My daughter is 15 months old and absolutely HATES riding in the car. I have to take her to and from day care every day, but she screams and cries almost the entire time. I've tried snacks, juice, milk, toys, music, singing, reaching in the back seat and rubbing her........nothing seems to work! I need advice.
Hey L.,
My son used to cry from day 1. I bought him a DVD player when he was 4 weeks and he has not cried since. I also bought him a better car seat. It is a convertable car seat that is made for infants to toddler. It is very comfortable. I did not really like the infant car seats and I don't beleive he did either.
Try that and see what happens.
Keisha
This may sound overly easy but....check how the sun is facing her in the car. I couldn't figure out why my oldest cried everyday, to and from daycare, when I was still working. Then we moved and our new route changed the sun direction facing my son. I also bought a backwindow sunshade oval from OneStepAhead.com. He went from a terror in the car to being a happy boy who enjoyed taking trips!!
My younger daughter who is 13 months was doing the same thing. We moved her from the graco safe seat to her sisters car seat, a britax wizard. She is still rear facing because she has yet to meet the weight to turn around. I always give my little one some puffs her sippy cup, and toys, which tends to be thrown at her sister. She has done much better since being put in a bigger car seat. good luck to you
After all of the things that you've done to comfort her and after ruling out any reasons that the car seat may be the cause of any problems (nothing is poking out, or pinching, etc.)....she is probably responding to you and your stress over the situation. Children pick up clues right away and her action HAVE to be upsetting, frusterating, and stressful to you. It may be her way of 'throwing a tantrum'. As difficult as it may be, you might need to try tuning her out and ignoring her behavior all together. Just as some moms have to step over the child who is wailing on the floor and ignore the cries, kicks and screams. Tantrums that don't get attention usually occur less and less often. You could try working through your own stress by singing a made up ditty about the place that you're driving to. "It's so much fun to go to the store, go to the store, etc." or simply do NOTHING. Don't conjole, comfort, or acknowledge. If in fact she does what she does as a way to get your attention, she'll learn that the crying fits are not gaining her that. Just a thought. Might be worth a try. And the bottom line is that this may very well be one of her first lessons in learning that sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do....including sitting in a car seat and not being able to snuggle up close to mom. There is one other possibility that I would consider before ignoring. There are indeed some children who don't do well with "movement". It truly does affect them on a physical level in the form of car sickness or affecting their sense of balance. I have heard of some children who do well to have shields placed over their windows so that they are not able to see the blur of moving objects out the window. Obviously, driving safety has to be considered and the window shields cannot impact visability. You might test this 'movement theory' by considering how she reacts to other forms of movement....how does she feel about being pulled in a wagon, or pushed at a fast pace in a stroller, or maybe even being in a baby bike seat while you're riding her around. If she seems fussy or wants to avoid those situations, then there might be some possibility that she has issues with movement itself. Good luck.
My baby also cries in the car but only after he has been sitting in there for about an hour.Like if I had to go get my husband from work I would put him him,go get my 4yr old from school,and then go get my husband which took about 10 mins.By the time we got him and was on out way back home,he cries from wanting to get out.My sons problem is that he prefers to go without making stops.B/c when I drive to my mothers on sunday's he rides the whole 30 min way there and back with no problem.I also spent near 400 on my babies car seat...but it held him prefectly in the wreck I had recently so atleast now I know it was worth my money.My 4 yr olds booster seat that cat about 80 bucks absolutely sucks when its not strapped in...it flew into the front seat.But it was not buckled in at the time.But for my baby, when he cries. Food and his sippy cup will hold him off for a short time.I normally bring something small like crackers or those biter bis. or the gerber puffs.And I always make sure I bring his sippy cup.
Sounds like you need a portable DVD player and Elmo.:-) That's the only thing that calm my son down and we had a 30 minute drive to daycare. Who know Elmo just might have her singing the ABC song.
If for some reason she is still facing backwards...turn her to the front. Otherwise, get a TV for the car. My daughter used to scream until she was old enough to turn around and then once she realized there was a TV there, I rarely even hear her talk except to tell her brother to be quite.
THIS IS AN ADD ON AFTER READING OTHER RESPONSES--------
Don't put a TV in your car for the baby. Simply put, we have enough under active and over weight children in the world we don't need to add to it buy helping them get hooked on having to watch TV at home and in a car too. If you must use a TV in your car, save it for very long road trips and nothing more when your child is a lot older!
And secondly, this is a child, not a cat or a dog you are teaching to stay off the table, so please don't spray her in the face with a water bottle like one!!! That is probably the most degrating thing I have ever heard in my 32 (almost 33) years of life!
You've gotten some good advice so far so I hope you find something to that makes her happy in the car!!
END OF ADD ON, PLEASE LET US KNOW WHAT YOU FIGURED OUT TO HELP HER!!
Has she always been like this even in the infant car seat? Or if you haven't yet, take her seat out and pull the cover off and wash it. Maybe there is something that is aggervating her causing it. Or try putting her in a different location in the car. Or try a different car seat all together. I know how hard a crying child strapped in a car seat is hard to deal with cause my hubby and I about went nuts when my son (he was about 16 months at the time) screamed half way down HWY 17 from Myrtle Beach to Beaufort!!!! He had never did that before so we were like what the heck!!! Come to find out, it was the car seat-it wasn't comfortable for him!! Long story short, I had to send Graco their Front facer back anyways (the harness straps were defective) and we ended up buying a Britax Marathon (for several reasons-the biggest one being my son's comfort). We drive from SC to IN at least once a year so we wanted something he would be content in. And he is!!! We made the Myrtle Beach to Beaufort drive 2 more times and drove to IN and never had an issue!! Now, I'm not saying go out and spend $300 ( I had a hard time beliving I spent that much myself!!) on a car seat but it's just a thought.
I hope you figure out something to make her happy soon!!
Have you noticed any little bruises on her lower back? I had this same problem when my son was little. We couldn't even get out of the neighborhood before he would start. After a long trip to Mich we saw a news report about car seats. It seems that most are only cushioned on the top half and the bottom half of the back is just plastic so thier backs are banging into the plastic at every bump you hit. We looked at our sons carseat and found it was that way and he had bruises on his back. We shopped for a new one and found that all of them were that way. We decided to buy some batting at walmart. We folded it up and put it in his carseat behind the liner. He never cried again. And it didn't take as long to get home from Mich. I really hope this helps, B.
When my daughter was that age, she would have crying fits also. A friend suggested that I try a spray water bottle. So everytime she would start having a fit, I got the water bottle and sprayed her in the face. It was enough to shock her into stopping. It did not hurt her or get her extremely wet. Later, everytime she would start her crying fit, I would say "Do I need to get the water bottle?" She stopped the fit immediately.
