Baby HATES Her Carseat...

HI,

My daughter did this from the first moment we took her home.

She hated her car seat and just wanted to be held. It was very hard on the nerves driving anywhere and always worried that something was wrong. The good news is that around 5/6 months it stopped but it did take this long for us. Hopefully shorter for you.

Good luck.

D.

SP,

I'm so, so sorry. My daughter did the same thing for a long time. I spent my entire maternity leave at home because it was so hard to hear her cry. Se's probably still too young for anything to help, but the things that helped as my daughter got older were:
1. Take out the head support. She didn't like feeling restricted. Myabe moving from a bucket seat to a convertible seat would help too.
2. buy a mirror that has music and lights. Also, the one we bought had a remote that my daughter liked playing with.
Good luck. She will outgrow it eventually. I've noticed that even now my daughter doesn't like to be wrapped up tight or held too tightly. She hated swaddling as a baby too. I guess some kids just don't like being confined.
K.
K.

Hello SP-

I would really love to know how old your baby is. That will help me offer suggestions. In the mean time there are a few reasons/ suggestions for your issue.

1) There was a recent study regarding forward facing strollers showing children who could not see their parent in the stroller felt extreme anxiety. This may explain what your child is felling, anxiety because she cannot see you. At young ages, (less than a year), children who cannot see parents think they don’t exist any more. Maybe add a picture of you behind her carseat.
2) Your child may be uncomfortable in her carseat due to a poor fit. Visit http://www.actsoregon.org for a list of the next carseat check-up location. They can tell you if your carseat fits properly.
3) I believe your child is over stimulated. Instead of providing white noise with road noise, try a CD she listens to at home. The familiar sounds may help. Or talk to her. Hearing your voice may sooth her.
4) This may be “a stage” that she’ll have to grow out. Not the best answer, but the unfortunate truth
I wish you the best of luck. After more than 16 years working with children, I know all about carseat issues!

R. Magby

Fortunately my daughter did not have that problem, but there were some moms in my mom's group that reported similar issues with car rides with their babies. apparently it is not too unusual for babies to get "carsick" and they may feel uncomfortable riding backwards in the car (some children will get physically sick as well). You say yourself that she does best when rested and fed, so try to keep your trips brief and consolidate them if possible.
For just getting outside consider alternative methods of transportation, such as walking or taking the bus to the next coffee shop/playground/shopping center, if you can. It's lots of fun for a 3 year old and gets you some fresh air and moderate exercise - you can carry your baby or have her in a stroller. For consolidating shopping chores, look into grocery delivery services, I order at Amazon Fresh, which offers free delivery for orders over $75 - it's been so convenient and gives me hours of extra time outside of the car, though they do not deliver anywhere...

From my experience with my almost 18 month old daughter and my now 4 month old son, a convertible carseat has been what worked for me. I started both my babies out in a Graco infant carseat and they both hated it. So I started thinking that maybe they were getting uncomfortable in it. After a ton of research I ended up purchasing the Brittax Boulevard Click and Safe convertible carseat. It is for infants from 5 pounds to 60 and can stand rear-facing untill they reach 40 pounds. It still has all the extra padding that a newborn needs and the padding is removeable so that as they get older if you need to you can take padding out as needed. It is much more comfortable I think than the traditional infant carrier. And my babies seemed to think so too. I also think they enjoyed being up higher as the carseat sits up on a higher base and they were now able to see out the windows. The only drawback is the price for one, but there are less expensive convertible carseats out there other than the Brittax that are just as good and the fact that you now cant just carry the baby into stores in the carseat. I always had to put my babies in a sling that I wore anyway to get them to stay peaceful in stores so it wasnt that big of a drawback for me. Just something to consider. Hope that helps!

Dear Mom

You have answered your own question. She needs to be fed and rested enough to go anywhere in the car seat. Indulge her as you want her to be a good traveller. Get a mirror for the carseat so she can see you. You are her security.
Also in a few months she will need a different carseat and that will change which way she sits and how she sits in the car.

I'd like to offer a general observation about approaches to parenting, prompted by your comment, "…so I am not stuck at home all day…":

In addition to being adorable an lovable, babies are needy, difficult, demanding and inconvenient. Watching lots of parents over many decades, those who simply accept that their lives will be turned inside out generally seem to flow with the realities of the situation best, and feel most rewarded for their sacrifices (even though those demands may at times seem overwhelming or unfair). In fact, most look back on those early months and years and have no sense of loss of self, but rather an enlargement of themselves, their strengths and capacities.

Parents who struggle hardest to maintain their freedom are actually resisting the realities of the moment. They often report less satisfaction with parenting at every stage along the way, and sometimes even develop a rivalry with, or antagonism toward, their children. (Of course, the child raised in such circumstances is more likely to be antagonistic toward the parent, or to develop self-destructive attitudes and behaviors.)

This is a rather oblique answer to your request, but it's important. I dearly wish you an immersion in the joys and trials of parenting that will help grow you all into a healthy family and healthy individuals.

My daughter also HATED her baby car seat. She would scream and scream, no matter what we did. When she was about 3 months old my grandma suggested that maybe the seat was to hard so we decided to look into getting a different seat figuring she just wasnt comfortable. (I read you should never add padding to a carseat unless it was specifically made for that particular car seat) And it worked! We went to babys r us and picked out a evenflo convertable carseat that had lots of padding built in, and a good recline and my daughter since that day has never had an issue with riding in cars.

From your other post it seems that you have a baby that needs a lot of touch. Try to hold her as much as possible while she's not in the seat so that she gets her fill of it. Touch is very important to neurological development and some babies need more. It can be painful for them to be separated from touch. Perhaps you can get your 3 year old to rub the baby in the car? Good luck!

we had this problem--and it started around 9 or 10 weeks--with our first child. Here on Mamsource, it seems to be a more common problem with first kids, so I'm a little surprised to see it for a second child. Does the other child sit where the baby can see them?

Probably just a case in point that kids are all unique ;). Sorry.

I never solved it, really. It was way worse at night, so I stopped going anywhere at night. I had read a little about early infant trauma and so I actually for a brief period stopped going anywhere at all--because if you enforce the trauma it programs into their brain, whereas if they get a trauma but then you remove that stimulus, their brains are growing so fast and they only retain *patterns*, that they drop that trigger, entirely. I couldn't stay home THAT much (I did erase a water immersion trauma from another one of the babies by not bathing her for 4 months ... babies don't really get THAT dirty and she is a little waterbug now). But after a few weeks the car-cry was mostly only if she was tired or hungry, and I could make shortish daytime trips, or feed her up so full she would be falling asleep before we got in the car and usually then she would fall asleep while we drove for longer trips. Although sometimes this would only give her the calories for a REALLLLLY long cry, because she hated to fall asleep unless Mommy was holding her.

I really didn't go much of anywhere when she was between the ages of 2 months and about a year, though ... so, not to want to freak you out (because there is NOTHING like the stress of listening to a baby in SUCH distress, being techincally close enough to be able to hold them, and being unable to ACTUALLY pick them up--and then you are supposed to be a competent DRIVER during all that!?!?!) ... but just to say, you might only be able to mitigate the problem.

Another thing is to try different kinds of music. My first, liked classical (which I had liked alright but never so much that I would listen to it all the time). When I discovered *she* liked it (would quiet down), we listened to it for two years straight ... until the next one came along and liked *jazz*. I don't even remember how I figured that out, because i did NOT like jazz--like, *at all*--but it was a sleeping pill for him--30 seconds and he was out. I learned to like jazz ;). (Really for real I did--once I was listening enough to appreciate it.) Never figured out with number 3--but she wasn't the cryer in the car (she was pretty socially oriented since birth and I suspect the other two kids were enough for her).

My son did that starting at 3 months. We eventually put him in a convertible car seat which somewhat solved the problem. He likes to be able to see out the window. I don't believe there's one perfect solution, but the new seat did help a ton.

I am sorry to hear your struggling with this. My first daughter also hated her car seat and it was such a difficult issue. She screamed and it was so hard to go anywhere. I have a couple suggestions. One, check to make sure you have all the newborn padding out of the car seat, that she isn't constricted by an additional padding that some car seats offer.

Also, if the screaing is bad enough you might consider moving up to a convertible car seat. We moved up at 7 months and she was literally instantly much happier. Knowing this, I wish we would have done it much sooner. I know the infant car seat is way more convienent, and its hard to give that up. But driving with her crying so hard is also very stressful.

I remember that she got a bit better as she got a bit older, IE out of that first few weeks. But really there was no improvement until we got her in a convertible. And then it was a dramatic change for the better.

Hang in there -

Depending on age of baby, Maybe she has outgrown infant seat and need convertable rear facing seat, more roomy. Also a mirror on back of seat so you can see her and maybe she can see you. I bought little einsten mirror, had remote and played soothing music and or flashing lights to stimulate. My son hated his infant carseat, as soon as I switched him i saw a dramatic difference.
Best of luck.

My daughter hated her car seat too when she was a young baby. I think she eventually grew out of it. There wasn't a magic solution that I ever found. Good Luck.

rachel

HI,
My daughter also hated her carseat starting at about the same age as your little one. It was a race to get her into her carseat, get her into the car, and to get the car up to a cruising speed of at least 40 miles per hour. Are you familiar with that Volkswagen commercial where the little girl would wake up unless the car was going 40 miles per hour... that was my kid!!! I think my daughter was lonely and maybe a little scared back there all by herself, though she would often still scream even if someone was in the back seat with her. We tried to put as much entertainment/toys as we safely could so she would have things to look at, of course everything was straped down so not to fall on her... like everyhing it also seemed like a phase... she grew out of it around 4 or 5 months... i know that seems like an eternity when your baby is screaming and you can't really do much about it... but know this too shall pass!! Good luck!!

both of my kids went through that phase right around that age too. It passes. There isn't really anything you can do. You might try a pacifier. The oddest things worked with my kids. With my first, only the song from Lamb Chop's play along.."This is the Song that Never Ends") worked. We used to laugh hysterically at the fact that any other song would make her scream louder, but that one made her quiet. I had no idea that at 2 months old she could even tell the difference between songs. My second child only quieted when his older sister sang.

Just try what you can, turn up the radio, and rest assured that crying won't hurt her and the car seat is necessary.

It looks like you have received plenty of responses for your question...but I thought one more couldn't hurt...it might make you feel even more reassured:)

So, my son (who is now almost 5 mos old) did this from day one! He screamed and cried so hard, my husband and I thought he would stop breathing! Nothing I did would help. I tried sitting in the backseat, giving him a pacifier, playing with him, dangling toys in front of him, EVERYTHING. None of it worked. But the good news is that it is getting much better. We make sure that he is changed, fed, and not tired before we leave and he seems to do the best that way. Car rides are a lot less chaotic now! Good luck and remember..."This too shall pass..."

-H.