My bloggy friend, Megan over at Sorta Crunchy, just posted a great story about car seats. She included some wonderful links and there is good exchange going on in the comment section regarding car seats.
For what it is worth, here are my 2 cents.
PLEASE PLEASE, if at all possible, leave your children in harnessed car seats as long as possible!
I totally realize that it is not always easy or convenient in terms of space, time it takes to deal with buckling, or cost.
But it is much easier and convenient than the space, time, and cost of the other possible alternative that I don't even want to discuss.
Now I absolutely know that despite our best efforts as parents to keep our children safe that something could happen out of our control. I know that. But I am just saying that why not make sure we have done everything in our control.
Part of me hesitates to give my opinion about this out loud here. Some who read this may very well have their children in booster seats. And feel that this is their best choice for their family. I fear of insulting someone by possibly implying that they are not a good parent if that is their choice. I don't, I don't, I don't think that! It is dang hard being a parent. So many choices, decisions. We do our best. We ALL do our best!
My daughter is 7 and around 50#. We needed to make a new seating choice for her as I had even let her go too long in her last car seat. Not a safe choice either, but I felt it was safer than the regular seat belt with booster.
So last month, I finally forked over almost $300 for the Britax Frontier. I almost choke just typing it! It was both hard and easy at the same time. I knew that I wanted her in a harness situation for as long as possible and that I wanted her in a more secure seat with a seat belt after that.
My husband asked if our kids would be unbuckling their car seats as we dropped them off at high school.
Maybe!!
For our family, I just feel passionately that booster seats are not the safest way to go. I am pretty much a stickler about them riding in car seats in other people's cars as well.
I know. I am such a pain!
I could go on and talk about all the other crazy things that we have all observed in terms of other children riding unsafely in the car. Riding in the front way too young, no car seat, no seat belt, nothing. I bet we all have stories.
I am not going to talk about everything here. Megan did a great job already. Especially updating us about rear-facing limits! Be sure to head over there for great information!
I will get off my soap box now! :)
And duck in case anyone wants to throw rocks at me!
Stacey
3 comments:
Oh, her post is GREAT! So much good info. G is still in a five point harness also and she's pretty much the only one of her friends that still is, I think.
I'm going to link to this on my daycare blog- it's amazing how many of my moms don't strap their kids in correctly even when I tell them how.
No backlash from me...I couldn't agree with you more! I'm also a firm believer in keeping kids in a 5 point harness as long as possible. It's what we plan to do.
when Anna was a babe, I actually attended a car seat class and learned a bunch I didn't know. I was always pretty uptight about it anyway, but my feelings were reinforced. one particular thing we learned about was the "expiration dates"... I'd heard people say that it's just the manufacturer's way of upping their sales, but this gal told us that the integrity of the hard plastic is compromised, particularly with extreme temperatures like we have here in south texas.
I'll admit, I haven't kept my kids in a harness as long as I could have, but I am very conscious about how the seat fits in the car, where the belts cross their body, and when they are in a regular seat, how their body fits.
p.s. I never wore a seat belt until I took drivers ed... used to travel in the 'way back' of the station wagon on spread out sleeping bags. I was even allowed to ride in the front seat in a kitchen booster with no buckle. can you imagine? lucky to be alive!
Post a Comment