So finally after much of research we bought the car seat but since my baby is already 10 months old and is use to travelling sitting on my lap, i knew I will have a hard time making him sit in the car seat.I was mentally prepared for wailing crying and emotional blackmail for being carried out of it.So the day we bought we didn’t make him sit on it. He played standing by its support , the reason why I did this was I wanted him to get familiar with the car seat before anything. Forcing is something I don’t want to do as it only leads to more of crying which in turn might just disturb the person driving. Since in our case I am not going to drive and my baby will have company for a while at the back seat till the time he gets used to riding in a car seat, I thought why not make the ride little interesting for both of us and giggles from the back seat makes the drivers drive smooth.

Here are some tried and tested tips which has helped us enjoy our car journey

Once the car seat is home bring it home let the baby play with it.make him sit in the car seat put the harness and sit around him and play for sometime if you are planning to take a long trip,Making the baby sit in the car seat at home and getting comfortable is highly recommended if you are planning a long trip and baby is not used to the car seat else just take some short trips for the baby to get accustomed to it.

Never take a crying baby out of the car seat as it will become a habit once he gets to know that he is being taken away if he cries.Instead stop somewhere take him out for a while before starting again.

Initially make the baby sleep on the car seat. Babies tend to sleep as they enjoy sleeping on car rides so don’t make them sit right away from the start let him be with you till he doses off. Once the baby doses off make him sleep on the car seat. Once they wake up they will spend some time on the car seat and will get use to it slowly.

For the wake up time

Make a separate box of car toys for your baby.Why a separate toy box…babies tend to get bored with the same stuff. If you bring the same toys it might not excite him but new ones will definitely excite him and will keep him busy for a longer time. No don’t buy new one for every trip you make just make a separate toy box for car, to be used in the car only.

Include some finger puppets and hand puppets in your toy box. babies love listening to your voice and definitely a live story with moving characters will keep them entertained.

Some musical toys for him to press and discover new tunes .

include some tethers.

These are just suggestions for the toy box which works for my baby you can include things that your baby loves.

I made a toy hanger by simply tieing the scarf around the side handle on both side and hanging the toys.

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Make sure the temperature of the car is comfortable and the music is not loud. Play some track which are soothing.

Keep some finger foods and expressed milk and be ready for some mess and clean up session once the trip ends.If you are not expressing I suggest some stops in between for feeding so that baby doesn’t get an idea that for feeding he will be taken away from the car seat.

Lastly everything seems little difficult in the beginning but one thing that I have learnt being a parent is never lose hope and stick to it. One day without even you noticing it slowly and gradually it will become all normal and effortless. So the mantra is just stick to it.

It has just been a month and we have succesfully taken 3-4 long drives and many short trips.My baby is fine with a trip of 2-3 hours but a trip longer than that is difficult and we are trying. Will come up with more tricks and trips and updates once we start enjoying our more than 3 hours trip. Till then keep trying and all the best.