..and alone in the car?
For the most part, I don't strap Sprout into the carseat unless he's been freshly fed & diaper changed. And, for the most part, he likes his carseat & riding in the car.
HOWEVER, there are some occasions when he starts crying for no reason and I'm by myself...driving.
The scenario usually is like this: I put him in the carseat in our house (it never stays in the car). He's fine. I put the carseat (with him in it) in the car. He's fine. We start driving. He's fine. We get halfway to our destination. He starts crying.
The few times this has happened, I'm on 66 or the Dulles Toll Road or other high-speed road where pulling over (well, merging back into traffic) seems a bit risky.
What would (or do) you do?
Re: WWYD: Baby crying when you're driving?
I agree--there isn't much you can do but keep on driving.
DS loved the car and pretty much always fell asleep. DD does not enjoy her car riders and starts crying about 75% of the time. DS's facial expressions while his sister wails are pretty entertaining.
OK, this makes me feel better.
I totally feel like a horrible mom just letting him cry, but you're right, there's not really much I can do other than get to the destination as quickly (safely & legally) as possible and do the soothing then.
For a local drive, I generally just keep going. This is especially true now that I know DS's cries pretty well, and I think I would recognize a cry for something unusual (like if he was hurt or sick). If he's crying in the car now, it's usually more of a bored/annoyed with being cooped up cry. Even when he was really little, I usually just kept going at least long enough to find a safe place to pull off and check his diaper and/or feed him. (And if our destination was fairly close, I would have just waited until we got there.) The only way I would pull off on the side of the highway or somewhere like that would be if he were vomiting or if I thought he had gotten hurt somehow.
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As others have already said, there's not much you can do. I did like you do and made sure they were fed and changed just before getting in the car. So their cries were almost always out of just not wanting to be in their car seat. If I pulled over and got them out to soothe them, they'd start crying as soon as I put them back in. So it was better for all involved if I just got wherever I needed to go as quickly as possible.
Three helpful things I learned through experience:
1) Taking highways / roads without lights and stop signs to keep up a consistent higher speed that they preferred. Constantly stopping and starting and going 25 mph made them mad! (I know, easier said than done in DC traffic).
2) Finding a radio station with poor reception and cranking the static to ungodly levels. The volume was key - it had to be LOUD. Often the white noise calmed them down and made them zone out.
3) Using a mirror so you can see them and they can see themselves. Extra good if it has flashing lights / moving parts. DD had one like that and loved it. I tried to find the same one for DS because hers had burned out, but I had no luck and settled on one with just music. In retrospect, the lights would've been much more interesting to him.
DS hated his infant seat, so he generally screamed the entire way wherever we were going. There's not much that can be done. He didn't take a pacifier, and screamed louder if I sang to him. I downloaded some white noise from iTunes and played that in the car--sometimes it worked.
The worst was when I'd hit every freaking red light from my house to my destination!
Ooohhh, getting a CD is a great idea (which didn't even occur to me)! He really likes Colbie Caliet. :P but a baby one would be good too.
I can't reach him to put the pacifier in his mouth, unfortunately.
PP is right: Mostly he's crying b/c he's over being in the carseat and wants to get out. He stops crying once I take him out.
This was DD, hated the car, wouldn't take a paci, although she liked it when I sang songs. Which I did. Loudly. Her favorite was the Wheels on the Prius - we had everyone I ever met come into the car and do something funny. Mostly that was for me since she didn't understand the lyrics. You got to self entertain too to keep sane.
I meant to add, I saw this clever battery powered mobile for the car seat at Buy Buy Baby when DD was little that I should have bought. I regretted not spending the $25 on it. I think ti would have helped - DD loved the mobile in her crib and it might have entertained her.
When there were two of us in the car, one of us always sat in the back seat with DD. I don't think we moved to both in the front until she was nearly 6 months old for local trips. We still sit in the back for long car rides.
We had the same issue. I read somewhere about turning on a radio station that didn't come in. The static always does the trick. She would calm down super quick. It's like magic!
GL!
Toys, and books usually did the trick for our little guy. Even at ten months. I'd put a stack of them in the passenger side seat and hand one whenever he got fussy or bored.