Coping with Carsickness

So, our dear Bud seems to be susceptible to carsickness. He's thrown up twice now in the car, albeit more than a year apart, but has had a few other incidents of becoming queasy on long car drives. Here are some things we've learned to do to ameliorate the situation:

• keep the car cool, either with the AC on or the window slightly ajar; even in winter don't let it get too warm;
• keep him distracted, with talk or the radio, but NOT with toys or books in his lap, which only accentuate the problem;
• if possible, make sure he can see out, preferrably in front--this is hard for us because, with two carseats, each child is behind each adult without a clear view of the road in front, but we try to draw his attention forward as often as possible, and to the side otherwise--anything is better than him looking at things in the car while the landscape buzzes by;
• make sure he eats before we get in the car--it sounds counterintuitive, but apparently people get carsick more on empty stomachs;
• avoid roads or times of day with lots of shadows--the flickering of the light even makes me queasy (mornings are hard, so is the tree-lined Merritt Parkway);
• if he starts to be exceptionally quiet or complains of not feeling well, we pull off at the nearest exit, open the car, and have him stand or sit with me for 10-15 minutes--they say walking or excessive movement makes it worse, so I just stand and hold him on the side of the car.

For Bud, it has only been a problem on long car trips, often in the mornings down to NYC. He doesn't get queasy driving locally, or even driving home from NYC (if only because he falls asleep, apparently almost foolproof for preventing carsickness, well, that is, except not riding in the car). But since being aware of his issue and doing the above, we have not had any bouts of it on the last two NYC trips.

Apparently, carsickness is caused by the messages of motion and direction that the body sends the brain and what the brain believes to be true being at odds with each other. Children are most prone to carsickness, we've read, between the ages of 3-12. My friend, a nurse, also says there can be a connection between carsickness and later migraines (I hope not in Bud's case, though unfortunately in hers; something to watch for, though). The one thing that has been suggested which we haven't tried is gingerroot capsules from the health food store. His teacher gave them to her own carsick son by breaking open the capsule and mixing the powder with some food like yogurt. She says it really does help, but only for about 3 hours, so you have to take extra capsules with you for the return trip. Definitely worth a try. And if not that, gingerale (which helped me when I was pregnant).

We're hoping we can alleviate, if not eliminate, as much of his nausea as possible, because we all, Bud included, love to go places in the car.

Do you have any other suggestions?