Baby Hates the Car Seat - What to Do?

[CockDodger]

Does anyone have experience of this?
DD is 11 weeks old and screams in the car. All our rellies live a fair drive away, so it's becoming a bit of an issue. One of us sits in the back with her and she has a toy too, but she ends up getting so worked up we have to stop and take her out. I never leave her to cry, so is there anything I can do to help her get used to it?

Maybe a slow trickle of MN wisdom then?

Two of my DCs were the same and just hated the car. No advice really but they do grow out of it as they become more able to entertain themselves and by the time they are in forward facing seat and can look out the window then they are generally much happier.

We have a five hour drive across France coming up on Saturday with a 4 yo, a 2yo and a 5 mo. the older two will be fine but the baby likely to scream a lot so I feel your pain!

DD absolutely hated the car seat for the first few weeks. Screamed as soon as we put her in, usually for the entire journey (great on the M25!) Then when she got to about 3 months old we bought one of those activity centres that strap to the seat, so she had something to look at, and started playing music quite loudly in the car rather than people talking on the radio. Within a couple of weeks she learned to settle in the car, and now at 7 months she'll either go to sleep or play quietly, unless she's really hungry.

This kind of thing. You can pick them up cheaper secondhand.

I tended to time journeys for times when I knew DC would be due a nap, so I would tell the person we were visiting we would be there between 11 and 12 for example, and when DC started getting sleepy would change and feed them then set off. They usually slept for most of the journey then.

That said, DS only grew out of disliking car journeys at about 2yo, and we would just either not go on long journeys or time them for naps until then. If people wanted to see us we would ask them to come to see us (pretty much entirely adults with no children so much easier for them to come to us than for us to schlep to them with all the stuff you need with small children!)

But then, i was quite PFB

My DS1 was like this too. I did what shhhhh says and tried to time jorneys around naps. It was hard tholugh and not always possible. Even a 10 minute drive to Tesco would end in him crying and screaming to come out the car seat. He was never one of those babies that would sit contentedly in a pushchair and look around either. He seemed to crave freedom and stimulation constantly. He hated being restricted. Sometimes the baby will just have to cry and there's not much you can do. I found a nursery rhyme CD turned up fairly loud would help for short journeys. He eventually grew out of it when he was about 15 months and could talk and understand tht going in the car meant we were going somewhere 'fun'. DS1 is now 4 and we have had 3 hour car trips with him no problem whatsoever now he's older so they do grow out of it!

DS2 is 6 months and is slightly better but any more than 30 minutes in the car and he's crying and grizzling too. I am just holding my breath and waiting for him to grow out of it. We have found that DS2 is better if he has his dangling toy bar thingy strapped to the car seat handle for him to play with but even then it's not guaranteed to work. Some babies just don't like being restrained and especially when facing backwards they can't really see anything or understand what's going on. It will get better.

Try and time your drives during their sleepier times? Late evening or big lunchtime naps?

You can get a lie down seat, like a carrycot that clips in but I dont know what age it goes up to.

Another vote for trying to start the journey when the baby's tired and ready for sleep, stuff them full of milk and then hope for the best! I think you just have to muddle through and keep going with it, they get used to it in the end (dd at 15 months tends to sleep for a good while when we're driving if we time it right - either bedtime or midday nap time). At various times singing nursery rhymes and reading something really dull out loud (like the newspaper) have sometimes helped, but possibly when dd was a couple of months older than yours. I feel your pain, I remember 3mo dd screaming round 45 mins of the m25 (no services on that stretch and couldn't face driving off some random junction into London) and it was truly awful!

Yep, another one here who had a screamer. Tried to time it too With naps. Sang to her, sat in the back if I wasn't alone. Chanted that she is safe and it'll be over soon.

She stopped when she was about 10 months. And loves the car now that she's in a different car seat.

Another screamer (and carsick baby)
Started to get better when at 7/8 months we changed carseats so he was no longer lying down sideways to the road, which we're sure just made him really sick. Also I know it goes against the "rules" but we put him in a front-facing seat from about 7/8 months, I knew he'd be sick if he was backwards.

He still isn't keen but has been known to actually sleep in the car now which is a miracle! (and makes the journey go soooo much faster!)

You could try to time journeys for nap times, but we did that a couple of times and just ended up with a screaming, sick covered baby who was also incredibly overtired

And also PFB, we used the car as little as possible. We had planned to go and see MIL (2 hours drive away) each time but now we alternate with her coming here. Otherwise it was a pretty miserable day for all of us. DS felt rotten and sick all day and we had a grumbly, over-tired, sick-covered baby all day (yes we changed his clothes but we had to change them about 5 times a day when we used the car!)