All buckled in...

A few days ago I wrote about safety on the internet...or rather I wrote about reading about safety on the internet. Today I am going to talk about safety in your car.  I know that many of you have little ones around the same age as my Superman.  Many of you probably are still using your infant car seat, aren't you?  It is okay to admit it, I was up until this week.

Thank goodness for friends with children older than my own.  I was at boot camp and it came up casually.  I had it stuck in my head that my infant car seat was rated to 30 pounds.  Superman is only 19 pounds so we were good.  What these ladies pointed out to me was that it is not just weight, but height that factors into the change to a bigger seat.  When they said that I had one of those, "OMG I can't believe I didn't think about that!" moments.

So I did a little research and found that the height limit for our infant seat was 30 inches.  Superman was 29 inches at 9 months.  Fortunately, we measured him again and he is still just 29 inches.  However, the other thing the manual said was that if his head was less than an inch from the top of the seat, it was time to get a bigger seat.  Sure enough Superman's head was less than an inch from the top.

So let me recap.  You should know the following limits for your current car seat:

• weight limit (if it is a convertible seat, you should know the limit for rear facing and forward facing)
• height limit (if it is a convertible seat, you should know the limit for rear facing and forward facing)
• shoulder height limit

Unless you are absolutely positive that your child is within the limits for their current car seat, I would go check right now. Oh and if you knew this already? Good job!  I am disappointed that I didn't know all this before, but feel better knowing that I have the information now.  If your child is too big for their car seat, don't beat yourself up, just do something about it.  If you aren't sure where to start, be sure to come back tomorrow when I will share my experience with shopping for Superman's new car seat.

**Disclaimer- I am not an expert on car seats.  I have no certifications or documents saying I should be giving advice. Therefore, take what I say as one mom's experience and do you own research.  Thank you.***