Posts Tagged ‘car seat safety’

Car Seats and Car Accidents

Posted, March 20th, 2013, By Pamela Ray

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I bring this story to you at our unfortunate expense. Last night, my family and I were involved in a semi-minor car accident. My husband accidentally merged onto another vehicle. It was a pure accident and there was, thankfully, no injuries. The entire passenger side of his vehicle was damaged. I was in the passenger seat as with my son riding in the back seat on the passenger side. Our accident COULD have been so much worse than it actually was.

It was brought to my attention immediately to look into replacing my children’s car seats. Mind you, our vehicle was ‘drivable’ after the accident and followed other “rules” to classify the accident as minor but there was damage to the door where my son’s seat was sitting. This factor requires us to have to replace my son’s car seat. This would seem like a no brain-er but you’d be surprised how many people would not replace the seat. The impact to our vehicle was quite “low” as my children slept right through the whole thing and only woke when we pulled the car over to call the police. However, despite the “low” impact to the car, you can’t be certain on what sort of impact the car seat had to take on while the accident happened; no point in chancing it.

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Winter Weather Driving with Kids

Posted, January 4th, 2013, By Pamela Ray

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As the weather around here gets ickier the urge to prepare the care for emergency situations nags at my mind. You never know what can happen on icy roads and with kids often in the car I won’t chance it.

Check your car seats:
Double and triple check to make sure that your seats are installed properly. Not that you shouldn’t be doing this regularly anyway, but now is a better them then ever to make sure. If you notice your straps are not holding properly REPLACE YOUR CARSEAT! You can have the highest rated safest car seat on the market and if it’s installed incorrectly it will do your child NO good in the case of an accident.

No Jackets!:
Yes I know this totally sounds like a smart move with negative degree wind chills right? WRONG, it’s the perfect idea. Jackets make car seat straps inadequate for keeping children safe. I’d rather warm the car and have the kids be a bit chilly until the car really gets warmed up rather than lose their life because they’ve slipped through the straps of their seat because they aren’t tight enough. Think you can get your straps tight enough to be safe, try it. Bring the car seat inside, put junior in his coat and buckle him up. Go ahead tighten those straps! PULL! Now, take junior out of his seat, take off his jacket and re buckle. If there is more than a finger spacing between his chest and the buckle his straps are in fact too loose! Try car seat ponchos or putting the jacket on backwards once kids are buckled into their seats for safer options. Bundle up with hats and gloves to help keep heat in! Read the rest of this entry »

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Winter Car Seat Safety Reminder!

Posted, October 24th, 2012, By Pamela Ray

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As winter weather is approaching for some of our readers, I am once again reminded of the dangers of car seats. Yes, that’s right, dangerous car seats. Now I hear you going, wait a minute! Your car seat isn’t going to be safe if you’re not using it properly. I was hanging out with one of my mommy friends who is a first time mommy and she brought a question to my attention: “What did you do in the winter to keep your son warm (he was an October baby)? Did you get one of those snow suits for him?”

First and foremost even though those have slits in them to be used with a car seat, please DO NOT use them in a car seat. You will never be able to get the belts tight enough to safely hold baby, if you don’t believe me, try. Put a jacket/snow suit on baby and buckle baby in the seat. Tighten the straps and then unbuckle. Now take the jacket off, rebuckle baby in the seat and tell me how tight those straps are. When using an infant carrier car seat, it’s best to use blankets on the outside of the car seat. Warm the car before baby gets in and spend as little time outside as possible. If you want to take baby outside to play absolutely enjoy those ever so cute snowsuits.

These same rules apply to older kids in car seats, again don’t believe me, do the jacket trick. For older kids they make car seat poncho’s which can help against the elements. Light jackets and sweatshirts are okay under buckles, but when in doubt check.

If you’ve never had your car seat inspected to make sure it’s installed properly you might want to consider that. With slick roads in the near future for some of us it’s the best time to make sure that we’re doing all we can to ensure our children’s safety!

Please when in doubt about if you’re using your car seat properly consult a professional. Many fire stations or police stations will have certified car seat installers and will be able to help you. If your local department does not, chances are they can direct you to your nearest one.

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Safety You Can See: Britax Advocate 70-G3 Review

Posted, October 16th, 2012, By Robyn Good

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My 15-month-old daughter Ava has been a Britax baby since she was born.

We started out with the infant car seat, the Chaperone and recently upgraded to the Advocate because the infant seat had become too small. I chose to stay with Britax because my husband and I were very pleased by its superior safety, sleek design and easy installation.

I really believe Britax is the best car seat brand on the market. We have traveled across Europe and Canada with a rental car and have had to use the car seat the rental company provided. Lets just say we couldn’t even figure out how to install the car seats and we almost felt like it was pointless because of the lack of durability and poor safety design compared to our Britax. I guess we are spoiled!

The Advocate is Britax’s top model and comes with the most safety features. There are five top safety features the Advocate offers:

Hugs Safe Cell Technology – are affixed to the seat shell to ensure proper positioning while SafeCells compress to manage energy and provide resistance to the forward movement of your chid in a crash, reducing the risk of head injury

Side Impact Protection – is deep side walls with energy-absorbing EPP foam along with a head restraint which offers a double layer of EPP foam to distribute crash forces, shield from vehicle intrusion, and contain the head, neck and body while keeping them “in true” or aligned

Base With Safe Cell Technology – features SafeCells designed to compress in a crash, significantly lowering the center of gravity and counteracting the forward rotation of the child seat which normally propels the child toward the front seat

Energy Absorbing Versa-Tether – features a staged-release tether webbing to slow the forward movement, reducing the crash forces reaching the child, and a two-point attachment to minimize forward rotation while anchoring the top of the child seat

Integrated Steel Bars – strengthen the connection to the vehicle and reduce forward flexing of the child seat during a crash

Besides the safety features on the Advocate, I love how easy this car seat is to install. Installation is straight forward and even the most car seat challenged parent can figure out how to install the Advocate. We own a 2door Pontiac G5 and the Advocate fits perfectly forward facing with our daughter. We use the premium latch connectors that feature a push button for easy release. I love how the latch system tightly holds the car seat to the seat.

Britax has been using the five point harness since 1996. It is comprised of straps or webbing that extend over your child’s hips, shoulders/collar bones, and between their legs. I love the five point harness because they are much safer than normal harnesses. Britax has attached their Safe Cell Technology to each side of the harness that rests over your child’s chest. It adds another level of safety to the harness that is simply absent from other brands.

All the adjustable areas on the Britax are easy to adjust. This is one of the biggest things that annoys me about other car seats. When I had to use a car seat that was not made by Britax I felt like I needed a car seat PHD to adjust the harness, the head rest, etc. Adding to the ease and to the simplicity of adjustment of the Advocate harness, Britax has also added the snap and click technology, so you know exactly when the harness is snug enough for your tot.

Providing the best safety to your child is Britax’s main concern, but they also take many steps to add style and small features to their car seats. The Advocate comes in five different stylish fabrics. I chose Anna as it is the most girly and my little Ava is a girly girl! The fabric not only looks good, but it is so soft that I understand why Ava has no trouble falling asleep when we put her in it. There is a removable fabric pad that snugly fits around your child and can be removed as the child grows bigger. I also like that there is a foam padding under the seat fabric that adds just a little more comfort to the seat.

The fabric cover is also easy to remove in case of spills or other accidents.

The price of a Britax Advocate model does run higher than many other car seat brands. However, unlike many other brands on the market the Advocate is not priced higher because of its “trendiness”, but the safety it ensures each time you put your child in it. Since the Advocate is a convertible car seat, it can grow with your child from birth to the time she/he reaches 70 pounds. So, if carrying your baby in an infant seat is not that important than the Advocate is a really great investment from the time of birth.

If you can afford the Advocate I see absolutely no reason why it would not be your first chose car seat!

You can learn more about Britax at britaxusa.com

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Car Seat Safety: How To Avoid Common Mistakes

Posted, June 15th, 2012, By Jenivieve Elly

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I was watching Teen Mom last night and one of the scenes really bothered me. Maci’s son Bentley was not in his car seat properly. His harness was way too loose and he could lean forward several inches. Now, I truly think Maci is a great mother, and car seat safety can often be over looked. Parents get too comfortable loading their child in the car seat, and feel like the seat is enough of a safe guard in itself. People also don’t take into account growth spurts, at which point the harness usually needs adjusting.
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Car Seat Safety: Protect Your Kids!

Posted, December 13th, 2011, By Pamela Ray

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In an earlier blog I wrote about choosing the proper car seat and some suggestions to help make it easier. In this blog I’m going to get a little mom crazy. I can’t tell you how many people I see using a car seat wrong! The worst part about it is I often see this on pictures via facebook. Your car seat IS NO GOOD if your child is buckled in the seat wrong or the car seat is not installed properly. With that said, forgive me if this blog may seem a bit harsh, but a lot of these things are simple and self explanatory if we just took the extra time to adjust straps or to read a installation guide. I’m going to be talking about the most commonly over looked things about having or using a car seat improperly.

Expiration Dates:
ALL, yes ALL, no I’m not kidding, yes yours too, ALL car seats expire. SOMEWHERE on your car seat will be a date of when your car seat expires. It might be on a sticker, it might be engraved into the plastic somewhere, but I promise you, there WILL be an expiration date. As an early mom I knew there were expiration dates however, I never really understood why. Most car seats expire due to normal wear and tear. The plastics can wear down, the foam lining can wear down, even the straps can wear down. All of these things can be life threatening if the car seat is in a car accident. A car seat is only effective if all the components are in perfect working order. The average expiration date is 5 years, FROM when the car seat was MANUFACTURED- NOT purchased!, however, there are certain car seats that now hold longer dates. Every car seat is different even if it’s by the same manufacture. The expiration date has been set based of that individual car seat and model.

Installation of car seats:
There are typically two ways to install a car seat. You can use the LATCH (or something similar, whatever that particular car seat comes with) or the traditional seat belt. To insure you get the proper installation of your car seat, consult the owner’s manual of your vehicle AND your car seat. Both together will ensure you get the proper installation. Some older model cars may not offer the proper LATCH receivers so that might not always be an option. When installed properly the seat belt and LATCH provide the same amount of safety. Always remember that even the most expensive car seat is only as good as the installation. If you install a $400 car seat improperly it won’t be ANY good in a car crash. Even the fancy car seats don’t have brains and can’t react to counteract your improper installation. When you are done with installing your seat, or have questions, consult a certified car seat installation expert. Most local fire stations or police offices can help with this also and if they can’t or aren’t certified they can likely point you in the direction of the nearest person who can help. One MAJOR thing to keep in mind: I have yet to hear of a hospital that can help you install a car seat upon getting ready to bring baby home. It is a liability to the personnel/hospital if you get in an accident. Installing the car seat is something you should do earlier rather than later because babies don’t ever come when they are supposed to! Every car seat installs differently in every car. So even if you buy multiples of the same car seats make sure they are installed properly for EACH car and the best way to ensure this is to consult your owners manual.

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