4 mo car seat hater, any tips?

[Gooders79]

Our son (4mo) hates his car seat, today we travelled back from Norfolk and he slept for the first 30 or so mins (having been transferred to seat asleep) then woke and got himself into quite a frenzy, he cried along the a10 and all the way down the m11 until stansted services about 50minutes. Very distressing for all involved, got him out of the car at stansted and he's fine, not hungry, not dirty, no wind, just wanted a cuddle...repeated the whole cycle again when we got back in the car. We are driving to France on Saturday and starting to feel a bit desperate, any experience with this and anything that helped?

Thanks

[cashewnut]

Sounds familiar!

We always tried to time car journeys with sleep times, although that often ended in failure as we'd slow down slightly for a bit of traffic and suddenly eyes open, and not long before screaming resumes...

Some days were better than others and it got a bit better with a forward facing car seat (although weirdly we started to get more vomiting at that point).

You could try some kid-friendly music, although 4 months might be a bit early... or sitting in the back trying to cheer him up - I did that quite a lot until we got a forward-facing seat.

To be honest we tried (and still try) to avoid long car journeys, although at coming up to 2 things have improved quite a bit.

Sorry that's not very helpful but feeling your pain...

[SBot]

Is one of you in the back with him. Our little one used to do this all the time.....until one of us sat in the back with her. Baby toys etc to entertain.......

[cazbee]

We also had a car seat hater, whose aversion seemed to start just in time for a driving holiday to Scotland! Argh! We found a mirror really helped (we had this one http://www.bonnybabies.com/bearviewmirror.htm ) and also teething granules, if only as a distraction/something to do with your mouth other than howl! You'd be welcome to borrow the mirror for your trip if you're desperate!

[Gooders79]

We have a mirror and a mobile which he might be interested in for a couple of minutes but that's all, we try to travel around nap times but he's a rubbish daytime sleeper generally (3 x 20 min naps in the day might be all he manages) will encourage dp to sit in the back, I'm sure he will e delighted, we have a 23mo as well!

Has anyone found effect with different carseats? We have a cabriofix on an easy fix base so can't change the angle which we could do with the family fix base we had for ds1.

[keane]

Hi all - I have the same problem, coupled with fact that our baby is growing out of her rearward facing seat at 10 months but we need to wait to find decent second hand next stage seat & we are driving to Ireland on Friday! If Gooders79 doesn't take you up on mirror borrowing do u think I might be able to borrow it for 10 days? We are back on sep 3rd & we live in east Dulwich, no worries if not I can have a hunt round this week & see if I can find similar, K.

[bluesuperted]

Also in the same position - both my daughter (5m) and my son previously (now 3 and a brilliant car traveller) hate/d the car seat. So unfortunately we avoid long journeys and I meet my husband places by train a lot... Not really feasible for France though - but could you do this to the ferry for example? We have found it totally worth it to keep everyone happy/stress free... She's fine by train, it's the need for cuddles when they are that young that makes car travel horrid for them. When we take shorter journeys we manage it by having lots of chewing things (she has two teeth and teething for more) including some random things she likes holding and looking at, plus I sit in the back and I also lean over and breast feed in the carseat which relaxes her enough to sleep. Have also found she isn't too young to enjoy a hearty round of her favourite song - Nellie the elephant and lots of chat. It's crap sitting in the back of a VW golf between 2 car seats (although my 3yo loves me being there!!) so I sympathise for your partner.

I would say that I think it's age related and not directional - my son was bad til over one but we kept him in a rear facing car seat after the infant car seat for safety reasons (incidentally he loved the bigger rearward seat though). Just wanted to say that as extended rear-facing is a different topic but definitely not to be discouraged (and laws slowly coming in to insist on it for longer soon).

Hope he grows out of it really soon, it's horrible and I re

really feel for everyone involved!