My Baby Hates Car Rides

Dear Parent,

I rejoice in your question because you have already responded to your baby by limiting yourself rather than hurting her. When more mothers refuse to compromise what is best for the baby and child, society will start to notice what it takes to meet a baby’s needs. Making the effort in spite of its harm to the child makes our mothering work invisible, and teaches society to believe that everything is fine and that mothers can do it alone. I would like to invite more mothers to avoid doing what is not possible or not best for the child.

The nuclear family creates isolation. Combined with the American car dependent lifestyle, the challenges are often without solutions. It requires change at the root

through the involvement of more adults. Some mothers can walk, take the bus or a taxi. But most cannot. Our cities are designed for adults and for driving. 

I could give you a list of possible ways to occupy your daughter in her back seat; from providing her favorite snack, to playing her favorite music. However, these are ways to trick her out of her direction and a highly self-assured baby is less likely to fall for them anyway. Therefore, instead of offering you ways to coerce your baby into riding the car, I would like to suggest that you enroll other adults in accomplishing your car rides. They need to know that caring for a baby cannot be done alone. With rare exceptions, a mother cannot drive and attend to a strapped baby at the same time.

Once you accept that there is no way you can use the car while alone with your daughter, the solutions will show up. Instead of trying to solve the problem, see it as unsolvable and present it this way to your family. Let your husband shop on the way home (my dear husband did that for many years,) or go for your errands when your husband or another adult can be the driver. Ask other adults in your life to join you, or to shop for you. If you have to go to a chiropractor or dentist, make the appointment at a time your husband or another relative or friend can drive you and can also hold the baby while are being treated.

Reality is: Your daughter is not able to sit alone in her car sit. You must be with her. Someone else must drive. Once this truth is faced, rather than avoided, we, you will gain more respect and participation from those who love your and your daughter.

Warmly, Naomi Aldort, http://authenticparent.com/index.html