Help! Why does my infant hate her car seat?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many times a week is she put into the car seat? And for how long, on average?

+1. I wonder if these are mostly city dwellers. I’m out in the car dependent suburbs and have honestly never heard of this.

Nope. I’m suburban and mine screamed every minute in the car until 13 months. It’s just rare in general I think.

[Anonymous]

I think mine was car sick, we never could drive anywhere for more than 10 min without screaming. It got better once we switched to a carseat that faced forward.

[Anonymous]

Try setting up a really big mirror so she can see you. And continuously talk while you drive.

Think about the creepiness factor of being hurtled backwards at 65 mph with nobody anywhere in sight to reassure you and you can't say any words. Only scream.

[Anonymous]

Mine both despised the car, especially my oldest. Loud white noise near her head helped. One time while we were stuck in traffic and she was screaming her head off, I climbed in the back and breast fed her hanging over her car seat like a cow. Truly a low moment but it worked. But honestly they both just had to outgrow it. It was awful and I really sympathize with you, but in the scheme of things it passes quickly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many times a week is she put into the car seat? And for how long, on average?

+1. I wonder if these are mostly city dwellers. I’m out in the car dependent suburbs and have honestly never heard of this.

Nope. I’m suburban and mine screamed every minute in the car until 13 months. It’s just rare in general I think.

I don't think it is rare at all

[Anonymous]

Ugh! I went through this with both girls. The worst! I actually walked everywhere with my second to avoid the car. Things changed when we purchased a minivan that had a DVD player. It was magic!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many times a week is she put into the car seat? And for how long, on average?

+1. I wonder if these are mostly city dwellers. I’m out in the car dependent suburbs and have honestly never heard of this.

Nope. I’m suburban and mine screamed every minute in the car until 13 months. It’s just rare in general I think.

I don't think it is rare at all

I was in a pretty large and active baby group that complained about everything and don’t recall hearing this one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ugh! I went through this with both girls. The worst! I actually walked everywhere with my second to avoid the car. Things changed when we purchased a minivan that had a DVD player. It was magic!

So not until they could forward face? That’s a very long time!

[Anonymous]

Hugs to you, OP. My first just hated the car. Screamed every time and it made me so anxious while driving. Unfortunately, as others have said, this is something they grow out of. For mine, I think it was a combination of getting motion sickness and just hating being in the carseat. We had a mirror strapped on from the beginning and he would scream and eventually vomit on long car rides. We thought it was from the scream crying but one day we took the mirror out and things got marginally better.

Once we turned him around it got loads better. I also think sitting up taller and being able to see out the window helps. For what it's worth, my car screamer is now a champ on long car rides -- happy as can be, talking and singing the whole road trip. Hang in there. It's so tough, but it happens to a lot of us and it will get better eventually.

[Anonymous]

It's probably the seat. I had this issue with 1 child and a maxi cosi seat (worst seat ever). The infant seat was too forward/upright compared to other infant carseats. So, we ended up buying a different brand and it was instantly fine.