Rear-facing and car sickness

SPJ&E

New member
My 18 month old has been getting sick in the car on longer trips. The thing is, it's only on the way to my grandparents house, which is about 1 and 1/2 hours away on a curvy road. He rides rear-facing in a Britax Marathon and has never ridden any other way.

Could the sickness be partly caused by being rear-facing? I think it's likely just the curvy road, because I used to get sick on the way over there when I was younger. Plus, he also gets sick if he swings for too long. I think my grandparents and parents have got me questioning it by telling me "You might have to turn him around...bla bla bla"

What do you all think?
 
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U

Unregistered

Guest
We had to turn DD (16mos) FF in our 2nd vehicle. It is a 2 door Saturn Coupe and she can't see out the windows. She is only in that vehicle about once a month.

She will hopefully make it to 33 lbs RF in our primary vehicle (Honda CR-V). I hope she doesn't start getting sick in that car.

I really, really, really hated to turn her around.
 
U

Unregistered

Guest
We turned our now almost 3 year old around just before he turned 2 b/c we figured out he was only sick rf. He was almost 39lbs then, so I didn't stress too much.

If I were you, I might consider ff ONLY for long trips. But before I did that, I would check w/ the ped about giving Benadryl for the motion sickness. It's almost the same thing as Dramamine but is safer for little ones. We used that after MIL told me to try it (I called the ped to check if it were safe and to get the dosage and was shocked when the nurse laughed at me and said a lot of parents give it to kids to make them sleep on trips. Ugh. Can you imagine?) Apparently my dh got horrible motion sickness as a kid and that's what her doc told hr to use. Anyway, we kept him rf for a while using the Benadryl for long trips.
 

scatterbunny

New member
Hayley was turned FF at 13 months (I didn't know any better), she didn't start getting carsick until 18 months. She still gets carsick now, but it lessened after I changed vehicles from a Honda Accord to a Mazda MPV.
 

Ahzryn

Active member
It's generally been my experience that car sick kids get car sick no matter which way they are facing, and even when they are asleep. Our youngest is like that I tried turning hre when she was younger to see if it would help, and if anythng it made it worse.

What did help was making sure she had a constant flow of air, always taking the car with the darker tinted windows, and absolutely avoiding milk on days we were going to travel. For her not only do curvy roads do it, but also long errands around town with lots or stopping and starting.

We really just had to live with it and eventually it has lessended, though she still gets sick on occasion. We always carry extra clothes, baby wipes to clean up the mess along with plastic grocery bags and paper towels, and a spare seat cover for her Wizard. There was many a time I wised I had a spare harness as well!

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but odds are it won't help :(

Tammy
CPST
 

scatterbunny

New member
Tammy, that sounds exactly like us. :) We take my van (with tinted rear windows) almost everywhere, and always bring wipes or wet washcloths in plastic bags plus a gallon jug of fresh water, plastic bags and extra clothes. Once I forgot all that stuff and was on a rural highway, on a 2 hour drive. Hayley puked about 45 minutes into the trip and I had to strip her down and use her dirty clothes to clean up the carseat as best as I could and then take her into a store naked when we got to our destination and buy her all new clothes and the supplies to clean up the seat. It was after that incident that I got an extra carseat cover and put together an emergency carsickness kit (the washcloths, gallon of water and plastic bags).

Hayley gets sick most of the time if we're in the car longer than 20 minutes.
 
U

Unregistered

Guest
My 2 yo puked in my van yesterday. After all that "he doesn't get as sick anymore." lol. We were running errands and I was going down a lot of side streets, so I think it was just too much turning and stopping and going for him. Poor baby. :( It was curdled milk from his morning cereal. It was really disgusting. I'm glad the Boulevard's cover is fairly easy to remove!

Wendy
 

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