Am I a bad mom?

I wanted to keep my son rear-facing for as long as the manufacturer recommends. In our state you can turn them around at 12 months and/or 22+ pounds.

My toddler gets super carsick on longer (30+ minute) trips. The poor kid is just miserable. We’ve tried sitting him up more, reclining more, open windows, keeping him cool, feeding him a small amount before the trip, feeding him a couple hours before leaving, only bland foods, etc. I finally brought it up to his doctor and he said it’s a little unusual at his age (18 months) but it only happened in the car so it wasn’t alarming. He said we could give him a small dose of children’s Benadryl.

Last time we drove to visit my parents (a 3 hour drive) we did a half dose of Benadryl and he didn’t vomit but he still cried and had a tummy ache almost the whole way there when he wasn’t sleeping. On the way home we gave him a full dose and he did better but mostly just crashed.

It’s been hard to figure out shorter trips, like between 30-60 minutes, because if I give it to him he wakes up as soon as we get where we’re going and is crabby and tired the whole time.

I’d always been skeptical of facing them forward to deal with carsickness, but I was driving 45 minutes to meet my friend today so I caved.

It was an incredible difference. He was happier than he’s ever been. He looked out the windows often and didn’t cry once the whole 90 minute round trip. He was so happy while we had lunch with my friend and I was able to feed him a normal diet with no signs of nausea or vomiting.

I recognize the value of rear-facing, but is it worth it if they’re really carsick, and turning them around seems to be the only thing that helps? Am I a bad mom for wanting my child to be happy on longer trips?