Crying in the car seat

[PurpleMustard]

Not sure if this is the right place but need some advice.

I have a 10week old and he screams in the car. I have tried having him in the front with me (no airbag of course) but it doesn't help. He also has a dummy and I put him in the car after a big feed, but it doesn't help. He's worse if I drive in the dark. I can't limit to short journeys as my friends and family live between 45/60mins away so I don't want to be isolated. My friend suggested a light up toy in the dark to distract him. It's getting so distracting I have had to put him in the back now, tho he does have a mirror. I have also tried the lay down position on his car seat. Can I just leave him to cry it out? I read somewhere that babies can choke and stop breathing in a car seat if left to cry too long?

Anything anyone can suggest that I haven't mentioned?

Thank you in advance! Xx

I feel your pain. We had the exact same problem. The only thing that helped us was by playing cartoons on an iPad for him to watch which kept him distracted. Once we did that we never had a bad car journey again! We didn't do that until around 6 months though.

I might try an iPad with stimulation videos maybe. Fingers crossed...

Good luck, I hope it works for you. I know how stressful it is!

I came on here to post exactly the same thing. My Dd3 just screams and cries the whole journey and it is so stressful I don't feel I can go out with her. My other 2 weren't like this - my nearly 5 year old still falls asleep in the car - so I am at a loss. The other day she started bringing up milk and choking she was crying so much.
I was desperately hoping someone had an answer or would tell me she will grow out of it by 3 months... I live in a village so to get anything or see anyone I have to drive... she also hates the buggy (although I have managed to get her to sleep twice) so I am pretty much confined to a sling, although she will scream blue murder about that for 10 mins too. Has made me start to dread going out which isn't very fair on my 21 month old and as the weather gets worse I worry I won't even be able to go out for walks much soon! Help!

So since my post, I have sat him in the car seat and sung and made him happy before we got in the car. Then I have put the iPad one and played one episode of Hey Dugee...never wanted to do that, but I suppose we have to use technology where we can! And then today I bought this from Argos to hand from the head rest, which has lights and he can play with it too, so it should distract him. So far so good...but haven't done any real journeys in the dark yet. He's 11weeks old today so I'm hoping that when he has learnt to self soothe, it will get better 🤞🏻

Hi @purplemustard. Since I posted I have managed one 10 min journey without tears. Like you, I sat her in the chair earlier in the day and talked to her and made her happy. And I also hung up a light up toy. Haven't tried again since so don't know if it was a one off! I also loosened the straps just a little so maybe that helped too. Fingers crossed for both of us!

Fingers crossed for you!