# Rear-Facing causing car sickness?



## lexbeach (Mar 6, 2002)

I should preface this by saying that I am a CPST, and I *know* that rear-facing for as long as possible is the best practice in regards to safety. My twins were rear-facing until they hit 33 lbs. (after their third birthday).

My worry is that my 20-month-old is getting car sick *due to being rear-facing.* Or, rather, that the rear-facing is exacerbating his tendency towards carsickness. I don't know if I am just projecting my own experience onto him, since I know that if I ever look backwards in the car, I instantly feel sick (and I struggled with extreme car sickness until I learned to drive). My twins have really never complained about feeling sick in the car, but my toddler has started this horrible screaming anytime he spends more than 20 minutes in the car. And then he throws up. Twice now I have flipped his car seat forward facing temporarily just to make it through the last 30 minutes of a drive, and both times he was perfectly happy.

Has anyone else experienced this with their little one? I guess what I'm hoping to hear is that kids who get car sick get car sick regardless of the position of their car seat









. Luckily we rarely get in the car at all, and long trips are even more unusual (we just did a bunch in the last couple weeks, but won't again for a couple of months). But I may be tempted to flip him forward for long trips if it does make a difference. Today he was choking on his vomit (sorry, gross, I know), and it's really lucky that I happened to be sitting next to him in the car (usually I'm the only adult in the car), and I had the driver quickly pull over so that I could get him out and get him in a position where he could clear his airway. It was scary, and I realized that if I hadn't been sitting next to him, and he was rear-facing, I wouldn't have known he was throwing up or choking.

Thoughts?

Lex


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## aja-belly (Oct 7, 2004)

hey! i think i am the poster you are looking for.









marvel gets very anxious and carsick. it's awful.







when she was about 19 months old i decided to try flipping her around ff to see if it made a difference. it seemed to for the first day or two but after a week it was exactly the same.









the things we have done that seem to help are - have water in a bottle for her (with a slower flow nipple so she can suck and sip it but not chug it). more of a recline made a HUGE difference. no idea why, but it is without a doubt better if she is closer to a newborn recline. we also have a dvd player in my van that works wonders.









but yeah, for sure - ff or rf she was sick regardless, she was anxious regardless. she did like switching but after the newness wore off it didn't matter.


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## an_aurora (Jun 2, 2006)

I am the same way as you--I can't even turn my head and look in the backseat without getting really sick. If I am a passenger in a car, I have to flip the rear-view mirror up so I can't see the trees going by or I want to puke. I can't imagine having to be rear-facing if you are sensitive to motion.

If he is screaming and vomiting, I would turn him FF, in the center if at all possible, and tightly top tethered.


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## wendy1221 (Feb 9, 2004)

: I turned my ds2 ff when he was around 2 b/c of carsickness. He still got sick facing forward, but it was not nearly as bad as it had been when he was rf. He has other sensory issues, and occupational therapy has been helping with them (I'm not recommend OT for carsickness, though. lol.) Something out OT told me you can do is to press down on the top of their head when they're feelng sick, or stop and get them out of the seat to jump up and down.


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## mimie (Mar 7, 2003)

I struggle with car sickness, too. DD (20 months) has started having her first couple of episodes of car sickness, but it was after hours on very fast, twisty roads. I don't see how any one could be rear facing on these roads and not get sick. Luckily I've been able to stop and get her out before she throws up, but she's absolutely green, sweating, drooling, and screaming her high-pitched nausea scream (which I learned to recognize a few months back when she had the stomach flu).

I am very, very committed to RFing, but if she starts getting car sickness on a regular basis, I will have to turn her around and put her in the center of the back seat. From my own experiences with car sickness, being able to look out the front window is the only sure solution. There is no way I will let her suffer like that if it is a regular occurrence.

As it is, we've been able to deal with it by opening her window a bit for air, giving her a cold water bottle and something to nibble (like crackers) and stopping regularly. I wouldn't be adverse to trying Dramamine for long trips. If it helps her feel better and allows me to continue to keep her RFing, I think it is worth the risks of medicating.

Also, she seems to do better when watching a DVD. Seems like it would make it worse, but for some reason it helps. We don't have the player in the car around town, but I put it on for long trips (we regularly do 4-6 hour road trips once or twice a month).


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## KayleeZoo (Apr 8, 2003)

We've experienced this with 2 of our kids. My 5.5yo could still be RF (she's 31lbs fully clothed) but she gets violently sick when she's RF. My 3yo should still be RF as well (29lbs), but has recently developed carsickenss when RF, as well. Both are fine FF. My 3yo DS would prefer to ride backwards- he gets a kick out of looking at his 8yo sister in her 3rd row seat- but he's miserable once the van starts moving.

I'm all about extended RF, but if it is really causing nausea/vomiting, I'd put a toddler in the center, tether the seat and make sure the harness is tight. All stuff you're already doing, I'm sure









I have to take prescription RX when I fly or drive long distances- I will puke for 48 hours after a plane ride or long car trip without it. Being carsick is awful


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## Ironica (Sep 11, 2005)

Motion sickness, supposedly, is caused by a disconnect between what the eyes see and the inner ear feels. That's why it would be worse rear-facing; you can't see as much "going by" outside the rear window as you can out the front window, so you can't reconcile the sensation with visual input. Watching a DVD may help because then what you're focused on is moving relative to you.

It might also help to hang something (small and light) in the field of vision of the rear-facing passenger, so it sways and bounces with the motion of the car... I'm envisioning a foam toy or something, like those bath letters, i.e. something that isn't going to be a hazard in an accident. It still may be distracting to the driver, though :-/.

Some folks have luck with sea bands for traveling, and you might want to look into cranial-sacral therapy or accupressure too.

Once you've exhausted all those methods of mitigating motion sickness... then you're probably suck front-facing him. :-/


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## roxyrox (Sep 11, 2006)

Yup my ds was the same. I flipped him FF at about 11 months (I am in the UK and the max you can RF here is 1yr anyway) because of him crying/struggling to breathe. He actually only vomited twice but RF really didn't agree with him. He was much better FF-I would say the crying/choking decreased by about 80% when he was FF. I am the same - if I travel RF on a bus/coach I get really sick.


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## alysmommy2004 (Jun 23, 2006)

It just dawned on me this week that DS is sensitive to motion. He hasn't thrown up in the car in a long time, but after a trip on a plane, then in a rental car, and a sail boat, it all made sense. I don't usually get carsick, but I've had my moments too. My car has a DVD player and I didn't use to let the kids to watch it except on trips. I started taking my friend's DS places with us and the only way to keep him calm was to play a movie... come to think of it said friend gets carsick too. Since I started doing that DS has had less episodes. I just keep holding out that he can at least make it until two. I don't want to flip him, but I feel awful for him!


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## paquerette (Oct 16, 2004)

I heard somewhere a long time ago (ie, I can't corroborate this) that babies and small children don't have the same kind of equilibrium we do, so that it's not really physically possible for them to get motion sickness like we do.


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## Draupadi (Jul 19, 2007)

My ds gets veeeerrrrrry ill RF. Vomitting, screaming, crying...it was awful.
We rarely drive or are in cars (we live in the city so we don't own a car), but since he turned 1 (and weighs about 30lbs), we FF. He is much, much happier that way.


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## Smalls181 (May 12, 2006)

I, myself, have always had a problem with motion sickness and dizziness. One thing that tends to help me the most (aside from drugs) is to get adjusted regularly by my DO or chiropractor. Something about the fluids in my ears not draining correctly, and adjusted my neck really helps that. IDK if it works that way for everybody, but it does for me!


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## wendy1221 (Feb 9, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *paquerette* 
I heard somewhere a long time ago (ie, I can't corroborate this) that babies and small children don't have the same kind of equilibrium we do, so that it's not really physically possible for them to get motion sickness like we do.

That's definitely NOT true.


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