Throwback Thursday: Car Seats, Baby Carriers

This is a repost from a post I wrote in January 2011.

It seems like everyone these days has the infant car seats with carriers. Every trip to the doctor, grocery store, restaurant you see people carrying their babies around in these.

Before getting pregnant I attended a conference put on by neuroscientists for educators. One of the things they mentioned was that babies carried around in these tended to have less brain development as babies. Since the majority of our brains develop before the age of 3, a child being carried in these for a full year can make a significant difference. A child who is carried or worn, can look around more easily, can follow their parents' gaze to see what they are talking about, and is less likely to get sick.

The last benefit is because people will be more reserved at getting in your babies faces if they are next to you. Strangers (even those that are sick) seem to have no problem kissing, holding, and touching a baby in the car seat carrier.

Once I knew this I was completely against getting the infant carrier car seats. I did tons of research to find the perfect seats for us. Then my kids were born at just over 5 pounds each. Just like most babies, they lost some of their birth weight. When it was time to take them home they weighed less than 5 pounds and our car seats weren't rated for that. My husband had to go out and buy car seats that were made for smaller babies. That's how we ended up with infant carriers.

Coming home from hospital

There were a few times we did take the car seats in someplace. Almost exclusively when they were asleep and we didn't want to wake them. The rest of the time we took them out of their seats and carried (or wore) them. They were much happier in our arms and loved being able to look around. When my son became overwhelmed by his surroundings, he could hide his face in a shoulder. They could both control what they were looking at and spent great amounts of time following our gaze.

I keep mentioning wearing the babies. During pregnancy we went to a great store (no longer in business) where they let us try on many different types of baby carriers with weighted dolls. I thought I was going to love a sling, but after trying it, it just didn't feel secure. I ended up with a Moby wrap. It looks complicated, but didn't take long to learn and I could do a twin carry! The biggest down side was how hot it felt when it was 100 degrees out.

 Twin carry - first day at home

Twin carry - 3 months old

My husband wasn't about to wear a Moby. It doesn't look cool. He ended up with a Pikkolo carrier in plain black. He could only carry one in it, but he found it comfortable and manly. We used them for trips around town, traveling, and walks around the neighborhood.

 Chicago - 2 months old

 Christmas lights - 3 months old

 Zoo - 4 months old

 First football game - 2 months old

Car Seats

I wrote a post years ago about how we will leave our kids in rear facing car seats until they are too tall or weigh too much. It is so much safer that I couldn't justify turning them around until needed. The law varies state to state and even more country by country. The best way to research is to look for the countries with the lowest car crash fatalities and find out their standards. Did you know a few countries don't allow for forward facing until kids are 6? Unfortunately, our seats weren't built to those standards so we didn't make it that long. However in a time when most kids in the US are turned forward facing at 1, we just continued rear facing. So when the kids turned 1, we changed nothing. Same at 2, 3, and 4. Here are pictures of the kids at 4 (a month before turning 5).

Sweet Daughter comfortable and happy.

All of these photos were taken in Wonderful Husband's car, but I assure you they were rear facing in both cars. These are Britax seats while in my car they have Radians. Even once we turn them forward facing they will be in a 5 point harness for as long as possible.

Sweet Son is sleepy.

So what did their friends say? What does everyone else think? First, who cares? My kids are safe and we are making the decisions for them not anyone else. Second, no one cared. Few people even noticed and those that did would often mention they have heard it is safer, but choose not to do that for their kids.

A side picture

The question we got most often, "Where do they put their legs?" Here they show you two different options, criss cross or over the side. Sometimes they stretched them out on the back of the seat. They never complained. When we traveled we would often travel without the bases so they would have to sit facing forward. They did know what it was like to face forward and didn't care either way. They were comfortable.

If you don't know about "extended rear facing" (what it's called in North America) please do your research. There are seats that go to 50 pounds rear facing. Yes, you will pay more, but if it saves your child from injury once (or possibly something worse), it's worth every penny. Also please find out the expiration date of any seat you buy. Many expire after 5 years while some last 12 years. That's a huge different when you are considering the price of buying a new seat every few years.

Staying Warm

We all come up with ways to keep warm when it's cold outside. Here are some of our favorites.

She ripped the hat off a stuffed bear and realized it fit her head. haha

Yes, both kids are still rear facing in their car seats at 4 years old (they didn't switch till after turning 5). She had just loosened her own straps, that is not how to properly wear them.

Just because it's cold doesn't mean we have any less energy. Bonus: the park isn't crowded!

The best part is just how fast you can go down a wet slide in a snowsuit.

CARES harness

Happy 4th of July! I don't really have a patriotic post for this because we were flying that day.

Our kids fly a lot. Since we always need their car seats at our destination, we have always just used them on the planes. This has made the kids more comfortable. However, those seats are heavy. They are great for the kids, but they are kind of a pain for us. Once they were big enough to use the CARES harness we decided to give them a try.

The CARES harness hooks over the back of the seat making it a 4 point harness and helps hold them in more safely. Though, you do still have to make sure they don't unbuckle the bottom and take it off. Amazingly, they can still sleep while wearing it. It is light, portable and simple to install. I highly recommend using them if you don't need a car seat at your destination.

I'm sure you noticed the one thing I added in the last paragraph. We will take these and use them anytime we are flying somewhere we don't need car seats. However, on this trip we had checked the car seats for the flights home and let the kids use these. It was international (Canada to USA) and we had a connecting flight. We had to do customs between the two flights, so we had to get the seat in between to move them. At that point the car seats were fine. We were able to see them and check and there were no issues. We happily checked them back in for the second flight.

By the time we made it home one of the seats was broken. A large chunk of the corner had come off. You know the corner that give the seat it's stability when it's installed? The one that would dig into the seat? This was not a cheap plastic car seat. This was a steal framed seat. (For those outside the U.S., not all of the approved seats here are steal framed.) We spent a ton on these seats because they met my many requirements - they are not only approved for use in the U.S., they are approved by the FAA for plane travel, and they are approved in other countries (Canada, most of Europe) where we travel. Canada and Europe both have much higher standards for car seat safety.

So at the airport at home we had to try tracking down someone to file a damage report. We found tons of people from American Airlines, but we flew on Canada Air. They had apparently left the airport already. It took more than an hour, with us paging people in the airport as well as being on the phone with customer service in Canada before we were able to file a report. In the end, we did get a settlement check from them. Canada Air is one of the few airlines that will pay for damage to a car seat. For most airlines if you check a car seat you agree they are not responsible for any damage and they will not pay. The entire process took more than a month and tons of inconvenience.

So, I would highly recommend the CARES harness if you don't need to travel with a car seat. We have used them since this trip and will continue to do so anytime we are traveling somewhere we only need public transportation. The only down side is checking the car seat, which certainly isn't CARES fault.
 

International Air Travel

We went on a two week international trip with our two year olds. Starting from our home in America, we visited Venice (by way of Germany), Rome, Poland (multiple cities), Germany, and finally back home. This was a great age to travel with kids. They are potty trained, which saves tons of packing room and hassle. They are old enough to walk and carry things, yet not old enough to have opinions about where we are going and what we are doing.

Here we are with everything we took for the two week trip. The kids each have a small backpack with their stuff for the planes - water, magazines, lovie, snacks, wet wipes, jacket, headphones, and a change of clothes. The adults each have a car seat on our backs (I love these seats for travel. They are incredibly heavy, but fit in airplane seats and you can wear them on your back.) We have two rolling suitcases that meet carry on guidelines for all of our airlines - the European ones require very small suitcases if you will carry on. We did have to add one backpack for us at the last minute. Still everything was a carry on and this got us through a 2 week trip. We did laundry twice during the trip.

Here we are eating snacks on our first long plane ride (10 hours). We let the kids use their headphones and watch tv for the first time in their life. They didn't really like it and ask us to turn off the pictures. That messed up our plan of entertainment for the flight. Our backup plan was to let them look at books on my Kindle. I downloaded a bunch before we left. Unfortunately, I lost my Kindle at the airport before we even took off and didn't realize it until we were on our way to Germany (it was found and returned when we got back to the USA). The good news is both kids slept on the flight and were highly amused about people bringing them food every few hours.

You should know that if you are traveling with car seats, they must either go by the window or if the plane has two aisles, it can go in the middle of the middle section. Luckily on this flight we were all 4 together in the middle section. If you decide to travel with a lap child, you cannot have more than one in a row because there wouldn't be enough oxygen masks.

 This was the flight from Germany to Venice. We were sitting 2 and 2 with both kids getting the window seat and we were stuck in the middle seat. It wasn't full and no one wanted to sit in the row with the two year olds so we did get an empty seat next to us.

The flight from Rome to Poland would not let us use the car seats. It was a discount flight and their regulations didn't allow it. The kids loved playing with the windows and once again found a way to sleep on the flight.

By the time we got to the flight from Poland to Germany, the kids were pros. The kids held their new stuffed dragons that they picked up in Poland. We had the choice of a short layover and heading home or a long (day and overnight) layover before leaving Germany. We chose the long one thinking we should break up the flight and give the kids more time to adjust.

The trip home from Germany was the only flight that seemed long. It was a daytime flight. So while we did get a short nap, it was a really long time to be seated, especially with kids who didn't want to watch tv. They didn't cry or scream so we still counted it as a win.

Car Seat Safety

After having this conversation with two different people (both Dads) in the last few weeks, I decided I should make it a post on here. I don't have appropriate photos for this post, so I just put in a few cute ones.

In the state we live, babies must be in rear facing car seats until they are 1 year old and 20 pounds. This is the minimum. The national recommendation is 2 years and 20 pounds, whichever comes second. The reason to keep a child rear-facing is because it is much safer. It is five times safer for anyone (even adults) to ride rear facing, than forward facing.

She loves the cold weather. He thinks we are nuts for leaving the warm house.

Our car seats (convertible car seats) allow a child to remain rear facing until they are 35-40 pounds and they will stay rear facing for that long. Yes, they will probably be elementary aged by that time (my kids are tiny after all). This is not as unusual as you might expect. We have friends with older kids rear facing. My kids can see and talk to each other, they can see out the side and back windows, they are (reasonably) happy. Honestly, even if they weren't happy, I'm the parent and it's my job to enforce what is safest. They put their feet on the back of the seats, hang them off the side of the chairs, or cross them. They look very comfortable. In fact, many children who are rear facing for longer complain once they are turned because they have no where to put their feet.

We color a lot.

Once our kids are forward facing, they will remain in a 5 point harness as long as possible. They have seats that go to over 100 pounds. While technically those would have fit me past college, we won't use them quite that long! I'm not sure how old they will be when we move to boosters, but it will be based on maturity as well as size. There is a simple 5 point test to determine when your child is ready to be finished with their car seat.

1. Does the child sit all the way back against the auto seat?
2. Do the child's knees bend comfortably at the edge of the auto seat?
3. Does the belt cross the shoulder between the neck and arm?
4. Is the lap belt as low as possible, touching the thighs?
5. Can the child stay seated like this for the whole trip?

You must be able to answer yes to all of these before you move your child out of a car seat. To be honest, I don't pass this test. I will never pass #2 because I'm simply too short. I can sit all the way back or bend at the knees, but not both at the same time. So, while I hope my children are at least of average height and can pass this test, I will not have my 16 year old kids in boosters just because they are short.

He's too cute to take any chances with his safety!

Here is a great video that simply explains the standards.
Car Seat Lady




 

Car Seats, Baby Carriers

It seems like everyone these days has the infant car seats with carriers. Every trip to the doctor, grocery store, restaurant you see people carrying their babies around in these.

Before getting pregnant I attended a conference put on by neuroscientists for educators. One of the things they mentioned was that babies carried around in these tended to have less brain development as babies. Since the majority of our brains develop before the age of 3, a child being carried in these for a full year can make a significant difference. A child who is carried or worn, can look around more easily, can follow their parents' gaze to see what they are talking about, and is less likely to get sick.

The last benefit is because people will be more reserved at getting in your babies faces if they are next to you. Strangers (even those that are sick) seem to have no problem kissing, holding, and touching a baby in the car seat carrier.

Once I knew this I was completely against getting the infant carrier car seats. I did tons of research to find the perfect seats for us. Then my kids were born at just over 5 pounds each. Just like most babies, they lost some of their birth weight. When it was time to take them home they weighed less than 5 pounds and our car seats weren't rated for that. My husband had to go out and buy car seats that were made for smaller babies. That's how we ended up with infant carriers.

Coming home from hospital

There were a few times we did take the car seats in someplace. Almost exclusively when they were asleep and we didn't want to wake them. The rest of the time we took them out of their seats and carried (or wore) them. They were much happier in our arms and loved being able to look around. When my son became overwhelmed by his surroundings, he could hide his face in a shoulder. They could both control what they were looking at and spent great amounts of time following our gaze.

I keep mentioning wearing the babies. During pregnancy we went to a great store (no longer in business) where they let us try on many different types of baby carriers with weighted dolls. I thought I was going to love a sling, but after trying it, it just didn't feel secure. I ended up with a Moby wrap. It looks complicated, but didn't take long to learn and I could do a twin carry! The biggest down side was how hot it felt when it was 100 degrees out.

 Twin carry - first day at home

Twin carry - 3 months old

My husband wasn't about to wear a Moby. It doesn't look cool. He ended up with a Pikkolo carrier in plain black. He could only carry one in it, but he found it comfortable and manly. We used them for trips around town, traveling, and walks around the neighborhood.

 Chicago - 2 months old

 Christmas lights - 3 months old

 Zoo - 4 months old

 First football game - 2 months old