To have judged? Awh feckit. Yes I judged, I VERY judged.

[Farkinell]

Was in slow moving traffic today.

Big fuck off black BMW (suv/mpv/hpv??? who the eff knows) was coming towards me on other side of road.

Saw what I thought was a TV monitor in front passenger seat angled forwards.

Strange, I thought. Surely a passenger would be holding it and it would be facing backwards??

But LO! It was angled towards the passenger.

A teeny baby in the carry part of travel system, backwards facing.

A tablet set up, plating a cartoon for a young baby to watch in the car.

Just

Goodness

Gracious.

Let's get them Oblong Addicted early, yeah?

Back in the old black and white days of the early 90s, we used to travel from Glasgow to London every summer to visit my family there for a week or so. My sister and I had a gameboy to keep us entertained on the train. I'll be sure to tell her how she's ruined my life.

This is strange to mention but I suffer from some, but not horrific, motion sickness. I must be in the front seat, facing forward (can’t sit backwards in trains; can’t sit in the backseat on twisting car journeys). BUT I also was an infant in the early 1980s when, while they were much less safe, there were a lot more front-facing child seats. In all the pictures of me, I’m always in a front-facing one. I imagine if I had been rear-facing AND partially reclined, I would have felt really ill and probably screamed, as I still suffer headaches and nausea traveling “backwards.” Backwards AND forced to recline sounds nightmare-ish. I’d vomit. I really do understand the safety aspect of rear-facing, but for those saying, “Well, we got through it without screens in the past,” I wonder if there are other reasons you got through it in the past, i.e. the prevalence of front-facing being easier for car-sick babies.

There’s not some magic that made the past easier, so it’s just a matter of finding the answer. Are speed limits faster now (too much movement)? Are cars louder (painful to their ears)? Are lights from other cars brighter (headlights shining in babies’ eyes, etc)? I feel so badly for all the mums with babies screaming in the car until they make themselves ill. I wish we could figure out if there’s a trigger that connects at least a few of these cases. If any of you are going through it right now, do whatever you need to do to be a safe driver. And OP, I think it’s great of you to come back and admit you didn’t know how bad this could be for other mums since you didn’t experience it.

I took my 15 week old baby for a doctors appointment an hour away yesterday.

Dh was driving and she hates the car all of a sudden. I was playing cartoons on YouTube on my phone and holding it for her to see while I was sat next to her in the back. She likes the colours and the music and it stops the heart wrenching screaming while Dh is trying to drive.

She's getting a lot better but she needs the distraction of something other than me to calm down.

I'd rather that than have Dh distracted by screaming and have an accident.

On a long journey I held my phone (my poor arm reaching round to back of the car so baby could see the screen!) so my baby could watch feckin baby shark over and over and over and over. It got us through the final two hours of a journey.
Not all babies are easy travellers.
Give the person a break eh

And I completely sympathise with parents whose children struggle inthe car, just like 3 of my 5 did. Screens are not the answer though.

So if you are a parent dealing with a child who is extremely distressed/sick in the car, and you discover that giving them a screen actually allows you to safely drive somewhere, you should continue to deal with the screaming/vomiting/stopping breathing until someone blows in their face etc (or more likely, continue to avoid CT journeys and live like a hermit) because "screens are not the answer"? Even though you've discovered that, actually, screens are the answer in your case?

I call bullshit on your claim to have had 3 children who are poor travellers. There's absolutely no way that a parent who's dealt with extremely distressed children in the car on the level that lots of parents are describing here, would not use a screen if that helped.

*car journeys, not CT journeys

@TJ17

Rather my kids have screen time (oh no so harmful 🙄) than turn into a smug judgemental bitch 🤷🏼‍♀️

This!!

@I8toys

I would have judged too. Stick music on and sing to them. Stop pandering to every whim. They cry. Mine got used to sitting in the car when we drove to France/belgium/Holland for holidays. Teach them some resilience. Unless there is a medical problem.

Oh yeah "teach resilience" to a newborn 🙄😂 more like be abusive and let your child scream itself to sleep. You shouldn't have kids

@HOkieCOkie

Judge away it’s ridiculous how kids can’t be bored anymore. Have to be constantly strapped into a tv or tablet.

Wasn't a "kid" though was it. She clearly stated it was a young baby. I very much doubt it was "bored" you moron. Probably screaming itself sick like most people on here have experienced with babies who hate the car

I bet people said the same about bouncers when they came out.

I still cannot really understand the older generations fear of screens. They are portrayed as being evil and terrible but I don't get why. This is the future. It's different to how you grew up because times have evolved and they always will.

In these times where we have screens we also have more sophisticated technology that contributes to more advanced medical care, more efficient ways to live for example washing machines and dishwashers etc

My DS has grown up with screen time and I find it offensive that the older generation assume that means I don't interact with him or teach him anything. He could actually read and spell his name before he turned 3. He also knew all his numbers and letters and phonetics and was fluent in speech before he turned 2.
We often spend time together on his tablet (yes he has a tablet) playing educational games and bonding.

You all need to get over the fear of what is basically just life now. It's literally not going to harm anyone. Calm down.

There's also a lot of people on here acting like giving a baby a screen is cruel yet there are people on this thread who have literally said that babies should "learn" by being left to scream themselves sick in the car as they need to be "trained"

Give your heads a little wobble

Judge if you like, no-one but you really cares about your judgement. None of us are that important that people in general care what we think.

@TJ17 😂 How old do you think some of us are?

I would have been just warmed by the energy of my smugness as you, OP, absent one particularly horrific trip back from the in laws at Christmas with 3 month old DS who particularly hated the car at night. CDs didn’t work. Radio didn’t work. Singing didn’t work. Desperate singing didn’t work. We got to Old McDonald had some toast before we gave up on that one. We tried literally everything in our arsenal but he screamed bloody murder regardless. Awful for him, stressful and distracting for the driver.

Apparently the only thing that would appease him that we had at our disposal was the start screen of Angry Bloody Birds. He had to be seeing the screen, though. Just the fucking repetitive music alone wasn’t enough.

I held the phone there for the over an hour. My shoulder hurt for a week, but by god it was the best solution at the time.

From the judgment about it very old 😂

@JassyRadlett love this 😂 I take it your child has not been irrevocably harmed from this 🙄😂

@NotDesmondsBoat you are my people.

Live and let live. Despite driving a ‘big fuck off black bmw’, my children are very well cared. Aren’t we all just trying to do our best?

@TJ17 Somehow despite my clearly dismal parenting he’s a bright, active, articulate, kind, sports-mad, geography-geek 9 year old.

Who now much prefers a book, magazine or guessing game in the car. He was really shit at 20 Questions when he was three months old though.

Rather my kids have screen time (oh no so harmful 🙄) than turn into a smug judgemental bitch 🤷🏼‍♀️

@TJ17 you absolutely rock! This will bells on!

I'm a teacher and this week I've had a pupil crying to me because their dad is "very disappointed" that they're applying for a non-RG Uni. She was heartbroken, the pressure being pushed on her is dangerous. I judge him, I can't judge a parent who calms their crying baby with a screen - what a total waste of time and energy.

@JassyRadlett you mean he's not now obese and dribbling over a screen 24/7 😱 amazing 😄

YAB A Twat.

@GlummyMcGlummerson I find it incredibly sad and worrying that some people on here find a screen more harmful than leaving a baby to cry 😢

Totally unreasonable. The driver should have been using this valuable time to do maths and English skills while driving. Outrageous.