HELP!!! My 5 Mo Old Hates the Car!!! (Any Suggestions)

Hi K., I know exactly what you mean! My daughter hated the car too. She hated it until I finally got a dvd player for the car and put it on the back headrest so she could see it even facing backward! I had to do anything! I couldn't drive with her screaming like she did! As soon as we did that and I put a Praise Baby dvd in it she was perfect in the car! Good luck!
J.

Oh boy do I know what you are going through. You have already received a lot of responses but I just wanted to say that I too had a colicky baby and he hated the car seat at first too. I never really thought about the motion-sickness thing which might be an issue but I think for us it was the fact that our son wanted to be held all the time those first few months. For us he would sort of stop crying when you were going down the road at a steady pace but start up again every time the car stopped. At the time we lived in a smaller town so you stopped for stop lights or stop signs at every corner. I can't tell you the amount of red lights my husband ran those first few months. Unfortunately this pattern did not mean he was good on interstate car trips. If he was in the car seat for too long (say 20 minutes) he would cry non-stop till you got him out.

Some of the things I tried, especially when it was just me and him, was singing really loudly. It caught him off guard occasionally and he would stop crying and listen to crazy mom for a while. Sometimes he would start crying again and I would keep singing -- it was better than the alternative of listening to him cry.

He finally grew out of it - about the same time he grew out of his colic. And by 7 or 8 months he found the car seat soothing and ever since it is one of his favorite ways to fall asleep for nap time. I wish the same for your family.

I hope it helps to tell you that you are not alone. I have a 4 month old boy who has ALWAYS hated the car and the car seat since day one! I don't know what it is either, he cries and cries almost every time we go out and I am constantly pulling to the side of the road to comfort him. I've also tried it all.......and wish I had the magic answer. I think it's mostly being strapped in that he hates, not being as free to move around. I have also taken him out several times while in the back seat with him, but have also realized that this is really not safe. Is your carseat in the middle? Can you reach back with your hands from the driver seat and at least touch her head? I have tried giving him "toys" to keep him company and sometimes they help, especially if you change them often to keep things "new" for them. I wish I had much better advice for you, but don't. I just had to write and tell you that I am in the same boat and totally understand the immense frustration and heartbreak involved. Hopefully someone will respond with some new tactics we can both use! :) hang in there........this too shall pass.

I saw this thing on Oprah w/ a woman who can tell what babies are crying about and what they are trying to relay....one mom said her daughter HATED the carseat and it turned out that her straps were too tight. Maybe you could just check and see if there's any way she might be uncomfortable? Or, it could be that it's dark in the car?

Kystal, My daughter, who is now 3yrs, was the same way. She was not happy unless I was hunched over her car seat breastfeeding her off and on.( she would not take a bottle ). I did not like going anywhere with out my husband driving.

Do you have a DVD player in the car? We went out and bought one when she was 16 months old. That stopped the cries and screams. We wish we had thought of it sooner.

At night you could try glow sticks. If one of your children have a child's lantern you could try that. We still keep a little lantern in the car. On long drives Libby will say she wants light. So, her older sister turns on the lantern and she is happy as a clam.

She is a great little traveler now. It became better for us when she turned 2. Good Luck! C.

Hi Krsytal,
I so empathize with your car rides. I now think if you ever wanted to torture someone or get info out of them you should stick them in a car in traffic with a screaming baby:) I have had many screaming car rides and even had a lady tell me I was crazy at a red light when I missed it for trying to get my oldest to calm down when he was little. My son is now 3 and my daughter is 19 months and I will say it has gotten better. The dvd player we installed has helped but mostly I think it's just something they eventually will grow out of...a little at least.
Maybe she is getting car sick. I've heard of this and I'm not sure if there is anything for motion sickness for babies, but I imagine there is something out there.Also I turned on the radio pretty loud with some vegetales songs or other kid music or I would roll the window down...and let everyone else share inthe joyful noise coming from my car:) Also I found lots of great calming techniques in Dr. Karp's book "The Happiest Baby on the block" It might have some ideas for you as well.
Best of luck to you and as my husband always tells me..."It's just noise it's just noise:)"

I had the same problem and know exactly how you feel. I don't know if it's possible since your baby is still rear facing but try mounting a portable dvd player in front of her. That is the only thing that worked for me. My son would cry only after being in the car for 5 minutes and would not stop. As soon as I installed the dvd player, he was as quiet as a mouse.

My son was the same way. Except he would start as soon as he hit that car seat. Ended up finding out when he was 4 that he gets migraine headaches extreamly bad and migraines and motion sickness go hand in hand. He is now on medication twice a day and he has no more car sickness and very few headaches. ( except when it is time to up the dose)

We couldn't even get in the car and out of the garage as he got older and was able to tell us he was sick. It was a very severe case of it. And bless his little heart had been dealing with it since birth. And it took takeing him to All Childrens to get a diagnoisis. So maybe question your doctor about that. I know your baby is still young, but they may be able to suggest something for motion sickness if that is the case. Hope this helps.

And not to preach, but please don't take that baby out of the seat. I have had 2 kids in my family killed in car accidents over the past 3 years, One was in a car seat the other to old for one and no seat belt.. Being safe, that is more important than taking a chance at loosing a baby.

I'm reading your posting and it's as if I'm reading about my own situation. My daughter is now 10 months. Unfortunately, we never did find a solution. i even went as far as putting a mirror in the backseat. Didn't work. It wasn't until she was about 8 months that it changed. She still cries when she is in the dark and by herself, but it used to be constant. I don't have a suggestion for you but hopefully it will make you feel better to know you are not alone. One thing that did help us, sometimes, is my husband would drive and I would sit in the back with her. This didn't always work but it helped sometimes.

This sounds so much like my son when he was a baby. He had colic and HATED to ride in the car. Unfortunately, I never really found anything that made it better (i.e., turning the seat, toys, music) either. The good news is that he eventually outgrew it and now at 3, loves to ride in the car. It started getting better gradually from about 6 months on and just got better and better over time. My pediatrician thought that perhaps riding in the car was making him carsick. I did have to ask for more help from my husband, so I could do as many errands as possible without the baby. Just hang in there, it gets much better!

One person I know tried using a portable DVD player and a Baby Einstein DVD. It worked for her.

Our little boy started screaming in his carseat at 2 months old and hasn't stopped. He is 7.5 months now. It did get a little better at 6.5 months...but we've tried everything.

You are not alone...hang in there....

try her out in other cars. there may be something she doesn't like about your car especially. my niece hated cars and they bought a mini van and she loved it.
do not take her out while driving. a crying baby is always better than a dead baby and does anyone really want to be like britney spears?

of course, you have to stop taking her out of the seat and just roll down the windows and deal with it. No more taking out of the seat, ever! I think the motion sickness idea is intersting. If I got motion sickness, I would hate the car too. In the latest issue of Parents maganzine there is a "favorite things" page. One of them is something for a child to wear around their wrist that puts pressure of the pressure points that help with motion sickness. I've heard of these for people going out on boats, and this one was for babies and children. I think it is worth a shot! Moving up to the convertable car seat is another good one. My son was never bad in the car, but he really loved it we got him the Britax marathon seat, very comfy. This really sucks, but until something helps or she outgrows it, one of you stay home with her. Hopefully it will just be a temporary thing! Good luck and Merry Christmas!

Hello,

What i would do is go to Wal-mart and get a DVD player that goes on the back of the drivers seat for the car to see if she would enjoy watching a movie while she is in her car seat for the ride.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4756576

If that does not work,

SHE MIGHT BE GETTING CAR SICK. ((( Motion sickness )))

http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/motion-sickness-topic-...

You need to talk to your childs Dr. and see what He/She has to say about it. ASK THE DOCTOR TO TAKE A LITTLE RIDE WITH YOU TO SEE WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.

I wish you the best.

God Bless and Merry Christmas.

From one mother to another. :)

My son pretty much hated the car until we were able to turn him around at 1 year (thank goodness he weighed enough to do it right when he turned one). I think his crankiness peaked around the 6 month mark and then slowly subsided until we could turn him around at one.
We basically just had to deal with him screaming in the car. No one thing worked every time, but sometimes music helped--we tried different kinds(kids and classical) and toys too. So I'm sorry I have no advice only the assurance that it does stop. In fact, soon after he turned one, he not only stopped screaming so much, but will occasionally take naps!

My husband put one of his shirts over her like a blanket. It was a clean one, he wore for an hour after a shower so it would get his scent on it and that worked for us. Luckily for us she did not have colic or anything other than being lonely.
We wound up doing this in her crib too! We spread a "scented" shirt over the top of the crib and tucked it in tight like a sheet, she would lay her head on it like it was his chest!
Couldn't hurt to try!!
Good Luck
J.

Please...no matter how much your baby cries, please do not EVER take her out of the seat. I know a family that lost their child doing that exact thing. It is SO unsafe. Please, please, please don't ever do it again. Good luck.

Since she doesn't mind the seat when it's clicked into the stroller, maybe it's the angle that it's in when it's in the car-- especially if she is colicky. I know for a little one it's easier to have the type that you can take out and click into a stroller, but my sister had your same problem with my neice--- so she switched to a convertable seat. It faces the back until they are a year old and 20 lbs and then you turn it to face forward. It's a larger seat that takes up a bit more room in the car, and it doesn't click into a stroller, but it worked for her-- and she got the advice to try it from several other mothers who had to do the same thing. My neice still didn't love riding in a car, but she stopped the ear piercing screaming

K.,
I don't have any definite advice for you YET,but a friend of mine has an 8 yr. old son who had severe colic for almost the first year of his life. I will email her and see what ideas she might have.

I have to believe there's a correlation between your daughter's colic and her dislike of car rides. Many infants and toddlers get "car sick"/motion sickness anyway - if you couple that with already having colic, I'm sure your little one's belly feels just plain "yucky" anytime she's riding in the car.

I'll let you know either way what I hear back from my friend. - S.