I need a car seat toy

[amberskyfire]

My 8-month-old son has started getting screamy in the car seat now that he's old enough to play with things. He's bored back there and doesn't nap as easily as he used to, so he gets mad fast when he's forced to just stare at the back seat with nothing to even look at.  Our drives from our house to town (we live in the country) are about 30 minutes. I'm looking for something that flashes or makes noise or is otherwise awesome to a baby who easily gets bored and it has to be something safe to use in the car. Something that won't kill him if we have an accident. Is there such a toy?

[chel]

I'm not big on noisy toys so no experience with those, but cloth books with touchy spots, mirrors, crinkle spots, my kids always liked. Dolls with the above features, too.

There are some mirrors that also make noise, but they are heavier, depends how secure you can make it.

[amberskyfire]

I don't know a thing about noisy toys, either. :( My kids have never had a plastic toy or anything that moved or lit up, so I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. I'm normally against plastic, junky, ADD-inducing toys (jk) but when it comes to your baby screaming his head off, you start to rethink your position, LOL! Whatever will keep him from screaming, I don't care if it has every commercialized cartoon character on it at this point, just as long as my baby isn't sad. :)
 

[brigala]

That's a tough one. I don't know of any good lightweight, non-risky toys that really entertain kids. Batteries and lights and speakers are necessarily kind of heavy.

I have a Fisher Price iPod/iPhone case with some Fisher Price baby apps which I let DD play with in the car. It's absolutely awesome and keeps her very entertained. But I know full well it would pose a risk if it hit her in an accident. I try not to use it unless I absolutely have to. The problem is that when she gets bored or upset she actually gets out of her harness... so I have to weigh the risks either way and I grudgingly have decided in my case it's worth the risk of a projectile to make sure it's not my DD who's the projectile because she's gotten out of her straps (and that's very distracting for me, too, which increases the risk of an accident in the first place).