to not visit relatives who more than one hour away until the children are older?

[indiewitch]

Is this unreasonable do you think? We have an 18m dd who is terrible in the car, she basically screams/cries continuously.
I'm thinking of refusing to visit anyone unless I can do it in a day until they are much older, would this be very unreasonable?
I hate this idea that somehow a weekend away somewhere the other side of the country is in any way fun, horrendous journey, v. little sleep at night and then similarly awful trip home. Then back to work and school the next day, all shattered and couple of days later one of us is ill and taking time off work and school.

Someone needs to sit in the back of the car with your dd and feed her raisins/crisps/sweets to keep her entertained and quiet. Or if she can do it herself, all the better. DP calls these snacks "ShutMeGobs".

Or just stay in and have no life, it's up to you.

what do you mean LG? 5 mins max then what, give up and go home? Or 5 mins then do something?

Travelling well is learned behaviour. Sure, it's easier when they're older, uncle nintendo is a great family friend on long journeys or dvd, but not impossible with a young child. They don't just turn 6 and become a brilliant traveller. If you accept screaming and don't do something at all because of it, you just get more screaming surely? They learn if they don't like something they only have to scream and everyone's fussing round them and pandering and falling over themselves to make everything wonderful again, or cutting the journey short or out altogether. That's a lot of power and control to give to a little kid.

Hmm, life ain't like that and not a good lesson to learn.

I just had to change dd nappy. She screamed and tried to roll over. I can't just say, well she screams and hates it, so I won't change her nappy again till she's much older. She, and I just have to get on with it.

OTOH I understand that a nappy change is slightly more important than a car journey but still, with a calm approach etc good traveliling is a quickly learnt skill.

or as others have said, you can just stay at home and let the kid rule the roost for the next few years.

With my first DS I used to work around him, e.g. if he was asleep I would phone people and say that we would be late. Once I had DS2 & 3it wasn't possible we had deadlines to keep and places to be so they just got bundled here there and everywhere and I think it is much, much better for them.

When DS 2 was the age of the DC in the OP we had to take DS1 20 miles to school (it was unfortunate-a difficult house move that luckily only involved 3 weeks of the travel)DS2 didn't have the luxury of changing our plans-he was in the car, like it or not,and had done 40 miles before he got a proper breakfast.
He had another 40 miles at the end of the day.

It wasn't ideal but I wasn't going to make DS1 have 2 changes of school in a month because DS2 didn't like being strapped in the car!!
Luckily it was only 15 days and he got used to it.

Don't worry OP you are not letting your daughter rule the roost so that you have no life. You spoke about how much it disrupts your routine, and how sleep and routine are so badly damaged by overnight visits. And when children are young sometimes it's hard to realise how much time you DO have to do these things, to travel and so on.

If you are secure and confident enough to feel you can do what's right for your 18 month old and your family, then just do it, and don't worry about what other people will think. It's only temporary after all. If you lay off the travel for a bit, it may even help your daughter: she may be in a "car screaming routine" which you can break if you give it a break. I think YOU must be tense before you even get in the car (I would be!) so you need to break that
routine too.

There's merit in "making" children fit in, obviously, and eventually she'll have to, but if it's so bad right now then there's no point.

Believe me, I'm a tough mummy but even I crack after two hours of solid crying and screaming. We have tried the snacks/toys/music to distract and the telling her off, shouting at her to shut up (v. tense journey at that point).
I'm not saying forever, maybe just for a year or so, 'til she understands why we're doing it and can be rewarded at the end (bribed throughout).
She is very used to the travel cot, uses it every day at childminder quite happily and always has the same growbag and toys so I don't think it's that.
I wonder as well, if the people who just do it, then get a break at their destination. This never happens for us, relatives will never look after children so we can rest and so we all end up getting more and more tired and then face the journey home.
I think I'm going to do the train ride London - Manchester in six months and try again in the car when she's a bit older.

indiewitch - you know your LO best, so I think your plan is probably the right one to go with. I'm sure she'll get there eventually if you keep trying it from time to time.

There is no way that I could bear two hours of solid crying and screaming in the car. Personally I suspect I wouldn't be a safe driver and I'm fairly sure DH wouldn't either.

Take your point about the relatives not helping as well, that makes a huge difference. When you next make the trip, how about you try saying, when they inevitably complain that they don't see DGD often enough, well it would be a lot easier for us if you could do x, y and z. Then if they do say they'll do that, you will need to be prepared to give them the chance of course.

Good luck and hopefully this too will pass

I understand completely. Do you work too? I have made a promise to myself to only do 1 activity per weekend as if we do extra I am too shattered.

However does your 18 month year old have a day time sleep? as we tend to set off at that time so DC sleeps in the car. However I understand driving with a wailing 18 month year old in car is so stressful that it completely ruins the day. Can you book a in a energetic play ground session just before you leave so that DC will be tired and sleep?

Its very easy for people to say you are being selfish, but if they had to do a 2 hour drive with a screaming baby they may see your view!!!

At the end of the day its not worth doing stuff to "please" other people if it stresses you too much, and stressed Mummy = stressed DC. So stick to your guns I'd say

If it's an hour then you are being a bit unreasonable, sorry. If it's a whole weekend then I thing you are being perfectly reasonable not to do it more than every couple of months or so.

But I am a bit puzzled about why a car journey at the weekend would mean that someone in the family is ill the next week!

Just another thought - if the train is too expensive (tho family rail cards help a lot) you might find your dcs are better on a bus/coach than in the car. DD has never been sick or cried on a bus (journeys up to 1.5 to 2 hours) despite being pretty much invariably carsick when she was small. She has even been known to sleep on them - and she never sleeps in the car, regardless of how late or how tired she is - I think as soon as she starts to drop off she starts to feel peculiar and that wakes her up.
Its not quite as good as the train - no options to read or play card games, and on the bus we get too loud for a tape player, but you can play I Spy, watch the other passengers etc

nicely put ErnesttheBavarian. You have basically summed it up.

"Absolutely do not accept that it's ok to let them scream at this age. They do not understand cause and effect, all they know is that they're unhappy/uncomfortable/distressed and you're not helping them." - I totally agree, Leninghoul. The OP's dd is just too young at the mo for the OP to apply reasoning to change the crying behaviour.

Ernest: "Travelling well is learned behaviour." - not always, it's not. Our DS has always been a good traveller since birth, and now at nearly 3 will happily sit in the car for a nine-hour journey with just one or two toys (obviously we feed him as well ).

I think YABU. I imagine it's really not that often that you'd have to do a huge journey. I think sometimes that people who have to organise everything around what they think their DCs can or can't cope with are being a bit precious

How about, if you're doing a really long car journey, leave in the early hours of the morning so your DCs can be travelling in their normal sleeping hours. We've done that a few times and it makes things a whole lot easier

I travel by plane once a month so that DS can see my parents, and them him, and he is now a brilliant traveller. Gets a bit antsy pantsy on the plane of course but really he takes the whole thing in his stride. And he is not an easy-going toddler at all. I think wrapping in cotton wool/arranging everything to suit them all the time really is setting yourself up for trouble in the future

That said, I can imagine how annoying it is if you're also not entirely keen on the visit yourself (and if I had to travel for hours to see my inlaws then I'd be keeping the occurences to an absolute minimum)

awww Mrsjammy we drove from devon to Italy when ds (our first) was 13 months. It's hard work (for whoever is not driving and has to entertain the baby), but it's deffo doable.
We broke the journey into 2 days and a half. His favourite game (and I still remember this... he is now 7!) was to play with the coins in my wallet.

YANBU for now, but I really wouldn't put a time scale on it.

I think making that stance is a ggod one to remove the immediate feeling of pressure, but gently finding out what is wrong and seeking alternatives in the mean time I think would be a wise move.

The thing is there is no saying that in a year she will be better unless you get to the bottom of it.
When we have to make longer journeys with the boys (went to schotland when DS1 was 10 months) we made sure we weren't in the car for more than an hour at a time with breaks at national trust places, country parks etc.

the other thing I was thinking is does she have a blind thing up at her window? if she does have you tried removing it so she can see out, and if she doesn't have you thought of putting one there (I have one as a passenger as it helps with my travel sickness)

The train sounds like a great short term solution,

you aren't being precious

blimey

"I can do it so you can or there's something wrong"

i don't think so

Quite, stuffit - would be nice to see a bit more sympathy for the poor OP having to deal with her screaming, crying DD, before they tear her to shreds.