Crying baby

[Cinnamon84]

Baby is coming up to 16 weeks old. He's pretty chilled and interested in his surroundings and quite happy, smiles and laughs a lot which I'm sure most babies do.
Over the last month or so he has decided he hates his pram, car seat and now the bath. All 3 result in big red faced meltdowns.

Do I keep persisting with all 3? It's hard to do much without the pram or car seat (have a sling but don't want this to be the only option)

My dad thinks I'll spoil him if I don't make him get used to these things (thought he was too young to spoil). Do I carry on even though he's really upset? Will he form negative associations with things if they make him cry each time? It's a real pain as I'm starting to develop a lot of anxiety about having to take him places and we need to bath him!

It's a phase. My DD went through the same thing (she was probably going through a leap or something) decided she didn't like any of her toys hated the bouncer (which she had previously loved) and the jumperoo. I persevered and eventually she reverted to liking it again. Check out the wonder weeks it will give you great insight into these little behaviours. Good luck!

He has just started a leap but the pram and car seat thing have been happening since he was about 11 weeks (and didn't coincide with a leap)
I'm worried this isn't a phase- do we continue with them even though he's screaming?

In a word yes because a car seat is absolutely necessary and arguably so is a pram as they grow too heavy to be carried everywhere. With car seat consider getting a toy to clip on to the handles for distraction. Taf toys do one available on Amazon. Also consider doing a feed just before you set off. My DD used to scream in the car seat until I did this. Now she just sleeps straight after the feed because of the movement of the car and the white noise . She still gets grumpy and cries if we're stuck in traffic but nowhere near the screaming she used to do. In terms of the pram I found getting rid of the carrycot and moving her to the main pram really helped. Turns out she was bored of lying flat on her back when we were out and about and wanted to be up seeing stuff. We've had no more tears since then and she looks forward to pram journeys now

Is he comfortable in the car seat? Have you removed the new born insert? Is he over dressed?
My dd used to get too hot in her car seat so I didn't put many layers on as clothing but had blankets instead.
Is he lying flat in the pram? I started mine on an incline in a seat of a buggy from 3/4 months but they had good head control. They never liked lying flat.

For the bath I would just top and tail or strip wash him as much as possible.

We also moved to an inclined seat around 4 months but as pp baby had good head control as he could lift his head from.birth.

My son was like this too. His thing was that he'd scream if he was tilted off vertical even slightly, so he loved any kind of wearable carrier but screamed when strapped into a reclining position in the car seat, pushchair, lie flat bath or flat in a pram or cot. Luckily he sat up unsupported around 18 19 weeks and after that I pushed him around sitting up on the mattress of a second hand big old fashioned Silver Cross pram, which let him move around more as you secure the baby by putting it in walking reins and then clipping them loosely to hooks on the bed of the pram. He loved it and we used it until we got one of those pushchair trikes, around his first birthday. That also has loose fitting straps.For bathing we found he loved the upright, supportive position of a Tummy Tub until he could sit well and since then I just give him a quick shower during in the bathtub which he also enjoys.