any tips for a baby who hates the car seat?

[CharlotteBronteSaurus]

I once believed all babies love a moving car or buggy but now I know different . dd2 is 8 weeks and is the classic velcro baby. She screams, really screams hard in the car and buggy, and will only briefly fall asleep after a minimum of 20 minutes in 5th gear, which in central Manchester is fairly tricky to achieve.

I've order a rear facing buggy in the desperate hope that she'll prefer that to our forward facing one. However, I still have the car to figure out. Any tips for making it more bearable for us all?

Or do we just have to wait until she outgrows it ?

Have you tried one of those mirrors so she can see you?

ooh - you mean there's something I can buy that will magically fix things ?

linky please?

No promises..! This kind of thing. You can buy them in most places that do baby stuff or sell car seats.

thanks bertie - it's worth a try.

DS1 used to get bored in his rear facing car seat, so we put a colourful playmat on the seat back in front of him. This gave him something to look at and kept him quite happy.

Mine hated car seats too.I kept them both in slings until around 10 months,and in the car I was sat in the back next to each one,and still they hated it,just gradually got easier-I would sing to them,and give things to hold and fiddle with.Those net things on a handle that you can fill with banana or apple without worrying about choking were helpful later on,but I sympathise as it was hideous,especially on the long journeys that we would do to see family.Anything over 20mins-terrible,and I remember DH driving really slowly towards lights and junctions as if he stopped at all DD1 would start wailing.All my friends had car-seat and buggy loving babies,so no-one had any advice!

ah, glad to hear it's not just us.
I'll try the playmat idea too. I did the driving slowly on approach at junctions thing with dd1, but dd2 scream regardless .

Not very helpful but my DD continued to scream in the car until she went forward facing :(

We seriously cut down our travel because I couldn't stand it. Someone suggested she may have suffered car sickness, but I don't know how you solve it in such a young baby.

get her checked for reflux poss silent.

interesting, bucking - i thought refluxy babies often preferred their car seats due to the incline?

classic fm (radio or smooth classics cd) worked really well for my DS

cd nursery rhymes - (the plinky-plink- tinkle music if you know what I mean)

Boots baby wind up "radio" which plays tenn little indians - though you need a passenger to wind up after it runs out.

Sing lullabies/hum tunes to baby when fedding then sing the same ones as a comfort when in car. Takes a little while of the conditioning to take hold but it worked fo me

Best I can offer you I'm afraid - good luck

Cranial osteopath as she might have a sore head / neck / back after birth?

incline not steep enough quite often. my first was horrific unless upright.

Tiny love do some great toys that helped to settle my DD's from about 8 weeks onwards. (not for long journeys, but enough to get me to the grocery and back.)here and here

great ideas people
i will try to source some high quality distraction toys with dd2's christmas money

Music helps, and something for them to look at - you can get toys to attach to the seat for thm to play with. My DD loved a mirror that hung from the seat. Is you baby nice and snug in the seat? I have a Britax seat and my DD used to slump forward in it and get uncomfortable until i realised I wasn't reclining the seat far enough. You can get things to cushion the head too, so it doesn't smack into the side of the seat every time you go round a corner. Is she warm enough/too warm?

Probably car sick, so forward facing as soon as you can

Not good advice Oska - baby is 8 weeks old, it will be at least a year before the baby is safe to be forward facing :-(

We have discovered our (19wo) DS overheats very easily in his carseat and he was getting into hot/screaming/more hot/more screaming cycles.

Now he never goes in his carseat in anything more than a babygrow and that has helped. He still doesn't like it much but we haven't had the terrible, scared sounding howling we had a couple of times when he was too hot .

Sympathies Charlotte! Mine was the same for ages, and then went through a worse phase when she would only sleep in the car on the move and get completely hysterical if we were in stop start traffic. We got this www.amazon.co.uk/Bright-Starts-Hop-Along-Carrier/dp/B000ZG2JH6/ref=sr_1_4?s=baby&ie=UTF8&qid=1293823172&sr=1-4 which helped some as the frog bit plays tunes when you press it. So we'd be driving along, the traffic would slow and one of us would whisper desperately 'Activate the Frog!!!!!!". Now at 6 months she is fine on car trips unless they're really epic , and the last time she had a melt down it was because her hat had come down over her eyes. My advice is get someone to drive with you for moral support. Being stuck in traffic with a screaming baby when there's nothing you can do to help is nerve shredding.

My ds was same until he was 2 and he could chat preperly about things he could see etc. I think some babies just get bored easy. He didn't like being restrained in anything and wanted to be on the move and be on me being carried about all the time. He hated the buggy too but it did get a lot easier when he was about 11 months and I got a Loola pushchair which faced towards me so I could spot a meltdown coming and quickly offer him a toy or a snack to distract him!

I'm glad to be able to give you my advice, since we also tried almost everything and nothing worked for our baby, not even the lively entertainment skills of her older sister. In the end I did what I thought I'd never do: move her to the front seat. And that worked for us. Still, if you find that having the baby beside you distracts you too much, forget it ;-)

thanks for all the ideas. we've employed a couple of distraction toys which have helped a little, and it's good to hear of dcs who have outgrown their own car seat phobias

meandjoe i have also ordered a Loola and am collecting it on fri

I'm seconding the idea of distracting toys, and lots of singing loudly from Mummy so she knows you are still there! Careful in the summer when the windows are open and everyone can hear though!

I also have to agree with Bert2e on the forward / rear facing car seat argument - they should be rear facing for as long as possible.

See here and here for information about why all children under the age of four should be rearward facing!

Fingers crossed she grows out of it!

My lo HATED the car seat initially and absolutely screamed blue murder - not easy to listen to when you're concentrating on driving too! lol, she'd eventually fall asleep but it was awful.

I think it was around 4.5/5 months that she resigned herself to being in it - but I did have a mirror so she could sort of see me (and I could see her when she was upset) and I always give her a bear I keep in the car which acts a bit like a comforter so these may have helped too - like you I thought babies were supposed to love being in the car and the rhythm (spelling sorry!) was supposed to ease them off to sleep, not! lol x