Baby screaming in the car

by laura
(scotland)

Our daughter is now 16 months old. When she was about 2 weeks old she began screaming in the car on every journey - by 10 weeks of age she could do 50 mins constant screaming and by 11 months it was up to 2.5 hours.




As you might imagine this was so stressful I avoided the car wherever possible!

Things did not improve with the forward face car seat - but she can now tolerate a journey of about an hour IF she is not tired. If she is tired she will scream and scream - she just cannot fall asleep in the car.

I have 2 boys with spd - and it looks like my my daughter has it too - she is not yet walking and bunny hops rather than crawling. there are some other signs too - motor planning issues.

She falls asleep well in bed at home - but not in the pram. She does tend to scream immediately on waking too.


Could the probs in the car be spd too?



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Mar 15, 2010
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starstarstarstarstar 		Screaming in the car
by: Anonymous

I'm in my 50's now but my mother said I screamed in the car starting when I was 2 months old. She finally figured out it was because I was feeling sick from the motion and gave me something for motion sickness. It helped but later as a 4 and 5 year old, I still felt bad.
Jan 06, 2009
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starstarstarstarstar 		Car Ride Ideas
by: Anonymous

My daughter is the same. She has learned to use a CD player with head phones, a portable DVD player with soothing sounds, and a battery operated fan that I got from One Step Ahead. These activities are calming for her. Also, I do not keep a coat on her in the car. The less bulk she has on, the better she tolerates the seatbelt straps. Talk to an Occupational Therapist for more ideas.
Jan 04, 2009
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starstarstarstarstar 		screaming in the car
by: Anonymous

My daughter also screamed in the car. She just could not tolerate being strapped in and then it only made it worse to have to place her rear facing. It did get a little better once she could be forward facing, but still couldn't overcome her distress at being strapped in. I literally had to force her into the car seat, with her crying and screaming, when she was a toddler. It was awful! I felt like an abusive mother, but there was no reasoning with her.

We discovered that she would settle down when given the appropriate input. My mother let her suck on a piece of candy cane at 3 months old. It was just a spur of the moment thing, but she stopped crying. Now she often uses an MP3 player. Play around with different things that she enjoys and see what works for her. My daughter is now 11 and most of the time car rides are not a problem for her. There is hope! Good luck! :)

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