one thing that i am passionate about

one thing that i'm passionate about is car seat safety. almost anybody who's shown me their kids in their cars/car seats has probably gotten a once-over from me. first off, here's my disclaimer: i'm not a car seat technician or an expert on this subject by any means -- it's just something that i feel so strongly about, that i don't keep to myself about this very often.

so from what i've seen, many people rear-face (i'll call it "RF") their kids until their first birthday, when they graduate to their forward facing ("FF") "big kid" car seat. the law requires that they stay RF until they are no longer less than a year old AND 20 pounds.

however, it's so much safer to keep the kids RF for as long as possible -- to the RF limits of the car seat, which in many cases go up to 33 or 35 pounds. in most cases it means for at least another year or two. ideally we'd have car seats that have RF limits of 55 pounds, as they do in sweden (they actually recommend they RF until age 4!), but we gotta go with what's available here in the states.

so why is it safer? this is how i visualize it: you're in a car crash; more than likely the front of your car has been hit. passengers are held in their seats with their seat belts. objects in the car, however, get thrown forward. if they're heavy enough and not secured, they'll go flying through the windshield. we adults walk away with whiplash because our head accounts for only 6% of our total weight. however, a young child's head accounts for up to 25% of his/her total weight! add to that the fact that a child's muscles are not as developed as ours, and we've got a potentially dangerous situation on our hands. now if the child is RF, that means the head will pretty much stay on the surface of the car seat, and the neck will remain in a more-or-less neutral position. however, if the child is FF, the head will not stay upright; it'll go flinging forward toward the front of the car. the only thing keeping the child from flying through the windshield will be the car seat's harness. now, we've got 25% of the child's total weight being flung forward, and 75% of the child's weight held back by the straps. that makes for a huge amount of strain on the child's neck, which, let me remind you, doesn't have very well-developed muscles. at best, the child has a sore neck, possibly whiplash. at worst, the neck could break, the spinal cord could break, stretch, or become damaged, and the child could end up handicapped, paralyzed, or worse.

unfortunately this happened to a little boy named joel, just a few months ago. here's his story.

so, Number One: extended rear-facing. do it. it's good for the child.

now, here's a less-obvious one: buckling the child into the car seat while the child is wearing a warm puffy winter coat. a few years ago, i happened upon this page, and the story will forever haunt me. read on:

"When I took my tech class we were shown a picture of an infant seat with a snowsuit under the harness. The seat was pulled out of a car that had just been in a crash. The infant was ejected from the seat and the car and was found some feet away from the car, but the snowsuit was left in the seat just as the baby was wearing it."

so now i make sure that the kids will wear their jackets to the car, but once we're in, the door closes, the jackets come off, and the kids go into their car seats. once they're buckled in, they can have their jackets on their laps. (for some reason they like to hold it on their laps!)

similarly, i always make sure their harnesses are pulled tight and the chest clip is at armpit level, not down by the belly button. if the harness is too loose, they can come flying out of the car seat. and the chest clip helps the straps to stay on their shoulders.

so, Number Two: straps are tight against the body, not against a jacket, and chest clip is up high.

and now that my firstborn is five years old, i've come to the topic of extended harnessing. i just measured/weighed her, and she's just a touch over 43 inches tall, and a touch over 40 pounds, so she's still got a good 6 inches in height and 25 pounds in weight left to grow until i have to think about taking her out of her car seat. and believe you me, it will be with great fear and trepidation when i transition her into a booster. i'm even thinking of getting her into a Britax Regent or Frontier, if finances and hubby will allow.

heck, if i could, i'd still have her rear facing.

read on.

so, Number Three: delay putting the child into a booster for as long as possible. having the child in a harness is so much more secure.

i'm sure there are other points that i wanted to make, but at 1:14am, i'm starting to no longer make any sense, so i'll leave it at these three points for now: delay FF, don't have the straps too loose, and delay the booster.

good night, and safe travels.