mama <3
My daughter will be 11 months tomorrow. She weighs 23 pounds and is 30" long.
She recently has started to hate being in the car. She will scream until she throws up everytime she has to get in. It doesn't stop, she won't calm down, she doesn't sleep, she is not distracted, she will not take a bottle, she won't eat a snack, and she certainly won't stop screaming. It doesn't matter what carseat she is in (she has 4 different ones), which car she is in, who is in the car, if someone is in the backseat or not, or if she has any toys. She has been doing this for about 6 weeks. We live in an extremely small town (we have no mall, one small grocery store, and one target), and the next closest town is about 2 hours away. We travel to this town at least once a week, sometimes a couple times a week. We have a sick family member in the hospital there so the past few weeks we have started traveling there to see her 3 or 4 times a week.My daughter absolutely hates the drive. I was convinced that there was no way she could scream at the top of her lungs, throwing up, turning purple for 2 hours.. but let me tell you I have seen it happen plenty of times lately. I have no idea what to do anymore. I have tried everything I can think of. We have no one that can watch her while we go, and since we often stay over night I would hate to spend my only 2 days a week off from school away from her. As soon as we get out of the car she is fine and happy, but when it is time to get back in it all starts again. Also, her great grandmother (the one who is sick) loves to see her. She lights up as soon as she comes in the door and never wants her to leave. She has come to visit every weekend since she was born and it would break her heart for us to keep her away for the many more months she will be in the hospital.
I am planning to keep her rear facing as long as possible, but sometimes wonder if she would do better on the long drive if she sat forward facing and could watch a movie (we have screens in the back of the front headrests). I have tried getting a mirror and playing a movie but the picture is literally only an inch big on the mirror.
Any suggestions or advice is welcome. I am completely at my wits end about this!
This week we will have to drive up and back Thursday, Saturday and Monday and I can't take another 4 hours of screaming, and god forbid we hit traffic!!
Please help!!
I have tried the dvd player and she just throws it. She throws everything I give her!
It also doesn't seem to matter what time of day it is. She is just SUPER cranky once we get there if she didn't get a nap before we left and then was upset the whole drive.
We live in Arizona, but I am not sure about the carseat laws here.
I want to keep her rearfacing until her seat no longer allows it and still would even if she just rode forward for the trips out of town, but I worry that we will get in an accident when she is forward facing and I would forever wish that I could have put up with the crying instead of putting her forward. But in the moment I just can't take the constant screaming/throwing up ordeal day after day..
Answer
My daughter hates long car rides too (always has, since she was a baby). I learned quickly what worked for us. We went out and bought several (like 8, at least) new toys for the car ONLY.
She loved the new toys and started getting excited to go in the car to play with them (some of them were new and had lights and sound, some from a dollar store, some I bought used). If she likes books, get some of those for the car only too. That kept her happy for quite a while, and then I would pack "emergency snacks" for when she lost interest in the toys. If she would start to get upset I would give her a little cup or bag of snacks I mixed up (Teddy Grahams, pretzel sticks, Fruit Loops cereal, Goldfish crackers, and fruit snacks mixed together). When my daughter was little yet, we would give Gerber puffs, and Cheerios and Gerber Yogurt melts, and Kix cereal mixed together in a cup. My daughter stayed very happy and busy picking out what she wanted from the cup and enjoying it.
We also got some Color Wonder markers and paint (since they didn't make a mess in the car or on clothes) and she was thrilled to "paint". One time, she started screaming and my husband pulled over to a gas station so we could all get some fresh air. As a last thought, my hubby bought some chocolate milk and added it to her sippy cup and she sipped happily for more than half and hour and fell asleep! It was nice and peaceful for over an hour until we got home!
I can't begin to even tell you, how much this planning has helped us! I don't normally use food to entertain my kids, and I don't usually allow junk food, but we had family that lived out of the area and so we were traveling a lot too. Another idea, would be to get a CD of kids songs to listen to for her. My son loved them as a baby and toddler and he would giggle and hum to them before he could talk. Good luck.
My daughter hates long car rides too (always has, since she was a baby). I learned quickly what worked for us. We went out and bought several (like 8, at least) new toys for the car ONLY.
She loved the new toys and started getting excited to go in the car to play with them (some of them were new and had lights and sound, some from a dollar store, some I bought used). If she likes books, get some of those for the car only too. That kept her happy for quite a while, and then I would pack "emergency snacks" for when she lost interest in the toys. If she would start to get upset I would give her a little cup or bag of snacks I mixed up (Teddy Grahams, pretzel sticks, Fruit Loops cereal, Goldfish crackers, and fruit snacks mixed together). When my daughter was little yet, we would give Gerber puffs, and Cheerios and Gerber Yogurt melts, and Kix cereal mixed together in a cup. My daughter stayed very happy and busy picking out what she wanted from the cup and enjoying it.
We also got some Color Wonder markers and paint (since they didn't make a mess in the car or on clothes) and she was thrilled to "paint". One time, she started screaming and my husband pulled over to a gas station so we could all get some fresh air. As a last thought, my hubby bought some chocolate milk and added it to her sippy cup and she sipped happily for more than half and hour and fell asleep! It was nice and peaceful for over an hour until we got home!
I can't begin to even tell you, how much this planning has helped us! I don't normally use food to entertain my kids, and I don't usually allow junk food, but we had family that lived out of the area and so we were traveling a lot too. Another idea, would be to get a CD of kids songs to listen to for her. My son loved them as a baby and toddler and he would giggle and hum to them before he could talk. Good luck.
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