Car Seat Safety Tool

7:00 AM

When I was pregnant we began dreaming about what the nursery would look like, the colors, the themes, the setup. We began scouring for deals on clothing and bedding and all the extras that we think we have to purchase in order to be the perfect parent.We even made sure that everything was color coordinated. We thought of everything! So we thought!

Then came the life changing day of leaving the hospital with that tiny vulnerable bundle of joyous innocence. That is when we realized one major and I do mean MAJOR issue. We never checked to see if the car seat actually fit into the car. So here we are clipping the car seat into the base that is hanging half off the backseat, looking as if it would slip onto the floor with the first bump we hit. The safety clips on the base that are supposed to latch between the seat do not have posts to hook to. So we slid the front seat tightly against the top of the baby carrier. We stuffed the ridiculous amount of unneeded hospital stuff under the hanging front of the base. Then, Just to make sure I rode all the way home with my arm across the feet of the carrier. It was a real eye opener to us. Here we thought we were completely prepared to enter into a new chapter of parenthood.

Are we the only parents who naively thought "it will fit." I mean everything is regulated these days how could a car seat be made without guaranteeing it to fit in all cars. RIGHT! Come on be honest raise your hands. I know we are not alone here.

Now as we look into buying a booster seat and a convertible car seat we know a few more things than we did in the beginning of this parenting journey. We also have an amazing tool in our parenting toolbox, Cars.com.
Cars.com has an interactive website centered around car seat safety. This has been such a headache alleviator for us. You can choose the make, model and year of your car or a car you are looking into buying and determine the best car seat that will fit. There is a great Grading Scale (A-F) that lets you know if there will be plenty of room for the car seat and the child; doesn't impact driver or front-passenger legroom. Easy to find and connect to Latch and tether anchors. No fit issues involving head restraint or seat contouring. Easy access to the third row if there is one. They also let you know how many car seats will fit in each row. They have been testing cars and car seat fitting for over five years, they have thought of every possible parent need. Did I mention they show videos of how to properly install the car seats in each vehicle!?!

My favorite sections of the site are the "What We Like" and "What We Don't". Why you ask. These sections are honest! They tell you if a head rest or head restraint must be removed in order for the car seat to fit properly. The brands and type of car seats and where they are positioned is given. They explain the exact height of the driver and passenger in the testing of each car seat and how much legroom they had after the car seats were installed. Who ever really thinks of that when buying car seats!?! 

I have to say after reading and watching videos on cars.com, we have learnt quite a few things we thought be knew. Foe example did you know that there is not supposed to be a gap between the back of the car seat and the backseat? See we did not! We even had a "professional" install one of our car seats and they left the gap too. We have added this informative webpage to our parenting toolbox and I kindly urge you to do so also. 

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