{"id":286,"date":"2013-02-21T08:20:58","date_gmt":"2013-02-21T13:20:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/?p=286"},"modified":"2013-12-26T16:30:58","modified_gmt":"2013-12-26T21:30:58","slug":"car-seat-fanatic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/21\/car-seat-fanatic\/","title":{"rendered":"Car Seat Fanatic"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve said before I\u2019m not a judger, to each mom her own.\u00a0 I have to be honest, this is not entirely true. There are two areas of parenting in which I do have strong feelings about what is best: breastfeeding and car seats.\u00a0 I\u2019m not ready to jump into the politics of breastfeeding (which, by the way, is a fabulous book by Gabrielle Palmer) but I will share my fanatical views on car seats.\u00a0 I believe in them.\u00a0 All the time.\u00a0 No exceptions.<\/p>\n

It literally makes me jumpy every time I see a child improperly restrained in the car.\u00a0 My mind starts racing:\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t his\/her mom\/dad know better?\u00a0 What if they get in an accident?\u00a0 Does that parent not care about the safety and well-being of their children?\u00a0 Why is that parent not taking the few moments\/simple steps that can SAVE their children\u2019s lives in an accident?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen it all: \u00a0Preschoolers walking around the car at stop lights, newborns in proper car seats but with the harnesses way too loose, toddlers in infant seats for which they are way too big, toddlers in booster seats for which they are way too small and today a 4 month old infant in the front seat of a 4 door car (usually indicating an airbag and baby death sentence if an accident should occur).\u00a0 I always have the urge to say something, but I\u2019m just not that mom.\u00a0 I\u2019m not the know it all, I\u2019m better than you type and I don\u2019t want to come off that way.\u00a0 But what if something did happen?\u00a0 Would I feel guilty for not saying something?\u00a0 If it was someone I knew, probably.\u00a0 That\u2019s just who I am.\u00a0 I try to look the other way and not be affected, but I just care about people, and specifically children, too much.<\/p>\n

My children ride in their car seats every time, no matter how far we are going.\u00a0 I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s across the country or across the parking lot, we buckle up (all of us!).\u00a0 I can\u2019t say it hasn\u2019t caused drama with people who don\u2019t understand why it\u2019s so important to me.\u00a0 While in Dublin we didn\u2019t have a car so we generally walked or took the bus or train.\u00a0 Occasionally we would take a taxi, but I never once put my children in a taxi without their car seats, even though it\u2019s legal there.\u00a0 I don\u2019t take chances with my children\u2019s lives when there is a fairly simple solution.\u00a0 When we travelled we took the car seats if we were going to be in a car.\u00a0 There were trips when we didn\u2019t take the car seats (Paris<\/a>, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Prague), but I never succumbed to pressure if we didn\u2019t have the seats.\u00a0 I was able to find taxi companies in most cities (Dublin included) who provided car seats.\u00a0 There were a few times the cabs showed up without the right size car seats and due to time restraints I reluctantly went anyways, but I held onto those seats so tight and prayed nothing would happen (and I\u2019m not a prayer).<\/span><\/p>\n

Generally my children are agreeable to the no-nonsense car seat rules.\u00a0 Sometimes Honeybun\u00a0complains about having to be in her harness because some of her friends are in boosters now but I don\u2019t care.\u00a0 She can whine all she wants.\u00a0 She does not yet weigh enough for a booster and even when she does I\u2019m not changing just because her friends have.\u00a0 Poor Honeybun\u00a0will probably be in her proper car seat until Middle School since we have a seat that goes up to 65 lbs and approx. 57\u201d tall and at only 33 pounds and 40\u201d (at 4 \u00bd years), she has a long way to go!<\/p>\n

\"car<\/a>Sugarplum is still rear-facing because she is so small, only 22 pounds at 2 \u00bd years.\u00a0 She will stay rear-facing until she is too tall to do so (for her seats, guessing somewhere around her 3rd<\/sup> birthday or a bit after). \u00a0Even with Honeybun\u00a0forward facing, Sugarplum does not even question it.\u00a0 I always laugh at people who turn their kids around right at a year because \u201cthe baby hates being backwards\u201d.\u00a0 If my 2 \u00bd year old doesn\u2019t care, a 1 year old doesn\u2019t.\u00a0 Kids just don\u2019t like being restrained in the car in general; it has nothing to do with which way they face.\u00a0 Like anything else in parenting, if you stick to your guns and don\u2019t give in they will get used to it.\u00a0 (I will make a noted exception here though for a friend whose daughter gets car sick and threw up every time they went in the car until they turned her forwards\u2026that reason I\u2019ll accept!)<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a few things maybe you didn\u2019t know or have forgotten about car seat safety:<\/p>\n

Car seats expire<\/b>.\u00a0 Every car seat should have a sticker with an expiration date after which they are probably not safe to use due to corrosion of the materials over time and\u00a0\u00a0especially if used in extremely hot or cold climates or if ever checked in for airplane travel (have you watched the way they throw around bags, slamming them down and tossing heavy bags on top of others?)<\/p>\n

Rear-facing is safest<\/b>: The official rule to forward face (in the US) is 20 lbs AND 1 year but the American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends rear-facing to at least 2 years.\u00a0 Children can stay rear-facing until their head is less than 1 inch from the top of the car seat<\/p>\n

A loose or mispositioned harness may not provide necessary protection in an accident<\/b>: Noone likes to be squeezed into a seat belt but if you start early, children will learn.\u00a0 You should not be able to pinch the harness if properly tightened and heavy clothing (coats, sweaters, etc) should be removed and placed over the harness if necessary.\u00a0 Rear-facing shoulder straps should be positioned at or below the child\u2019 shoulder line and forward-facing should be placed at or above the shoulder line.<\/p>\n

A 5-point harness is safer than the vehicle seat belt:<\/b> Your child can stay in a integrated 5-point harnessed seat until they weigh more than the seat allows or their ears are above the top of the seat or their shoulders are above the top harness slot.<\/p>\n

The car seat should not move when installed<\/strong>: \u00a0If properly secured in your car, the seat should not wiggle hardly at all side to side or front to back. \u00a0The less movement the car seat has, the safer your kiddos will be.<\/p>\n

Read the Instructions<\/strong>: \u00a0You should always read the instructions when using a new seat not only to see how to properly install it but also to make sure your child fits. \u00a0If you get a second-hand car seat (check the expiration date first!!!) and don’t get the manual, you can google it and find most manuals online through the manufacturer.<\/p>\n

I am fanatical about car safety because it is such a simple way to protect my children.\u00a0 I for one would never Ever EVER forgive myself if something were to happen to my children because I was too lazy to properly fasten them in (and honestly, if I ever felt forced into putting my children in unsafely and something happened, I would probably never forgive that person either).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve said before I\u2019m not a judger, to each mom her own.\u00a0 I have to be honest, this is not entirely true. There are two areas of parenting in which I do have strong feelings about what is best: breastfeeding and car seats.\u00a0 I\u2019m not ready to jump into the politics of breastfeeding (which, by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2530,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions\/2530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}