Well I took houdini in the car for an hours journey at the weekend. Pondered on SMl's suggestion 'try sweets'. Phenergen, sweets, both 'evils' but at least I don't have to wait till he's 2 years old to give him a bag of marshmallows. So his lordship sat there ploughing his way through them. Reflected that for a non-talking tiny, he's doing rather too well at getting his own way: sits next to me on the front passenger seat, so I can keep a firm eye on him while I drive (older brother gets banished to the back) and he gets sweets and crisps on tap. This doesn't set a good precedent for future behaviour control, does it? And,taking RobinW's point, what about his poor little teeth - and all the sugar, additives salt etc entering his blood stream?
However, according to messages here,phenergen and piriton can have a delayed effect, if any at all, and may make him sleepy for a long time. I'd hate to drive him to a nice destination only to have him wandering around in a drugged haze. Why bother to go out for the day in the first place?
On our journey, my son didn 't attempt a full escape, so the sweets proved some distraction, however he still repeatedly wriggled free of the shoulder straps. According to an old mumsnet message, a member here was told by a child car seat manufacturer that as long as your child is secured by the waist strap, they are safe. She was doubtful about this and so am I. So we still have a problem there. I must do some research on this.
I will try the harness and tray ideas.Thank you very much for those. But looking on the dark side, the problem is that the more he's straped and wedged into his seat, the harder it could be to free him quickly in an emergency.
Also Tiktok, thanks for your suggestions. If my older son was the wriggler I would do just as you say. My toddler just isn't talking enough for me to reason with him, an unfortunately he has to have attention when he is bad becasue he puts himself in an unsafe position. However I will definitely try and reduce the eye contact etc and do lots of the positive reinforcement examples you've given.
As Bloss says quite rightly in my opinion, I'd rather have a sleepy baby than a dead one, but from what information I've gleaned here, I don't think phenergen is going to knock him out anyway. And that's before I've even attempted to overcome my huge reluctance to 'dope' him. So no phenergen.
Leaving aside all this, I tend to think children's medication is a good thing if used wisely and according to doctor's instructions. I hate to see my sons crying in genuine pain and wouldn't withhold calpol or anything else if I felt this could help. They both sleep OK so I've had no need to 'dope' them on this account. If they didn't sleep well I'd follow every non-medicine avenue to help them but wouldn't rule out anything, the odd spoon of phenergen included.
To me the real danger is that medication or sweet bribery etc can be habit forming or cumulatively lose its power to produce the desired result or have nasty side effects, (like no teeth!!) .This would worry me the most.