Moms have to be prepared for anything, right? This easy-to-make emergency car kit will give you peace of mind while you’re out adventuring with your kids.
Whether it’s a splinter from the park, a car-sick kid while you’re driving on a twisty mountain road, or an impressive diaper blowout right as you get to your sister’s wedding reception, Mom is supposed to be the one with all the tricks up her sleeve to take care of the problem and have everyone up and running again in no time.
I usually am that mom. I have my trusty diaper bag with extra diapers, wipes, bandaids, hand sanitizer, and various other mommy needs. However, I’ve found myself a few times lately completely unprepared.
We took the boys to the dinosaur museum near our house for Little Brother’s birthday a few weeks ago and he got a messy diaper. I went to go change him, only to realize that I had used the last diaper the day before. Awesome. A diaper bag with everything in it EXCEPT diapers. Super helpful. So we had to call it quits at the museum early. Bummer.
Then last week, we had a similar experience with running out of wipes when we were at the park. Thankfully that time I was with other moms who were able to bail me out. Yay for mom friends.
As prepared as I try to be, inevitably, I forget something! I could tell myself that I’m just going to be better about restocking the diaper bag regularly, but I’ve decided that it would also be good to have a back up plan. Because with kids, I’ve found that I usually start on plan A, but I often end up on plan X by the end of the day. I’m pretty sure that’s not unique to me.
Enter…Mom’s Car Kit.
What is Mom’s Car Kit?
I’ve been meaning to make a car emergency kit for awhile, but running out of wipes last week finally put me over the edge and motivated me to actually make one. Essentially, I just wanted to have a box in my car that has the basic necessities for my kiddos. Additional requirements: it needed to be small, easily accessible, and cheap.
Now, be aware that this is not intended to be a full natural disaster preparedness kit; it’s just the things I think we might need for “mom emergencies”–to solve the problems that come up on an average day with little kids.
What’s in my kit?
Here’s the full list of what I packed in my kit. My kids are 4 and 2, so I chose items accordingly. The contents of your kit will obviously be dependent on the needs of your family.
- diapers
- wipes
- extra underwear (for the four-year-old)
- travel first aid kit
- antibacterial hand sanitizer
- Healing ointment (it’s the off-brand of Aquaphor, which I use as chapstick and lotion)
- kleenex
- sunscreen
- hand warmers (for winter adventures)
- gallon ziploc bags (for wet clothes, or for car sickness)
- granola bars
- gum (not essential, but I happened to have a really little pack, so I threw it in)
I may add more items over time, but for now I really wanted to keep the kit to the bare bones of what I thought I’d really need on a regular basis.
Note: I didn’t include water because I didn’t want the heat of the car to make anything leach into the water. I also didn’t include medicines because I didn’t know how heat would affect those either. Those are things that I always try to keep in the diaper bag though.
Once I gathered everything, I packed it all into a small plastic tub that cost me less than a dollar. I thought about using a cute tote or basket, but I decided I really wanted something with a lid to keep dirt and who-knows-what-else out.
Has it been handy?
I’ve had my car kit in the car for about 48 hours now, and I’ve already used it twice! (That might be because I still haven’t put more wipes in the diaper bag after the park episode. Ugh. I’m going to do that today…really.) I love having the peace of mind that even if the boys take something out of the diaper bag without me realizing it, or if we get stuck somewhere unexpectedly, we’ve got the basics in the car. I’m not sure how it took me more than four years of motherhood to get this together, but I’m glad I finally did it!
Do you have a “mom emergency” kit in your car? Can you think of anything I forgot that you’ve found super helpful. I still have a TINY bit of room in my box. 🙂
I regularly link up here.
I don’t have an actual kit but I do have a number of these items in my car. I have a knapsack with sweatshirts for the adults, a full change of clothes for the kids, and diapers for the baby in it. I even have a couple of baby wipe samples I got in the mail in there. I have a full size first aid kit but we do lumberjack competitions most weekends in the summer and fall. I’ve had to use butterfly stitches on someone more than once, usually not competing but putting away an axe or saw. I keep a quart sized freezer bag with grocery bags folded like paper footballs in my car too. Those have come in handy so many times and by folding them like that, they take up very little space.
Thankfully, I haven’t had to do butterfly stitches yet (although I might have some in my mini first-aid kit), but kudos to you for being the prepared one. It always feels good to be able to say, “I can help!” in those situations. I’ll have to figure out how to fold grocery bags the way you described; it sounds helpful! Thanks for the tip!
I need to make one of these. I am going to pin this for later! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Charlene. Mine continues to be helpful every day!
I don’t know why or when, but I no longer have a kit. However, my purse could act as a kit, I usually have a snack, {always} sanitizer, tissues, lotion, mints, and I usually have wipes in the car, usually.
Thanks for sharing with us at #MMBH
xo
My diaper bag usually has all of those, too, but I decided to make the kit as back up because now that my boys are getting a little bigger I sometimes will tell myself, “Oh, I probably don’t need the whole diaper bag this time…” and then I regret it. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!
This is such a great idea and would be extremely handy for me. I haven’t consistently been using my diaper bag and forgotten wipes & diapers too many times recently. Thanks for sharing this on Wonderful Wednesday blog hop.
My husband has his own military grade diaper bag that he is soo proud of, that is always packed and ready to go! (Firefighter/paramedic/former Eagle Scout?) he is the prepared one!
Now that I have Three my main task when we go out is a nursing co we up and the baby wrap he carries everything else!
But I am Finding that mydiaper bag is not as “ready to go “ as my hubby as I have Found my self “stuck”
So I found Your list and have decided to not only prepare my bag better but also make a kit!
Thanks!
I LOVE that your husband is so on-the-ball and willing to help! Way to go awesome dad! Hopefully making a mom’s emergency kit for yourself will help you be all ready to go even when he’s not around!