Crying in the car, WDYD?

DD does not like going in the car!! She will be alright for the first bit but eventually will start to cry...no, scream! She will cry so much she will hold her breath and have tears and go really dark red/blue :( It's so sad! If I think maybe she needs a nappy change or feed I will stop and check everything.

But what do you do if you know nothing is wrong, she just doesn't like the car?? Do you stop?? If I stop and calm her then when I put her back in she just cries again anyway so maybe I should just keep going until I get to where I'm going. But it's so hard to hear her cry like that! If it was just a whinge I could put up with it but she SCREAMS!!

So, WDYD??

Byron used to do the exact same thing. I dreaded going out with just him and me cause i knew what was coming. We just did daily little trips down the road and i tried my hardest to keep calm.
He got better at travelling around 9 weeks. I hung a toy where he could see it and i think it was around that time he started to take an intrest in toys so it may have helped.
No one believed me when i said he hated the car (until they saw first hand!)
Eventually he grew out of it - or got used to it - cause he is fine now. He also got better once i put him in a proper car seat and got rid of the capsule.

Oh this post has brought back all those memories....my DD would do the same and it used to send me crazy I was pulling over every few minutes so a drive any longer then 20 mins was out of the question for us....

Do you have some toys hanging so she can see them? they might distract her for at least a few minutes.

Do you have sun shades up? I know that my kids hated the sun coming in on them in the car
Is the seat belt to tight ?
Is the car seat comfy?
Could she be over heated? I know that my dd used to have to many layers of clothes on in the car and would get hot really easy...

If she is fed and you know there is no obviuos reason for her screaming then there is not much more you can do I guess.

You're definitely not alone with this!
I don't think there is anything more stressful then driving somewhere with a little bub screaming in the back seat.
TBH I think when they are little there isn't a whole lot you can do except make sure they have a full, settled tummy before you head off, and aren't overtired or cranky. Organise your trips if you can, when bubby is relaxed as possible.

It's definitely someting they grow out of, and it's great when they are around 3 months-ish and can grap at a little toy.

Hang in there!

I used to sing at the top of my voice - when DS realised he used to be stunned into silence and then start laughing...wheels on the bus works well.


AAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLDDDDDAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYLOOOOO OOOOOONG

Bubs are often not that happy in the car when they are little but they do get better at it. Singing & turning the radio up tends to work, and when older clapping your hands at the traffic lights in view of bubs will distract them and get them clapping and smiling. Talking can also help.

We had and still have this problem occasionally..we tackle it by...driving at night when we go away (she sleeps the whole time), sing songs, put on her fave tunes and put her car seat next to the window then point things out like cows, cars, people, water, grass etc and just ramble on about things. Toys are ok but due to her relatively short attention span- do not last long so we keep giving them till we run out hehe...goodluck, its not easy, especially when they are little

Must admit this made me smile, it bought back a memory from Sunday.
I had the GS's and the youngest decided to cry from the moment we put him in the car.
I sang all the way home, a 15 minute trip, nearly at the top of my voice but I think I shocked him enough for him to stay quiet most of the time. :rolleyes:
This has only happened once with my DD1 many years ago and after I had pulled over a couple of times decided the best policy was to keep going and just get there.
Someone once suggested to me that it might have been a slight case of carsickness. To this day she cannot look down when a passenger.

Its hard to concentrate with a crying child in the car but it's better than them fighting. ;)

oh blast, lost a huge post.

I found sitting in the back seat and holding his hand helped ... and driving with your family, but again, sitting in the back seat. Taking the back roads so you can stop immediately he starts crying and pick him up, give him a cuddle until he settles down, and then continue to drive again, no need to get out of the car,

good luck.

DD was exactly like this and so was my SIL's baby (who is 3 weeks younger than DD). One day we had them both in the car with us and they cried in unison EVERY time we stopped at traffic lights and stopped at the same time as soon as we started driving again. We were in fits of laughter because there really was very little else we could do.

We found driving on rough road worked, not hard to do in Townsville - the pot hole capital of the universe. My brother actually used to go out of his way to drive over speed bumps because it settled down his son.

I found sometimes that it was just easier to do short trips when I had to go out and just drive without stopping because stopping seemed to just prolong the pain for DD and for me. She would scream whenever I drove anywhere until she was about 3 - 4 months old. I remember feeling relieved if the crying ever stopped and then completely freaking out that she had stopped breathing and then relieved that the crying had started again because I knew she was alive.

It got better eventually and she just loves the car now. We tried so many things and nothing really worked to settle her. In the end I think she just grew out of her hate for car trips but I had a lot more gray hair to show for it :p

I hope your DD settles down soon - it really is not an easy time having to drive in the car with a crying baby :hug:

LOL thankyou all, some funny stories. So I guess it's just a general baby thing, they all hate it!!
It's so horrible. I have been sitting in the back while DH drives and trying to calm her but when I go out by myself I can't do anything, it's so horrible!! Esp when she cries really hard and stops breathing, I don't know what to do then!

But I agree, stopping to comfort her doesn't do much bc as soon as I put her back in it starts again. Maybe I should just keep going and get there, and try not to cry, lol.

Oh gosh, the memories!!!!

Singing, radio, CDs. Timing when you go out to coincide with when they're sleeping. Great with a capsule cos I could put DS in it asleep and then put it in the car and leave! DS really hated it when the car stopped. So we spent months going the 'back way' everywhere to avoid traffic lights AMAP :rofl: the things you do!

As soon as DD gets put in the car seat, she screams murder!!!! Instantly.... she just knows "uh oh, not this car seat again!!!" :lol: they are so smart....
Car trips have been very upsetting and stressful until we bought the baby einstein baby Vavaldi and it really does help!!! She even falls asleep to it..... ah bliss.....but not all the time :lol: some trips are good others are bad.....
I'm just waiting for her to outgrow her hate for the carseat LOL .... another Mum told me the other day that once babies get turned around to front facing they are usually happier....cos she can then see me!

We have a mirror too so we can see her and she can see herself but i dont think that seems to help!

Ren, if it makes you feel better, DS loved the car a long time before he was turned around. He was rearward facing until 19 months, and he was loving the car from at least 4 or 5 months. Thank goodness :lol:

My DD started to love the car too before we turned her seat around.

Ren - Your DD will probably start to LOVE the mirror you have set up for her in the next month or two. Babies are so vain - they love looking at themselves. That should help things a bit too :)

umm...this will sound weird..
Charlotte LOVES heavy metal lol We used to put on Metallica not blaring, but loud enough fer her to hear it, and she would stop crying almost straight away....

weird, like I said, but it worked - and still does ;)

Oh, hun, I have been in your shoes. DD HATED the car. She would scream so hard that she would start to choke. It was torture. Sometimes I sang to her, not that it really helped, but at least it made me feel like I'm doing SOMETHING.
Nothing made it better. If someone was sitting next to her, it was actually worse. i guess she didn't understand why they couldn't pick her up.
People used to say that I should just ignore it and that she's soon learn and stop. Or at least cry herself to sleep. No such luck. On a drive to pick up my brother from the airport, she managed to cry non-stop for 2 hours. She didn't fall asleep until I took her out of the car.
I ended up trying to keep trips short and not making unnecessary long trips. But sometimes it couldn't be avoided. Funnily enough, when she was 6 months old, we flew all the way to Germany. A 30 hour trip, door to door. Being on the plane for 24 hours was much easier than being in the car for 1/2 hour.

Sometimes music soothed her a little. I had a CD called Peace Baby (from woolies) which she loved and I played it to her when feeding her to sleep and when in the car. It is quite pleasant for adults to listen to as well.

It got a little better when I turned her seat around at 6 months. But she still disliked the car and would only tolerate short stints in it. It did change dramatically when a few weeks after turning the seat, she all of a sudden accepted a dummy (she had a really strong sucking instinct from birth, but never liked dummies, only my boobs). From then on, she had a dummy in the car. She still does for longer trips. She now happily sits in the car for a couple of hours and often falls asleep in it.

I know how agonising it can be. I hope your baby will not keep this up as long as mine did. that just didn't like to be put down. So I guess she just didn't understand why she had to be in her seat alone in the car. DD was the kind of baby I'm expecting #2 in a couple of months and am really hoping that this one will like the car better. He or she won't have to sit alone on the back seat and maybe having the company of his/her older sister will make a difference.

All the best,
Sasa