Baby not travelling well on car seat - how do other families do long journeys?

[Mum1822]

What do you do when baby can’t tolerate the car and is being very slow to grow out of it?

My 1yo has never enjoyed the car seat. Initially she cried for all journeys before she passed out with exhaustion, so we limited them to only essential journeys. As she’s gotten older she’s tolerated longer journeys, but the whole way I’m constantly trying to distract her and she always seems only minutes away from another crying fit. We’ve not managed more than 30 mins before the tears start, so that’s pretty much been the furthest we will travel as a family. The crying is stressful for everyone, for baby, me, older child who has additional needs and finds the screaming hard, and DH who drives and is very stressed out by 5 mins of screaming. We’ve barely done anything as a family in the last year.

Also for all of last year family came to us and we have hardly taken her to visit anyone. I think family are expecting we should be the ones to make the trip soon (especially as they don’t drive). Would you keep pushing back? It’s 2h each way in the car and we’d normally come back the same day, but I can see it being broken up for rest stops so it ends up being a 3-4h journey each way and it would be very inconvenient to stay over. What do other families do?

(We do use public transport occasionally, but it’s inevitably a multi-stage journey which is also hard on my older child.)

Audio books and kids cds. Recycle, recycle, recycle from Peppa Pig is still etched into my brain 10 years on from a particularly difficult car journey

Could she have car sickness and try front facing to see if it's any better? Or a new car seat that's comfier?

Honestly I zoned out my kids screaming in the car. Especially tantrum screaming etc
It's very hard but I don't get stressed by it anymore as once I was super stressed by crying/arguing and made a mistake with lane changes on a roundabout and someone else smacked into the side of me. No injuries to anyone but I was really shaken up about it as it was totally my fault. Kids were crying about it too and shocked.

So now I'm zen, deep breathe and try to focus on the road and radio instead. Sometimes some babies just scream and hate the car and then fall asleep. Nothing else to it
Nursery rhyme CD, their own playlist, portable DVD player or tablet in the car.. mirror etc

My 1yo doesn’t enjoy the car either. I think he just doesn’t like being restrained, he’s permanently on the move whenever he can be! The only thing that works is me singing nursery rhymes to him, I think my voice helps. This is generally when I’m driving too😂we have driven long distances though but he was abit younger, it’s got worse as he’s got older. Solidarity OP, it won’t last forever🤞

Very kind, thanks for your support. I didn’t say I wouldn’t use screens, I said I didn’t want to at such a young age - who does?

Thank you to everyone else for their suggestions. I do think it’s discomfort and being restrained, though she seems ok in a stroller. This is our 3rd car seat - she cried in all of them. But we’re at the age to change it up which I hadn’t considered, so it’s worth trying a ERF car seat. I’ll make a note of all the other tips and work our way through them.

We don't. I think your expectations are too high, I don't know any 1 year olds who would sit quietly in a car seat for 2 hours. We managed 45 minutes - 1 hour at that age but that's with constant entertainment and very, very carefully chosen toys. 2 hours there and 2 hours back the same day is just too much at that age.

This is us as well. We try to time travel with naps as there’s less chance of sick but we never travel longer than 90 min or 2hr and that’s for a yearly holiday. Day to day trips are usually less than 30 min.

I wouldn’t do a 2hr each way return trip in a day as it’s too much time spent cramped in car seats for little ones. Even if they were happy in the car I would find it too much in a day.

My child is now 3.5.

Massive difference between using screens when you could be playing with your child at home and using one as a temporary car-specific distraction because your child is in an uncomfortable situation. They’ll learn far more from a well chosen tv programme than from screaming their head off in that specific instance. Just sounds a bit like you are taking the research on screens a bit too literally.

You're absolutely right about the screens. No reason on earth to plonk a one-year-old in front of a screen so you have a more pleasant unnecessary journey.

Have you tried putting her in the front? A friend of mine had the similar situation and her baby settled much better in the front.