’ve just been sitting there. At other times they get a bit hyperactive to let of steam. The latter is usually the case when they see familiar faces like grandparents who are obviously also excited to see them so they gee each other up a bit. Be aware that they might need to alter their routine be it an earlier night or a later night.

Share your tips for surviving long car journeys with children

The above are tips based on my experience of travelling with a two year old and now also a four month old as well as from my childhood memories. As my children grow up I’m sure I’ll add massively to this list. However I would also be grateful for any tips you can share with me now so I don’t have to find out the hard way.

but what is the best way to print it?

If you thought this article was going to be full of beautiful pictures then you are wrong. It’s about the best and cheapest way to print your pictures.

Printing out pictures

In this digital age, most of us take photos almost everyday. However, they are often left in the digital world. My wife and I have recently decided that we want to print off more pictures of our daughters as they are growing up. We just needed to decide what the best way of doing that is.

Online printing companies

We have already signed up for various online photo printing sites that offer free prints to new customers. Even after you add the postage it works out very cheaply.

Currently I can find the following offers.

• Snapfish: 20 free prints for new accounts
• Truprint: 40 free prints for new accounts
• Photobox: 60 free prints for new accounts
• Jessops: 50 free prints for new accounts

After you have used the free print offers if you want to carry on using online printing companies then it is always worth checking who has the current best price as they often have offers. All examples used are for standard 6″ by 4″ prints.

For example, today Photobox  has a price of 12p per print if you buy up to 200 with the lowest price of 5p per print if you buy more than 500. However, they have a current deal where if you buy 50 standard size prints you get 100 free. So you pay 50 x £0.12 =£6, but get 150 prints which works out at 4p per photo.

The standard prices on Truprint are the same. However, they do not have the 100 prints free promotion so if you order today the price on Truprint would be three times higher than Photobox. Tomorrow or next week it could be a different story though.

Jessops currently has a higher base price at 15p per print for up to 100 photos and then 10p a print up to 500 photos. However, you do have the advantage that you can pick the photos up in store so you don’t need to pay a delivery charge.

Printing at home

The other option we looked at is to print pictures at home. We went to John Lewis to look at printers and they recommended a HP Envy 4500 printer as you can use a new subscription service called instant ink. With this service you basically pay a monthly fee to print out a certain amount of pages. When the ink cartridge is about to run out you get sent a new one in the post. The idea being that you never run out of ink. The good news is that the included pages can be either standard word documents or high quality photos, whichever you choose the cost is the same. We went for the basic package which means we pay £1.99 a month and can print 50 pages a month.

Those doing some calculations might say, hang on that works out at 4p a print and you have to buy the printer and paper as well. However the good thing with this is that you can fit four photos on one A4 page. This means that the ink costs are 1p a print.

Photo Paper is not as expensive as it used to be. You can buy 100 sheets of HP 200g/m2 Photo paper on Amazon for just under £10. So 50 sheets would cost £5 added to the printing costs this means that it’s 3.5p per photo. You could get it even cheaper if you lowered the quality of the paper.

The printer we chose is the HP Envy 4500 and cost around £45. The print quality is very good although slow and we have been happy with our purchase so far.

So what’s the best option

There are advantages and disadvantages with each option.

Advantages of printing online

• Quality is usually better than printing at home.
• With deals it can work out cheaply as well.

Disadvantages of printing online

• It can take time to find the best deals as the base prices are pretty high compared to printing at home.
• It can take a while for the prints to arrive.
• You probably have to pay delivery charges.
• It can take a long time to upload the photos to the website.

Advantages of printing at home

•  It usually works out cheaper
• It’s pretty instantaneous and you can print something off when you like.
• You don’t have to wait till you have 200 photos and then sit there for hours uploading the best ones to the online printing companies.

Disadvantages of printing at home

• You only have a set amount of prints per month and are charged extra for exceeding those pages. However you are able to roll a certain amount of pages over to the next month.

Conclusion

Having weighed up all the advantages and disadvantages I think that we will mainly use our own printer for general photo printing. However, we will keep an eye on deals at the online printing companies and make use of those as they arise. Also, whenever we need to print for a special occasion, I think we will stick to the professionals.

If you live in certain parts of the country and don’t pay prescription charges(i.e. during and after pregnancy, children up to 16, the over 60’s) you could be getting free over-the-counter medicines, i.e. medicines that you don’t need a prescription for. It’s called the minor ailment scheme.

Minor Ailment Scheme

The minor ailment scheme is basically a resource that lets you get over the counter medicines without a prescription from participating pharmacies. The reasoning behind the scheme is that minor conditions often don’t require a GP visit. However people attend the GP’s just to try and get a prescription and access to the free medicines. This takes up a lot of the GP’s time and that is why the scheme was brought in.

With this scheme the pharmacist can recommend a medicine and it can be given to you for free. They usually report back to your GP what has been given out so it does stay on your medical record.

The bad news

It is not available in every area of the country. I believe it’s available in the whole of Scotland and Northern Ireland, but in England and Wales it’s dependent on the local Primary Care Trust(PCT). However, there are calls to bring this in nationally as research by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society suggests it could save the NHS £1 billion a year.

As such, more and more PCT’s are bringing this scheme in. Unfortunately, I cannot find an easy way of finding out in which areas the scheme is running. Infact when we recently went to our GP surgery to ask about it, they knew nothing about the scheme. However, 10 miles down the road in Milton Keynes the PCT is running the scheme.

How to find out if it’s available in your area

You can try and contact your GP and find out, but it might be difficult to get through to them. I was hoping Boots would have it on their website, but although they do mention the service it doesn’t show up as a service when using the store locator. Thankfully Rowlands Pharmacy do list the minor ailment service on their website. All you need to do is use their store locator and if the local stores offer a minor ailment service then it is eligible in your area. There is one caveat to this. As far as I understand it, the service is linked to the area in which you are registered with your GP. As such, if I use the Rowlands service it says my local one doesn’t offer the service, but Milton Keynes which is on the list does. As I understand it I will not be able to go to the Milton Keynes pharmacy and use the scheme.

I hope this helps you

I hope this article will be helpful to some of you as this scheme does not seem to be very well advertised and I know we have spent a lot of money on Calpol, Ibuprofen and the like, when in actual fact this could have been free.