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Sunday, September 12th, 2010
Sometimes, there are moments of incredible sweetness – when Ruby grins and coos and gurgles, or when I sing to her, and her eyes lock on my face like it is the only thing tethering her to the world.
Other times, there of moments of annoyance – when I spend 20 minutes soothing her to sleep and she wakes up in 15, or is calm and content if you’re standing up with her but starts fussing the moment you sit down.
Then there are the car rides. The first two weeks of her life, Ruby fell asleep automatically every time we got in the car, but back then, she slept all the time anyway. We actually had to struggle to get her to wake up for her two-week photographs. My, how things have changed.
At some point, Ruby decided she hated riding in the car. She’d start out fussing, escalate to screaming, then culminate in crying loudly and pitifully, complete with real tears. She didn’t wear out. She didn’t fall asleep. It went on and on and on.
And it’s still going on, three months later. Nearly every car ride is an experiment in torture. My friend Tracy said riding in a car with a screaming baby is like being stabbed in the face repeatedly, and that seems about right to me.
A typical 30-minute drive to town goes like this: Before we leave, I make sure she’s fed and dry and reasonably cheerful. She starts fussing the moment I put her in the car seat but calms again once we’re outside. The quiet lasts 5 to 12 minutes, while she looks at herself in the mirror and plays with her hands or blankie. I listen to music and wait tensely for the fussing to begin. It inevitably does, and I launch into my arsenal of attempts to quiet her. I scramble on my iPod to play one of the songs that has most recently calmed her – “You Are My Sunshine” or “Didn’t Leave Nobody But the Baby” from the O, Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack; Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Puff the Magic Dragon”; “Baby Don’t You Cry,” from the movie Waitress; anything by Buena Vista Social Club; or the Allman Brothers Band’s “Little Martha.”
If I hit the right song, she will go instantly quiet a few bars in, fall asleep and stay that way until we get off the interstate and to the first red light, at which point she usually starts back up and nothing, NOTHING, will calm her until we reach our destination.
If I don’t hit the right song, she will keep crying and crying, her face red, her chin trembling, her cheeks wet with tears. I sing to her, I talk to her, I roll down the windows for the white noise, I adjust the canopy of her seat to block intermittent sun from shining in her eyes, I endanger our lives trying to reach back and stick a pacifier in her mouth. Sometimes, one of these tricks works. Other times, I am reduced to tears right along with her.
In the past, I never really minded our little 30-minute commute, especially once I wasn’t having to do it every day anymore. It was a time to listen to music or podcasts or audiobooks, talk on the phone, think. Now I dread getting in the car, where my angel and I both suffer a kind of hell on wheels.
I’ve scoured books and the Internet for solutions, but basically everyone says, “Just wait it out. There’s nothing you can do. Whatever you do, don’t give in and take your baby out of the seat for even a short ride.” Well, duh.
We’ve tried figuring out what the problem is – at first we thought this exceptionally hot summer was the problem, but she cries even with the A/C blasting, and we thought maybe she’s car sick. But then we realized she never (or rarely anyway) pitches a fit if someone rides in the back with her. Doesn’t matter who it is, as long as she has company.
We concluded the problem is she’s lonely. True, the child hates to be alone in general, so it makes sense. But once again, what are we going to do to fix it?
When we go to town together on the weekends, I ride in the back and we all go in peace. But most of the time it’s just Ruby and me. Even just short car rides from place to place in town are nightmarish because stop-and-go traffic is her particular kryptonite. I fear stopping at the bank or any drive-thru because it’s likely to create a tidal wave of misery originating in the back seat.
I keep hoping time will fix this problem, as she gets older and more able to entertain herself with toys. So far, her expanded ability to grasp things and stuff them in her mouth hasn’t helped at all, though at home she’ll often play alone in her vibrating seat on the bathroom floor long enough for me to take a shower and get dressed. Still, those times she can lay her eyes on Mama now and then, and in the car, hearing me is apparently not enough.
And I worry it may get worse before it gets better. She already thinks she’s far too big a girl to lie back. She wants to sit upright at all times, and will struggle to lift her shoulders up, even in the restraints of the car seat. Won’t this just get worse as she gets stronger and more capable of actually sitting up?
In the mean time – for better or worse – we are stuck. Unless someone invents a robot to sit in the back and keep her company.
Hello,
I’ve been reading your blog for awhile now and it’s a lot of fun to read. Anyway my younger son cried like he was being burned everytime he rode in the car. I finally turned the car seat around so he was facing the front of the car. He absolutely loved it no more crying about that.
hope this works itself out.
I have soooo been there. My daughter cried like this every.single.time we got in the car. Riding in the back with her was hit and miss..Sometimes there was happiness..sometimes not. The turning point for us was when I bought a DVD player for the car. Somehow throwing in Monsters Inc solved all of the problems in the world.
My first three HATED the carseat their first year. They would fuss when we put them in, just like Ruby, settle for a bit and then, the crying would inevitably start and quickly escalate into hysterical screaming and sobbing. A moving car was better than a stopped car and I was known to scream and swear obscenities at any jack@$$ who might cause us to unnecessarily slow or stop, triggering another screaming attack. So much fun. So much fun. And no, even after three kids, we never discovered anything that would help. Myself, or the entire family, singing at the top of our lungs sometimes helped. A little. A very little.
Of course, you know you never take them out in a moving car but also, DO NOT turn her forward facing ANY earlier than you absolutely have to. That means, keep her rear-facing for as long as you can find a seat with high enough weight/height limits to accommodate her rear-facing. Don’t turn her forward facing just because she’s outgrown her infant seat and is big enough for a forward facing seat. Do the research and you’ll understand why it is just not worth the risk.
My fourth loved the carseat. Slept in it whenever she was put in the car. But she slept almost nowhere else. I didn’t think there was a worse hell than a baby who screams in her carseat. Turns out there is–a baby who won’t sleep anywhere else but a moving car.
It’s good to know I’m not the only one, though I hate anyone else had to suffer through this! :) I’ve read the research on rear-facing – how much safer it is – and was actually planning on doing extended rear-facing, but if this keeps up, the minute it’s legal to switch her around, I’m doing it! Of course, that’s many long months from now. Please let the screaming stop before then!!!
We had a screamer for awhile too. As soon as she was big enough we bought a convertible car seat and while she is still rear facing she is now tall enough to see out the window. Problem solved! She sits straighter and her nosey little mind gets to look at the world outside!
I have read the research on rear-facing being safer but I beg to differ. The rear-facing carseat is only safer in the event of a frontal collision. For someone who has been rear-ended four times now in my life (luckily no kid with me any of these times) and never been in a head-on collision I’m far more concerned with the fact that I have NO control over what the idiot behind me is doing than the traffic in front of me where I have a better chance at avoiding collisions. I don’t think there is anything we can do to protect our children 100% of the time…and honesty if its safer to turn her around so that she’s not being a distraction, I’d turn her around even if she’s not big enough/old enough. I guess we all just have to weigh the pros and cons and do whats best in our own situations. :)
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