The moment you deliver you baby, you are excited to take them home, and to show them off to the world. Your baby is so sweet and adorable – not much is going to change when going places excepting bringing a car seat (with a baby) and a diaper bag… right?
Wrong… for some mothers their newborn does so well going places which makes it easy for them to go to the grocery store or visit family or continue to go to church like “normal” BUT for other others this isn’t the case.
Sometimes (like in my case—four times) bringing the baby home from the hospital is the ONLY time your baby is calm in the car. The next time you bring them in the car they are crying so hard and the entire time that you can’t even think. Unless you have experienced this in your life, you have NO IDEA what it is like to be in the car (even if only for 5 minutes) with a crying baby in the backseat.
This mama tried EVERYTHING with ALL four of my children to get them to stop crying--- music, windows down, singing, talking, mirror… I even tried taping a picture of myself on the seat for them to see. NOTHING worked. If you are reading this and can relate to this –know that you are NOT alone. Your baby isn’t the only baby that doesn’t like the car. I was shocked when I had four that didn’t like that car but found out it is more common than you think.
We all thought that it was like the movies and television where you can just put your baby in the car to get them to fall asleep… turns out we were more wrong then we thought! You are driving down the road and that baby is screaming; your emotions and hormones are already all over the place from having a baby--you just want to get where you need to be yet you’re unsure if you even want to go now. Your mind can’t even think… your trying to think of anything but your brain isn’t working… the only thing you hear is this baby –screaming and crying—you just want them to stop but can’t find a way to quiet them.
This is hard, emotionally. I know that the first four months after having a baby-- I limited going ANYWHERE. I only went to places that I needed to and even then, I didn’t want to do that. There were no long drives, no going to a cabin, no going on road trips, and I was NOT going anywhere twice in one day.
I’ll never forget with my first child pulling over onto the side of the road to calm him—if even for a second before getting back on the road. There were so many times when I would stop the car in strange places to feed my baby or bounce them in a snowy parking lot to reassure them that I was there and that they are okay. Even waiting for my child at school or waiting to pick-up groceries—I was usually standing outside my vehicle with baby in my arms bouncing them while trying not to look stressed and overwhelmed with tears.
Mom, you are not alone… this is more common then you think and know that there is an end. All four of my children stopped crying in the car around four months of age. (Now there are rare cases of motion sickness, etc that cause the baby to cry—so keep that in mind as well). Just don’t be like me and drive unsafely with your hand in the back seat, trying to keep the pacifier in your babies’ mouth (this caused an ENORMOUS neck pain that took months to fix). These are the moments, days, and months that you need to make sure to take time for your self –stressful days call for relaxing evenings in the tub, yoga in the garage, meditation in the closet… whatever you need to do to take care of YOU!
Check out my FREE Guide on how to calm your baby-- HERE
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