Car seat misery

[CheerfulSoul]

My 3 month old hates her car seat. She screams from the minute she goes in to the minute she's taken out. Even if she's due a sleep, she cries instead. There is no apparent limit to this - she will scream for half an hour if that's how long the journey is.

Because of this, she can't go in her travel system and won't go in her pushchair either. We're becoming trapped in the house because the only way to trasport her is in the baby carrier but, at 13lb, I can't carry her like this for long.

I've never heard of a baby who wasn't soothed by her car seat / pram!

Does anyone have any experience of this or any advice?

hi cheerful - ive just started a thread on my dd who is 3 months and has awful colic and reflux. she absolutely LOATHES her car seat too and can scream for ages until shes exhausted and puts herself to sleep.
she also doesnt particularly like her pram and squirms and yells until someone picks her up.
3 things i found worked:
-fisher price do a musical mirror that you can out in front of her and that can distract her.
-we only put her in her seat when she was asleep. this made things more bearable for us.
-taking her out in the car seat regardless so that she gets used to it.

could she have reflux or colic? apparently being in a car seat makes the pain worse for the little bubbas.

or a paediatrician once said she could suffer from travel sickness which makes them so upset in car seats. if so, could try antihistamine to help her settle before long journeys.

am hoping things get better for us and our LOs. ppl keep on telling me it'll pass and i'm still waiting!!!

I've got a feeling it's nothing to do with the car seat as such but she could have something wrong with her back. I wouldn't have thought a 3 month baby would have a preference one way or another as to being in the car seat and I'm think if you took her to a cranial osteopath, after a few sessions, she'd be sitting in it no probs.
The cranial osteopath (get one from the register so they're qualified to treat children), will ask you about her birth and the nature of delivery. She could tightenings in her pelvis or back/neck which is making her uncomfortable sitting. With gentle pressure, they promote the correct development of the ligaments and bones.

forgot to say that if it isn't the above, you should perhaps ask your GP to check her over.

My DD1 hated being in her car seat from being very tiny. She once screamed all the way from Birmingham to Bournemouth and all the way back. I felt very hard done by when other people's went to sleep in the car. She has always suffered badly from travel sickness and I've often wondered if that was the cause.

An anti-histamine would hopefully make her sleepy and help her settle whether it's travel sickness or not.

Could you borrow a different car seat for a day or two just to check if the shape of yours makes her uncomfortable in some way?

I feel for you. I used to dread going out in the car.

yes, my ds couldn't sleep on his back and within 2 sessions, he could sleep anywhere!

If your DD was born breech/squashed/forceps/c-section/ventouse, it's possible that CO could work a treat.

My DS was exactly the same. I carried him in the Baby Bjorn til he was 6months. Your back just gets stronger as the baby grows! We tried cranial osteopathy, and it did help, but not with the car seat or the pushchair! He hit six months and it was like someone had flicked a switch, he took to the pushchair over night and the car seat, while still not his favourite place, became bearable for short journeys. I think he just liked being close to me. I don't know how much it helps to just think that at some point your DD won't want to cuddle you, so just enjoy being close to her now! That's the only thing that got me through some days!

another recomendation for the CO - also the baby bjorn was awful for my back and ciropractor recommended a www.connectababycarrier.com/ better for my back and babies (she explained how the baby bjorn type carriers 'dangle' baby from their crotch and puts pressure on their spine, where as the connecta (and other similar carriers) either has them in a froggy position (when tiny) or in a 'seated position' with their legs more forward and sitting on their bottom! We have used our connected from dd being 6 weeks and still using it daily now at 2 years for daily dog walks (on our back now) and still comfortable to carry her - also a million times more comfortable than the bigbackpack carriers too as doesnt effect your centre of gravity as much as 'strapped' right too you... fingers crossed you sort the car though

Well, dd has now had 3 sessions with the CO and is "much better". However, she is still screaming in the car seat and pushchair.

I'm starting to think that the problem may not be physical after all. Does anyone think it could be separation anxiety?

I'm really hoping that, like AlisonOrdnung found, she snaps out of it at 6 months.

We had exactly the same problem - he could keep it up for however long the car journey was - once for 3 hours with me on my own driving, it was like hell. I thought it was separation anxiety too as he also hated the pushchair. However, now looking back I really think it was reflux - the screaming sounded like pain to me and I think I should have trusted my instincts. Sitting next to him in the car sometimes made a bit of difference as we could try and distract him. Someone said to me it's like very bad heartburn and of course the chair holds them in a position which makes it worse. We basically gave up using the car and pushchair until he was one when things improved dramatically and could go in the forwards facing car seat. I went on trains everywhere with him in a sling up that that point!
Re: the sling - 13lb is nothing! I'm still carrying my 2-year-old everywhere and he's about 30lb now. If you do it enough you hardly notice them growing. It's all about having a good sling, as fairimum says. Baby bjorns are terrible things in my opinion as they put so many people off using baby carriers. Get a good wrap sling, or a Close baby carrier, or an Ergo, or one of the many other great options.
Best of luck and I sympathise deeply, it wasn't much fun for us, and everyone else seems to take the car sleeping for granted!

Hi, I had a collicky one too and found the baby bjorn great - he hated most other slings, and everything else gave me dreadful back ache.
The other thing that helped was the dummy, you do have to keep putting it back in as the spit it out, but lots of babies find it really comforting.
DS1 was better in the front seat as well, you can't do it if the air bag is on, but you can have it turned off in most cars.
The other thing you can try is classic fm - that also soothed him.
We also changed DS1 from the flat pram to the buggy stage at 3 months as he didn't like the lying flat bit and that made him a bit happier too
Good luck

DS was exactly like this. He screamed every single minute of every car journey (even the ones home from the CO). Our miracle cure? We moved him forward facing as soon as he was heavy enough and it just stopped. I was in bits because we had bought a new car especially for the isofix and I had watched all the youtube clips as to why he should be rear facing into his second year. DH, however (ever the rational) pointed out that the stress of driving with a screaming child was causing me to drive erratically.
He hit 9kg at 29 weeks and went into the forward facer that day.

If that seems a long way off, have you the type of car where you can switch off the front airbag and put the carseat in the front?