Car Seat Safety

Ok, I'm climbing up on my soapbox. I REALLY try not to do this because we're already a culture that's overwhelmed with information but here goes.

We're less than a month out until we have this baby of ours. Since there's a possibility every day that my medical team could induce me earlier than expected, I'm constantly making sure that everything is ready for his arrival. It's why I wanted the nursery "done" in December and the house unpacked. Some call it nesting, I call it thriving.

Aubrey and I decided we would go ahead and install the car seat in my car (hospital transport vehicle of choice since it requires the least climbing in and out of) a couple of weeks ago to avoid frantically reading the manual on the way to the hospital right before an emergency induction. How hard could it be? I’ve been around kids all my life and even baby-sat and nanny-ed all through college so I’ve buckled about 3000 kids in about 3000 different car seats.

So I’m reading the manual aloud to Aubrey as he’s in my backseat grunting and buckling. Keep in mind, we just got a regular infant seat. Nothing super fancy. Duh. You buckle the base in, tighten and then put the infant carrier thing on top. NO engineering degree required.

Or, so we thought. For the life of us we could not get the base buckled in tight enough. So if you pushed the base, it moved back and forth. I thought for sure if we were in a serious wreck, the whole thing would slide across the entire backseat. My middle seat in my backseat has an automatic latch thingy meaning you can’t pull it to make it tighter- you have to let it catch and then tighten. Stupid British car. We researched all the entire car seat manual, the car's owner's manual and even tried to read stupid Land Rover blogs to figure out how to make this thing tighten around the base. No such luck.

Because of my amazing time at Hughes Agency doing events and public relations for the Bradshaw Automotive Group, I knew there were people that were certified in car seat safety. I called the Annapolis Fire Department who referred me to the Fitzgerald Auto Mall (think Bradshaw Superstore but for Mitsubishi and not nearly as nice). I made an appointment and a nice man inspected our seat last night.

Here's a picture of the car seat check Hughes Agency did for Bradshaw Automotive (courtesy of Debbie Wallace):

Just as I thought, the base was not tight enough. He showed me this little tool that came with the car seat that would help tighten the seat belt more so than any human could possibly do. Funny thing is, NO where in the car seat manual or on their website does it talk about this little tool. I mean, how many people out there know about this little tool or know how to even use it??

The tool I'm referring to is the flat, metal thing right above the buckle. It was fastened to the inside of the base...

Isn't it sad that two grown adults with three college degrees between them couldn't figure it out. Can you even imagine how many babies are riding around in a base that's too loose.

People. Run, don't walk, to your phones. Call your local fire department and ask for a recommendation on who can check your children's car seats. It's a free service and takes 15 minutes of your time.

He even showed me how to easily loosen the straps and walked me through exactly how to use all the features. I already knew how due to my practicing with a doll (yes, I did) but it was great to have an expert reassure me that I knew how to get Baby Swinson in and out safely and when I would need to adjust the straps.

All set and ready to bring him home!