DS and the car seat

[LonelyCloud]

DS (13 months) has recently, within the last fortnight, taken against his car seat.

I used to just sit him in there, and do the straps up, with DS perfectly happy to sit quietly while I did this.

Now it's all changed. DS wriggles, twists, arches his back, straightens his legs as I try to sit him down so he ends up standing on the car seat, tries to clamber out of the car seat, cries loudly when I try to do the straps up and so on. If I leave him be, he starts happily exploring the back of the car, which he seems to find tremendously interesting and amusing. We went out in the car today, and it took me a good 5-10 minutes at each end to get him settled down and fastened safely into the car seat.

I'm not really sure what's going on here. Is this normal behaviour? And is there any way for us to get back to putting DS into the car seat without him fighting it?

entirely normal. distraction? i often have to pin ds down to get him in if I am in a rush.

How is the size fitting him? My dd finally stopped crying in the car when we put her in the next stage carseat.

He doesn't look squashed or cramped once he's fastened in. And he's in a group 1 car seat, which I think is meant to fit kids up until they're about 3 or 4 years old?

narmada - distraction may work, if I can figure out a suitable distraction!

does he have a favourite toy he likes to hold, that may help. other then that it's fight them into it I'm afraid. they don't understand the importance of say at this age and often don't like being restrained.

Hopefully it's a phase and will pass.

You need to move like lightening. Prepare the seat before you get DS anywhere near it - pull the straps to the side etc.

The plop DS in the seat, pin him down gently with you arm across his chest, keep talking and distracting all the time and do up the buckle as fast as you can.

He will eventually give up the fight when he realises he can't win - he'll find something else to object to instead.