Car Seats – I’ve Been Doing It Wrong

Sherbit guys.  I’m sorry.

About what this time?  Well in case you’ve missed it I’ve been ranting about children not strapped into car seats a lot.  In fact I was acting all high and mighty, declaring judgement on all the lesser parents that don’t strap their kids in.  Dishing out punches to the face like it ain’t no thing.  And while I still think it’s legit and stick by what I said, I have something to confess.

Even though I have been diligently strapping my kids into their seats since they first left the hospital, I’ve just realised I’ve been doing it wrong.  So very, very wrong.

Have you read the Volvo Children and Cars manual?  Shucks.  Even though I’m heavily invested in this campaign, I’ve put off reading it until now.  Mostly because I thought I had it waxed.  I didn’t need to read it because I was already doing everything right.

* smugly pats self on back*

Boy was I was off the mark.  The truth was that I have been messing up on the regular.  And I didn’t even know!

*slaps self across the face*

I really and truly thought that the most important thing about car seats and children was to put the children in the car seats.  Like duh.  And while that is still MUCH better than not putting them into a car seat, there’s so much more that I didn’t know.

Too busy to read the whole manual?  Let me share the things that stuck out for me…

1. Until the age of FOUR, all children should be in rear facing car seats.  This was particularly hard for me to accept.  Mostly because I moved my kids to forward facing seats as early as I possibly could and so I wanted to justify my actions by dismissing this.  The thing is that not having your kid in a car seat has a 100% risk of severe injuries, a forward facing seat knocks it down to 40%, but a rear facing seat brings it right down to 8%!!  Considering that these types of chairs are a bit of an investment, it’s actually a good thing they’re in it for so long – they really use the heck out of it.
2. Kids in booster seats – strap across top of thighs and shoulder.  Although we’re pretty careful to ensure that the top strap isn’t in the kids neck (that’s a pretty obvious problem right?), I had no idea that the bottom strap needs to be over their thigh and NOT by their tummies.  Over the tummies can cause additional injuries on impact.

There are other things of course.  The fact that your kids should not be wearing puffy jackets when they are strapped into their seats (too much space on impact).  Or the fact that a regular passenger seat belt is designed to protect an adult male who is 1.5m or taller.  So obviously strapping your kid into the seat belt without the help of a booster seat could potentially result in severe injuries too.

I’m so grateful that we have managed to avoid any incidents that would have made me regret not reading that manual sooner.

So, again to be clear, your kids need to be a in car seat every single time they go in a moving vehicle.  #CarseatFullstop.

Here’s how YOU help – get involved in #CarseatFullstop

OK, so you’re as passionate about this as I am, but don’t know where to start.  Here’s where you start.

It’s time to share…

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – the more we can talk about this, the better.  Let’s make the circle bigger!  Like a viral video that keeps popping up on your Facebook timeline.  Make sure that something about #CarseatFullstop keeps appearing on yours so we can help to educate our family and friends.  A little life could be saved.  Obviously you want to be part of that right?  OF COURSE you freaking do!

I never beg you to share my content.  (Although I love it when you do)  But now I’m asking, because this is matters.

If this campaign makes you feel things and your feel driven to help, head on HERE and share the posts that resonate with you.  Share this one if you want to.  Or be like Oprah and share everything you see about #CarseatFullstop over this week – one for you, one for you and one for you!  While you’re at it, please LIKE #CarseatFullstop on Facebook, please SIGN UP for the newsletter, please FOLLOW on Twitter or please FOLLOW on Instagram.

Let’s go get some bums in car seats!