Advice for baby who hates the car please!

[TheFamousMrEd]

My 12 week old is absolutely hating the car. She was fine in it until about 5 weeks old. She won’t nap in the car and screams from the moment I close the door until I get her out again. I’m finding it really tough as my older one loved the car. He’s struggling too as he finds her screaming really upsetting.

I’ve tried:
changing the car seat
outting a picture of me where she can see it
adjusting the mirror so she can see herself
music
singing

Does anyone have any other ideas?

I put a black and white patterned Muslin over the handlebar and clipped it into place. DD liked to look at the patterns.

I did not do this with DS and had to place the mirror so he could see himself. I had to sit in the back when we travelled across Ireland.

My sympathies OP, I think some children just don't like being "contained" unfortunately. My DD cried in the car constantly until she was about 10/11 months, we just had to grin and bear it 😓

I’ve also tried a black and white cloth hung up and that’s made no difference.

maybe you’re right @noramoo and she just doesn’t want to be contained. She’s happy to sit in the seat in the house when we’re getting shoes on etc. but just kicks off in the car itself.

I can’t sit in the back with her as I’m usually driving, and I don’t fit in between the two car seats 🤦‍♀️

Mine were all like this, & it's brutal. I can still tell you every child friendly place with a 20min drive of home...
One had to be sung to, one I recited poems for & nothing on earth would even slightly pacify the others. Having an elder sibling constantly handing toys/playing fingers games helps when a bit older.
Switching to forward facing was an amazing improvement for all of them (but no one wants to hear that)

Sorry not to have any answers but standing with you to stab all the people who say "oh just pop them in the car if they won't sleep" 🤬

I only have a sample of one baby, but if it is a consolation, it can go in phases and there are some times that it gets better. It's quite likely that the unhappiness was connected to ear problems that resulted in 2 grommets operations from age 2 - reclining caused a lot more discomfort and it was the case when they were in bed, eventually, as well. You may want to keep an eye on this. When my DD was able to talk descriptively, so with hindsight after the operations, they said lying down produced sounds like radio static (I'm interpreting), and prickly sensations as well. Moving and cornering might not be fun if that is the case.

Both my kids have hated the car. For the second one I had her in the front With me and that helped

She lays down to play and sleep with no problems, unlike her older brother who loved the car but hated lying down due to reflux and glue ear.

Ir sounds like I just have to wait for it to pass 😖 Going anywhere is torturous at the moment!

26 years ago I used to wind up the windows and put the heating on full blast. Not the advice you probably need these days 😬

Have you tried white noise on the sound system?

Put her in the front seat (air bag off obvs)?
Failing that I’d get your eldest something to listen to with headphones, TV show or audio book on the ipad maybe, so at least he isn’t hearing it full volume and you only have 1 upset DC.

One of mine was like that but grew out of it relatively quickly, so there is hope that it won't necessarily last very long. Does it make any difference what type of journey it is? Mine especially hated city centre driving with lots of start-stop, but would usually calm down a bit once we got out on to faster roads.

Have you tried giving older sibling some rattles, jingly/dangly/light-up toys etc to distract her? My car-hater was also a younger sibling and older sib became very good at distraction techniques for a while!

I thought I’d update as I’ve found something that is helping.

I bought the baby Einstein aquarium and hung it up in the car. That gives me about 10-15mins where she doesn’t cry. It doesn’t work all the time but it’s something!