[guerrillamama]

he's a city baby, he loves riding the subway, but this car seat stuff is not cool. last night he screamed in the car non stop for an hour, not counting when i pulled over halfway and nursed him and walked him around (didn't imprvoe his mood). we're living in the seattle suburbs for the summer and will be commuting about an hour each way 4 days a week. have been driving around for a week now and he is ok w/ it in the mornings but the evenings are still awful. any tips for turning a 6 mo old onto the joys of automotive travel?

 

[P-chan]

Do you have him in the infant carrier car seat or the larger convertible carseat? I found that around the time my son was approaching the height and weight limits on the infant carrier seat, he was very unhappy. Switching to the larger carseat was a huge improvement, even though he was still facing backwards. Maybe it's time to switch, even if your guy has a few pounds or inches to spare in the infant carrier?

I never used the mirrors, so he can see you, but that might be worth a shot.

Good luck, it's must be no fun for anyone.

 

[SabraMamma]

Both my kids were the same way- loved the busses but HATED the car seat. DS is now 7 months. He has improved greatly the past 2 months or so. We are actually planning a 10 hour (each way) road trip to Yellowstone next week. He rarely cries these days. The only thing we did was give him a bunch of toys in his seat to play with, put a small mirror (to see himself but who knows if it works) with a foot rattle attached, and put his seat directly next to his big sister, rather than with space in between. Do you give him toys in the car? Rattles, teething toys, stuffed animal to hold, etc. Could the angle of the sun be part of the problem, bothering his eyes? I always put a floppy hat on DS when we get in the car. Good luck.

 

[Sarah'sMama]

Your son may be a little old for this but I guess its worth a shot. Maybe a little white noise in the car would help? For my dd, she likes static on the radio when she's fussy in the car. Maybe it would help you out, since I'm sure the subway has a certain hum of white noise to it. Wish I could help out more.

 

[Feb2003]

oh how I can relate!!! ds HATED the car until about 13 months and he still "times-out" when we spend too much time in the car

I used to hate the "he'll fall asleep in the car" comments, especially near bedtime b/c he never would...like your dc, he'd cry for an entire hour or more and get to the point that he'd choke and have a tick in his neck! it broke my heart and stopping was only a VERY temporary fix...he'd wake up and freak out when I tried to put him back in the car seat. It usually took a while for him to calm down once we got home, too...I remember once he cried in his sleep in my arms for over an hour (after crying for an hour in the car)...I vowed to only drive when necessary and that's pretty much what we did.

I know a lot of the problem is/was that he HATES being restrained...he never did like swaddling for arms or legs...we've always given him such physical freedom (except in sling, but that's against mommy

)

I didn't want to feed him in the car OR feed him as a distraction/reward/etc., BUT I resorted to Oatios (organic Cherrios), raisins, and Wasa crackers to distract him from the ride. The Wasas take a while to eat (a good thing in the car

), but all of them made me nervous as chocking hazards so I relied heavily on the mirror and listening to him.

I hope some of this helps!!
Whitney

PS I also stocked the front set with toys and handed them one after another as he dropped or threw what he had, but really once he got mad and started throwing it was no help

gotta go for now, but you can pm me if you want

 

[srain]

Where exactly are you going to and from? Can you bus it, even if that means driving to a park and ride?

 

[captain optimism]

My ds hated the car for a long time, too. It helped us if we were driving, not to do it past 3 in the afternoon, to have an adult with him in the backseat (I know that isn't always possible) and as he got older, to have toys for him.

Poor guy, my dh used to drop him off at my workplace and I would drive home with him hysterical in the backseat. It was so hard. As he gets older he seems to feel less oppressed by the car.

 

[VBMama]

Quote:

Switching to the larger carseat was a huge improvement, even though he was still facing backwards.

I'm going to second this suggestion! My ds is only 4 mos, so he could have conceivably gone in the baby bucket carseat for some time still, but after reading some of the advice here we switched to a Britax convertible and the difference is AMAZING, it was worth every penny. We live in the country so long car rides are a fact of life and his screaming was making it hardly worthwhile to go anywhere. Now he just looks out the window & goes to sleep!

 

[homebirthx2]

My firstborn just loved to sleep in the carseat everytime he got into it. I have had two since then and the last two have hated the carseat. The second and the latest have/are both high needs and nurse. I remember teaching myself to nurse in the car with my second child/first nursiling, and high needs child. We tried everything from sitting her next to our oldest, toys, mirrors, mobiles, switching carseats when possible nothing worked for her. We just kinda went with the flow of things.

Now with our latest we go through the same thing with him, as our second only we now have it where we added the light stays on during the time when we drive in the dusk/dark this really helps us out a lot. Now when we take trips (which we do) we do a lot of stopping (nursing, changing diapers, getting out and seeing new scenery, etc.etc. ) for a break otherwise life would be h*ll. My hubby loves to take the older ones with him on a trip, since they don't stop all the time and can get good time under their belts. We just recently moved and my hubby made me take my latest one on the train in a sleeping car with my oldest to help me out, while he took our second oldest with him in the truck. I had gotten a wad full of suggestions and tried almost all of them until one or more actually worked for us.

I suggest that you just try and try until something clicks and continue to use it as long as possible. I wish you the best in your search for peace in the carseat dept.

 

[stafl]

While switching to a convertible carseat *might* help with the fussiness (I did try it with my oldest, didn't work, she still hated being buckled into a carseat of any type), it isn't as safe for your baby as the infant seat.
The only thing that helped was if I let her pick out a special toy to bring with her in the car, or if someone sat in the backseat with her. At three years old, she still dislikes riding in the car - I think she just hates being strapped down, understandably so, but once I turned her front facing (left her rear facing as long as possible because it's safer) she quit screaming the entire time she was in the car.

 

[mamapixie]

Um...Where did you come up with that a convertible carseat isn't as safe as an infant seat? True, for a newborn baby, the straps may not fit as well as they would in an infant seat(although many convertible seats, such as the Evenflo seats have rather low bottom harness slots), but for an older baby, especially one nearing 20lbs, the baby would NEED to move to a rearfacing convertible for safety reasons. Just make sure it's a 5pt harness(no overhead shield. They're bad, very bad)

 

[stafl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mamapixie Um...Where did you come up with that a convertible carseat isn't as safe as an infant seat?

I have *always* heard that an infant seat is safer than a convertible seat rear-facing, as long as baby is still within the height and weight limits of said infant seat.
I'll look for some links, since both of mine are napping right now and I have an extra minute...
http://www.car-safety.org/guide.html
I dunno, maybe it's because the convertible seats are harder to install correctly rear-facing? Maybe convertible seats don't sit at the right angle when rear-facing? Or maybe it's just because the convertible seat I bought never did fit properly in my particular car rear-facing...
but I'm not making this stuff up, honest. I think even our pediatrician told us that (funny, I never listened to anything else she had to say...

)

 

[P-chan]

Since I made the original convertible carseat suggestion, I thought I'd jump back in the fray here

.

I couldn't find anything more definite than a quote from "Baby Bargains" that says that "safety experts" agree that an infant seat is safest for babes under 20 lbs--no citations, no further explanation. Certainly something to consider.

Maybe better advice is for the OP to confirm the weight *and* length limits of the infant carseat. It's easy to just focus on the weight limit, but my son (for one) exceeded the length first.