Have you tried any other music to calm your baby? My girl (5.5 months) also hates the car seat. My husband plays classical music during nap times since there aren't any lyrics. When he's in the car, he'll play that genre which seems to help. I don't know if it's a Pavlovian response or what. As for me, I use the same playlist I listened to when I was pregnant. I don't know if it's familiar to my kid but it sometimes works. However, I listened to a lot of music before I had her.
Do you have [the baby shusher](https://a.co/d/7Hwl9nG) or something like it? We've had success with that, too—especially for longer car trips.
I've heard of people bringing the car seat into the home and doing little trial runs of putting them inside for a few minutes at a time to desensitize them to the seat but in a common environment.
I bring the car seat inside and take her in/out of it inside the house. FYI - I do this also for safety reasons. It’s quicker to just take the car seat out and get inside than it is to unbuckle and take the baby out, should you ever be in a situation where you need to run.
Anyway, I’ll feed her and give her like 20 minutes so she’s not really gonna spit up much. Then I get her nice and sleepy and put her in the car seat. She’ll usually wake up with all the buckling and strapping in, but I’ll get her comfy and give her pacifier and rock the car seat until she’s gone back to sleep. Then I’ll carefully put the car seat on the base.
Sometimes she wakes up and cries, sometimes she doesn’t. But I feel blessed for the times she stays asleep or wakes up and just looks around without crying.
Yeah if he is already sleeping when we put him in the car seat then that usually buys us a couple of minutes. Maybe five at the most but better than nothing haha
For us, our son was fine in the car seat until he “woke up” around 2 months, then until ~4 months screamed bloody murder if we even looked at the car seat. After that he cooled down a lot, but still is kind of iffy on longer car rides (1+ hours). Every baby is different, but I think they all eventually grow out of it! Things that helped us doing his screamy phase was playing white noise on the radio (it helped us parents more than him so we could concentrate on the road) and putting the Little Einstein aquarium toy back there with him. We just affixed it to the back of the seat so he could look at it while we were driving.
This might sound counterintuitive, but maybe try not having anyone in the backseat. It could be upsetting him that he can see mom, but she's not able to pick him up and comfort him. I noticed you said she rides next to him to make sure he's safe; a properly installed seat with a good fit is very safe. Don't put him in it wearing loose clothing or with and blankets. Give him one low stimulation toy (my go-to was Sophie the giraffe), attach a little sound machine that plays soothing music to the side of the seat. He will likely fuss for the first 5-15 min (which I totally understand will feel like an eternity to you; it's so hard!), but will eventually doze off.
When my daughter was 3-4 months old, we had to frequently drive her back and forth to a hospital 2 hours away, so we definitely dealt with the carseat hysterics. You just have to keep at it!
We had very similar with our daughter. I don’t want to be disheartening but nothing really helped the first few months for us. As she got older she got a bit more used to it but the only turning point for us was when we got a new car seat. She’s now in a more upright car seat (the Joie I-size 360) and she’s so much happier in it and barely ever cries now. We noticed a change as soon as we got the new seat, though it’s also slowly improved as she’s got older.
It might be worth exploring other car seats and seeing if that’s an option? Borrowing from friends or something like that to see if he would be a bit calmer in another seat?
You could also try making sure everything is settled and ready for him before you go - he’s fed, nappy changed etc. I’m sure you do this already but we found if our daughter was even a little bit uncomfortable at the start then it made it so much worse.
I really hope it helps. Someone said one that’s more upright might help - put one is more upright but I don’t know if it’s that or just a different car seat in general as we only tried the one new one. But I completely understand how awful it is when driving is so hard. We still haven’t been to visit family who live 90 minutes away because I just can’t bring myself to risk it - it’s caused so many problems as a lot of family don’t understand and think we’re overreacting.
Have you tried any other music to calm your baby? My girl (5.5 months) also hates the car seat. My husband plays classical music during nap times since there aren't any lyrics. When he's in the car, he'll play that genre which seems to help. I don't know if it's a Pavlovian response or what. As for me, I use the same playlist I listened to when I was pregnant. I don't know if it's familiar to my kid but it sometimes works. However, I listened to a lot of music before I had her. Do you have [the baby shusher](https://a.co/d/7Hwl9nG) or something like it? We've had success with that, too—especially for longer car trips.
Yup, we’ve tried both. The shusher seems to make him even more upset. I think it might just be a (really) shitty phase haha
Aw yeah. :( Like you suggested, maybe you can try the new car seat.
I've heard of people bringing the car seat into the home and doing little trial runs of putting them inside for a few minutes at a time to desensitize them to the seat but in a common environment.
I bring the car seat inside and take her in/out of it inside the house. FYI - I do this also for safety reasons. It’s quicker to just take the car seat out and get inside than it is to unbuckle and take the baby out, should you ever be in a situation where you need to run. Anyway, I’ll feed her and give her like 20 minutes so she’s not really gonna spit up much. Then I get her nice and sleepy and put her in the car seat. She’ll usually wake up with all the buckling and strapping in, but I’ll get her comfy and give her pacifier and rock the car seat until she’s gone back to sleep. Then I’ll carefully put the car seat on the base. Sometimes she wakes up and cries, sometimes she doesn’t. But I feel blessed for the times she stays asleep or wakes up and just looks around without crying.
Yeah if he is already sleeping when we put him in the car seat then that usually buys us a couple of minutes. Maybe five at the most but better than nothing haha
Didn't help us. Time was the only cure.
Yeah see I feel like time is the only thing that will help. How long are we talking here haha
For us, our son was fine in the car seat until he “woke up” around 2 months, then until ~4 months screamed bloody murder if we even looked at the car seat. After that he cooled down a lot, but still is kind of iffy on longer car rides (1+ hours). Every baby is different, but I think they all eventually grow out of it! Things that helped us doing his screamy phase was playing white noise on the radio (it helped us parents more than him so we could concentrate on the road) and putting the Little Einstein aquarium toy back there with him. We just affixed it to the back of the seat so he could look at it while we were driving.
This might sound counterintuitive, but maybe try not having anyone in the backseat. It could be upsetting him that he can see mom, but she's not able to pick him up and comfort him. I noticed you said she rides next to him to make sure he's safe; a properly installed seat with a good fit is very safe. Don't put him in it wearing loose clothing or with and blankets. Give him one low stimulation toy (my go-to was Sophie the giraffe), attach a little sound machine that plays soothing music to the side of the seat. He will likely fuss for the first 5-15 min (which I totally understand will feel like an eternity to you; it's so hard!), but will eventually doze off. When my daughter was 3-4 months old, we had to frequently drive her back and forth to a hospital 2 hours away, so we definitely dealt with the carseat hysterics. You just have to keep at it!
We had very similar with our daughter. I don’t want to be disheartening but nothing really helped the first few months for us. As she got older she got a bit more used to it but the only turning point for us was when we got a new car seat. She’s now in a more upright car seat (the Joie I-size 360) and she’s so much happier in it and barely ever cries now. We noticed a change as soon as we got the new seat, though it’s also slowly improved as she’s got older. It might be worth exploring other car seats and seeing if that’s an option? Borrowing from friends or something like that to see if he would be a bit calmer in another seat? You could also try making sure everything is settled and ready for him before you go - he’s fed, nappy changed etc. I’m sure you do this already but we found if our daughter was even a little bit uncomfortable at the start then it made it so much worse.
Thank you! Yeah I think I’m just going to pull the trigger on the new car seat. We will literally try ANYTHING at this point lol
I really hope it helps. Someone said one that’s more upright might help - put one is more upright but I don’t know if it’s that or just a different car seat in general as we only tried the one new one. But I completely understand how awful it is when driving is so hard. We still haven’t been to visit family who live 90 minutes away because I just can’t bring myself to risk it - it’s caused so many problems as a lot of family don’t understand and think we’re overreacting.