No Yaya Experiment: Road trip baby
Infant car seats are not required by law here in the Philippines, but they are in the US. We successfully trained baby to use a car seat in preparation for the trip while here, but encountered some challenges over there.
1. It was hot in Texas.
The most basic thing we do when we try to get baby to learn a new behaviour or routine is to make it fun for her. From eating veggies to taking a bath, this works for us. What we didn't anticipate was Texas heat, and nearly no indoor parking when we went to places. This meant the car seat would be hot when we put her back in, and she learned to fuss as soon as we put her back in.
We tried to deal with this by letting the car aircon run for a few minutes before getting inside, but it was a hit or miss. We had an epic 40 minute tantrum once, which I think traumatized my dad as he offered to pull over and give the baby whatever she wanted.
2. We went on a road trip.
So it was one thing, getting baby used to being strapped in a car seat for an hour, but then the road trip we took required her to be in the seat for 6 hours each way. She started off with one tantrum per hour, but thankfully the episodes got progressively shorter. She also grudgingly learned the word "wait".
What worked as distractions: iPad, smartphone, the Old MacDonald song, built in dvd screen in rental van, but mostly the ipad.
Ah, the ipad. More on that in another post.
Posted via m.livejournal.com.
1. It was hot in Texas.
The most basic thing we do when we try to get baby to learn a new behaviour or routine is to make it fun for her. From eating veggies to taking a bath, this works for us. What we didn't anticipate was Texas heat, and nearly no indoor parking when we went to places. This meant the car seat would be hot when we put her back in, and she learned to fuss as soon as we put her back in.
We tried to deal with this by letting the car aircon run for a few minutes before getting inside, but it was a hit or miss. We had an epic 40 minute tantrum once, which I think traumatized my dad as he offered to pull over and give the baby whatever she wanted.
2. We went on a road trip.
So it was one thing, getting baby used to being strapped in a car seat for an hour, but then the road trip we took required her to be in the seat for 6 hours each way. She started off with one tantrum per hour, but thankfully the episodes got progressively shorter. She also grudgingly learned the word "wait".
What worked as distractions: iPad, smartphone, the Old MacDonald song, built in dvd screen in rental van, but mostly the ipad.
Ah, the ipad. More on that in another post.
Posted via m.livejournal.com.