1YO refusing to go in pushchair, car seat, highchair and bath

[Hellosunshine2022]

My nearly one year old has always preferred being held or being in the carrier but has tolerated going in the pushchair, car seat and highchair when he is distracted and has always loved the bath.
This past week he is refusing to sit in them, just goes stiff, arches his back and throws his head back when I try and put him in. It’s so bad that I often cannot even get him buckled up and when I do he just cries and screams to the point he is almost sick. I’ve tried lots of different distractions, toys, snacks, milk but nothing seems to work. He has now started refusing to sit down in the bath.
It’s becoming really tricky and making me not want to go out. He is 11kg and I find it really uncomfortable to carry him in the carrier for a long period of time. Does anyone have any ideas that I perhaps haven’t thought of or know why he has just started doing this? He is teething and has bad separation anxiety. Really hope it’s just a phase.

Is he walking/trying to walk? I found my DS started objecting to being strapped into a seat about when he started cruising- sort of “hey, I’m not a sitting down guy, you know, I’m a walking around guy” 😂

What helped was trying to prepare him for each transition. So if it’s time for lunch in 5 minutes, I’d tell DS that he would be sitting in his high chair for lunch soon and create a little routine around it. I think at that age they start to object to just being scooped up and plonked in (I’m not suggesting you are doing that).

With the bath I would put a few inches in and put dd on her tummy at that age. She was a horrendous back archer. I also would let her crawl into the bottom of the shower tray and spray her down as a game but cleaning her. The car seat was awful though. Are you sure they’ve not fallen hard on their bottom/tailbone and it’s sore? Difficult to see and lots of plonking down type fall at that age.

I think they all go through a phase of being little Refuseniks. I would try and avoid the battles where possible:

• get a 3-in-1 trike so you can push him along and he thinks he is driving instead of a buggy.
• mix it up at meal times; try laying out simple meals on a picnic blanket in the lounge sometimes. Or let him sit on your knee while he eats.

• make it a game. eg Take a favourite dolly and put that in the high chair and you feed the dolly. My DS loved that and would often try to feed Dolly too (I used a plastic one so I could wash the food off!). And then he'd be begging to have a turn, and i would say "ok then your turn" and swap so I'd "help" dolly hold the spoon and then dolly would feed my DS.

Car seat is a nightmare honestly if they decide not to cooperate. When they go rigid it is so frustrating! My only advice there is again try to somehow make it a game , we had special toys that we only played with in the car so I could bribe DS to ride in the carseat so he could use those toys.

The phase does pass.