This is an excerpt from Listen to Your Baby: Responding to Your Child's Cues for Optimal Development and Joyful Connection by Naomi Aldort, reprinted with permission from the author and publisher.
In the early days, you may find it doable to take your infant in a car. She may fall asleep, and you get to where you need to go. Over time, most babies develop an aversion to car rides as they discover that they are tied down and physically restricted, separated from contact with you, and unable to move. This experience can be scary or at least extremely unfitting with a baby’s and toddler’s need for movement, freedom, exploration, and physical connection. The misleading “original” thoughts to question are:
The toddler should cooperate with buckling up and riding in a car.
These errands must be done now.
There are no other ways or times to get these things done.
No one can help.
A baby crying in a car seat is harmless.
These and other similar thoughts hinder your ability to be clear on reality. Once you face reality rather than your thoughts, everything has a peaceful solution. You realize that there are plenty of valid reasons for your child to dislike car rides and plenty of ways to honor his needs.
The best general solution is to minimize car rides, and when you must, avoid being the driver with no other adult in the vehicle. If possible, and if you have the support, have your spouse or someone else do the shopping and errands. If no one else is available, start by doing the inquiry so you can understand your baby and find the best solutions, such as walking, biking, ordering food, or at least minimizing the length and times of taking your baby in a car.
It is too painful for a baby or toddler to be dragged along on an adult’s boring shopping and errands. The only time I put a baby or toddler in the car is when I am not the driver. I will sit then next to the baby, who is facing the back and therefore could have eye contact with me. In fact, in this way, my husband and I have done long rides and even weeks of travel with a baby.
While riding, when the baby is awake and needing attention, I would provide it as needed. I always had books, toys, and dolls. We sang, danced the dolls, talked, and laughed as if we were at home. When the baby needed to breastfeed or a change of diaper, we stopped the car and took a break, often adding some outdoor time. Once our firstborn became a toddler, we made sure to take playground and running-around breaks as needed, always preventing suffering by anticipating it and stopping for movement before the toddler could associate the car with discomfort and frustration.
Prevent the child from associating the car with suffering. If you have errands and you must do it yourself and have no one who can be with your child, here are a few ways to make the best of it:
Make sure to add going to the beach, lake, or playground (a place your toddler will enjoy) to your errand list for the day.
Play music your child likes and take along toys, books, and food.
Install a rear-facing car seat mirror so your baby can see you while you are driving.
Between errands, take breaks to breastfeed, go for a walk, play, or just sit together.
While driving, if needed, relate to your baby by singing and talking.
When possible, walk or take public transportation to run errands.
If you must take your child grocery shopping, get enough food to last a week or longer so you don’t have to shop as often.
Replacing human contact with screens is obviously not a healthy solution. When my children were young, we didn’t have those, luckily, and so we had to create opportunities for human contact and incorporate word games, pointing to views, counting cars by colors, singing, and so on. It was fun in the car, and so the children loved it. But babies are too young to engage with in such ways until they understand more. Therefore, do your best to avoid car rides so your baby doesn’t develop a dislike of being in the car in the first place. Some single mothers or fathers say that there is no way to avoid errands with the baby along, but once they brainstorm with my facilitation during a session, they always find ways to get some help.
“What if my baby or toddler already cries in car rides?”
Parents often realize that they have already created a negative association with the child being buckled in the car and wonder how to undo the difficulty. In that case, your first goal is healing the emotional reaction associated with car rides.
For two weeks, sometimes more, take your baby nowhere. Your partner can do the shopping or, if you are alone, get enough nonperishable food in advance, order in, or ask others to do the shopping for you. During this time, you want your child to forget about car rides and not be negatively triggered by entering the car. After two to three weeks, bring the car seat into the house and place it in the play area. Observe your child’s reaction to know whether he is healed. If the car seat elicits a negative reaction, take the seat away and give it more time.
With a toddler, you can play positive pretend games about car rides, read books, or tell stories. You can use toy cars to pretend you are going in the car to the zoo and having such a good time, then riding back and getting home and eating tasty food. Make up whatever story your toddler may be excited about. After a while, test the car seat in the play area again. Put a doll in it and talk about a wonderful ride to Grandma’s or the zoo. If the child seems more ready, he can pretend to buckle up the doll.
At this point, if the association is healed, most toddlers will want to sit in the car seat themselves while in the house. Let her do that, and watch as she imagines a wonderful trip. Be humorous with ideas such as “Now I will be the driver.” This can lead to playing a ride with you as the driver, literally practicing future rides. Do not push it or hurry. One step too soon, and past memories can resurface, forcing you to start the whole healing process over.
If all goes well, keep the car seat in the play area for a while so the toddler can keep playing and pretending while enjoying himself. If your baby is very young, you can skip bringing the car seat into the house. When he starts crawling, bring it into the house and place a doll in it, and let the baby crawl into it or try to. If he does or wants you to put him in, do so and give him something he enjoys a lot, such as yummy food or a favorite toy. Let him choose to get out of it at will. Once your toddler is enjoying the car seat, you can say, “We can put it in the real car and go to the playground. Would you like that?” Some toddlers need to play pretend in the parked car first, without going anywhere. That’s excellent too.
Understanding this principle of allowing the child to forget the painful association and find joy in car rides is the key but not the end. After your little one is excited about going into the seat in the car, you must keep the rides short, enjoyable, and leading to something he loves to do. Yes, that means that you still make every effort not to take your baby or toddler in a car for errands, and you continue to find creative solutions to needs that depend on driving.
Keeping car rides enjoyable is a childhood-long project, so keep at it, and your children will run to the car enthusiastically. Obviously, if you have to drive by yourself with a baby, your challenge is even greater. But then it is even more important to minimize car rides, find other methods of transportation, and plan activities and fun while in transit.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Naomi Aldort is the author of the bestseller Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves, which has been published in twenty languages, and the new book, Listen to Your Baby. She has spoken in parenting conferences, universities, and other events worldwide to large audiences of parents, educators and grandparents as well as provides workshops and zoom sessions for over thirty years. She has been interviewed extensively including by Attachment Parenting International and other parenting organizations, as well as by doctors, psychologists and other producers.
Aldort’s parenting advice columns and articles have been published internationally in world-distributed magazines (Including translations to other languages), including Mothering, Nurture, Pathways, Natural Parent, Juno, Natural Life, Life Learning, The Attached Family (of Attachment Parenting International), and more. Aldort is an original thinker who created peaceful solutions that take the struggle out of parenting. Today, many of her ideas have become known and used by professionals.
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