New carseat?
Moms View Message Board: Parenting Discussion: Archive January-June 2005:
New carseat?
We are on the verge of outgrowing our Graco Quattro tour travel system seat...he's 19.5 pounds, almost 7 months...what do we buy next? (Sorry if this is a silly question...I guess I need some recommendations.)
when our dd outgrew her infant carrier we bought a convertible carseat ...we bought the alpha omega by cosco, I like it pretty good but the straps get twisted easily and we have to take them out and reroute them every month or two so they are straight again. I am sure the britax is a better option...(wizard or roundabout). Good luck.
Not a silly question!  Yes, time for a new car seat as the weight limit is 20 lbs.. The next step is a convertible car seat, which rear faces until usually 30-35 lbs. (they differ) and then forward faces to 40 lbs.. The "best" seat is one that fits your vehicle/child/budget and is easy to use. Recommendations at these sites:
CarSeatData.org - Convertibles
Car-Safety.org - Convertibles
Be sure to get one with a 5 pt. harness and a front harness adjuster. If you get one that doesn't have a front harness adjuster the only way to adjust the harness is to uninstall the car seat to do it at the back of the seat. A major PITB.
Five-Point Harness or Shield - Choosing a safer seat
The bare minimum requirements for turning a baby forward facing are 12 mos. and 20 lbs.. The AAP now recommends babies stay rear facing longer, until they've outgrown the rear facing limits of their convertible car seat. More info:
Rear-facing - Unmatched Safety
Don't be afraid to seek a Fitting Station/CPS Tech in your area.
SeatCheck.org
At the bottom of this article is a link to search for CPS Techs in your area.
Choose and Use the Right Child Safety Seat
HTH!
That last link doesn't work. Trying again...
Choose and Use the Right Child Safety Seat
http://www.safekids.org/tier3_cd.cfm?content_item_id=16831&folder_id=183
Thanks so much! I'll look at those websites when I have some more time later on tonight! I might have more questions...again, thanks so much.
We just ordered a Graco ComfortSport which is a convertible seat for my dd. She is only 15 pounds but her length is 26 inches so we had to get a new one. BabyAge.com has a lot of nice car seats as well.
Here's another web site with info and recommended car seats.
CarSeatSite.com - Recommended Car Seats
Babyage.com happens to have the best prices I've seen on Britax seats.
We used the Britax roundabout- it has great safety ratings espaecially with head protection!
We have the Britax Roundabout as well. I love it!
But if you get a Britax i'd go with a Marathon or Husky... or something that holds a lot of weight since hes 20 pounds already. I believe the Roundabout only holds up to 40 pounds. Correct me if i'm wrong.
We bought the Cosco Alpha Omega - not a great choice. It was good for a time, and yes the straps twisted. But my son outgrew the 5 point harness before he was three. It does not have a great rating when used as a belt positioning booster.
We did not go for another carseat, we bought a Britax Starriser Comfy belt positioning booster.
I like the Britax a lot. I'm sure if I had it to do over, I would have gotten a Marathon or a Husky.
Let us know what you pick.
Ame
The Husky isn't an option for Mrsheidi right now because it's a forward facing only car seat. Her baby needs to stay rear facing.
The Marathon and Wizard are convertibles that rear face > 33 lbs. and forward face to 65 lbs..
Yeah, I looked at the Alpha Omega today. I haven't bought anything yet.
Anyone use one in an SUV? We have an infinity QX4.
Heidi, Personally, I'd choose a different seat. It does have a 35 lb. rear facing limit, which is a good thing, but it's known for other issues - twisty straps, short harness slots, incompatibility issues, difficult to install, etc.. It's not everything it's cracked up to be. Here is a review by a seasoned CPS Tech and mom of two.
Cosco Alpha Omega Review
I have the Cosco Alpha Omega, and I haven't had any problems with it. I love mine. It wasn't hard to install at all. The starp so get twisted easily, but honestly, what straps don't? They are easy for me to get right, before I strap Rylee in.
Britax Roundabout here, I have been really happy with it and DS (he is 4) loved it and DD is comfy cozy in it. She is the same age as you DS.
I have the Britax Roundabout for my daughter. The only thing I don't love about it is that the fabric cover that was available at the time is not machine washable. You can only surface wash it. But they do offer alternate covers you can purchase on their website. But it has also held up very well.
Jrsmom- My daughter was bornon June 28th 2004 as well. That is so neat!!
Jrsmom- My dd was born on June 28th 2004 as well! That is so neat!!
Most car seat covers aren't machine washable. Be sure to check your instruction manual on that. Machine washing the cover and/or harness straps against manufacture directions can void the warranty as well as ruin the fire treatment and possibly weaken the strength of the harness straps.
Rayanne, none of the car seats I've owned have had twisty straps.
A good place to go for car seat reviews is here:
http://messageboards.ivillage.com/iv-ppcarseats?redirCnt=2
Babies R Us is a good place to go to have a hands on look at carseats. They actually have a back seat of a car in there and you can pull down the displays and put your child in like you would your car! It helped alot with out decision on booster seats!
Thanks, Holly, I might try that!
I'm leaning towards the Britax Marathon since it would seem to last longer, considering his size.
I've already had to move him up to a 12M size 2 weeks ago.
Today is his 7 month birthday! We sang happy birthday to him this morning.
Heidi, yes, go to the store to see the seats in real life and then shop for a better price on-line. I believe the Britax Marathon is $250 at BabiesRUs. It's $215 with free S&H at BestBuyBaby.com. Check BabyAge.com as well. If you find a better deal, let me know!
Thanks for everything, Trina. I just ordered the Britax Marathon from BestBuyBaby for 214.99 with free shipping. On Ebay they were cheaper but shipping costs $30...sneaky sneaky...
Now, I'm going to find the nearest carseat technicians to make sure I'm installing it correctly, etc.
Thanks again and it's worth the money.
I have the Britax Marathon..you'll be very happy with it. We have an SUV with leather interior, so we also bought a Prince Lion Heart Seat Protector (They are 18.00 but got mine off Ebay for 7.99 new)..this will save any car interior from the dents put into the car seat from the baby's carseat!
I have seend those seat protectors! I never bought one because I wondered if it affected the safety of the carseat installation. I guess it probably wouldn't. I'm just a bit anal when it comes to carseats I guess lol. My inlaws think I'm overprotective. They always try to convince me they don't need the carseat and booster when they take the kids.
Trina, I don't mean to sound stupid, but what are average rear facing limits?? I had a very hard time even keeping dd rear facing to 20 pounds because she was so tall and thin. She was so tall that her little legs didn't seem to fit right facing backwards, but she wasn't 20 pounds yet. I couldn't have imagioned keeping her rear facing any higher than 20 pounds. To be honest, we might have turned her around a few pounds shy of 20 because she was so scrunched backwards. This has no effect on me now because she is 10 and about 53 pounds (still tall and thin) Don't know why I am curious about it, but I just am!! LOL
Heidi, you're welcome! Let me know how you like your Marathon.
Katiesmommy, actually mats like the one you mentioned aren't recommended. We (CPS Techs) use very thin rubber shelf liner, but usually *only* in situations where leather seats cause a car seat to slip or not install tightly. Otherwise, no mats, towels, sheets, etc. should go under the car seat. From my experience, dents caused by car seats are temporary.
Vicki, you definitely don't sound stupid. That's actually a common question. The bare minimum requirements for turning a baby forward facing are 12 mos. AND 20 lbs.. Safety Experts and the AAP now recommend babies stay rear facing as long as possible, until they reach the rear facing limits of their convertible car seat. The neck and spine are best protected during a crash when rear facing. Most convertibles now rear face up to 30 lbs., some up to 33-35. Height wise, there needs to be at least 1" of hard plastic seat shell above the child's head. As far as the legs, there have been no documented cases of broken legs from touching the vehicle seat back. Regardless, broken legs are MUCH easier to fix than a broken spine. More info here:
Rear-facing - Unmatched Safety
An article by Kathleen Weber, the Director of the Child Passenger Protection Research Program at the University of Michigan Medical School
Rear-facing car seats: What you need to know
Common Misunderstanding
There are many misunderstandings and misconceptions about the crash environment that lead even the best-intentioned parent or pediatrician to believe a child is "safe" facing forward when s/he is still very young. These come from obsolete ideas and advice that may still appear in older pamphlets and pediatric literature but that have been updated in recent years.
The most prevalent misunderstanding is the idea that muscle strength and control have anything to do with whether it is reasonable to face a child forward and subject his/her neck to the extreme forces pulling the head away from the body in a frontal crash.
Crash Dynamics
This will be a somewhat technical explanation, but it is an important concept to understand. When a car hits something else at, say, 25 miles per hour to 30mph, it will come to a stop at a deceleration rate of about 20 or 25G. But, due to the time lag between when the vehicle stops and the occupants eventually do, the head of a forward-facing adult or child may experience as much as 60 or 70G.
Physiological Impact
Even strong neck muscles of military volunteers cannot make a difference in such an environment. Rather it is the rigidity of the bones in the neck, in combination with the connecting ligaments, that determines whether the spine will hold together and the spinal cord will remain intact within the confines of the vertebral column.
This works for adults, but very young children have immature and incompletely ossified bones that are soft and will deform and/or separate under tension, leaving the spinal cord as the last link between the head and the torso. Have you ever pulled an electric cord from the socket by the cord instead of the plug and broken the wires? Same problem.
This scenario is based on actual physiological measures. According to Huelke et. al. (1), "In autopsy specimens the elastic infantile vertebral bodies and ligaments allow for column elongation of up to two inches, but the spinal cord ruptures if stretched more than 1/4 inch." Real accident experience has also shown that a young child's skull can be literally ripped from its spine by the force of a crash. Yes, the body is being held in place, but the head is not. Is it a statistically rare event? Yes. If it's my child, does it matter that it's rare?
Facing Directions
When a child is facing rearward, the head is cradled and moves in unison with the body, so that there is little or no relative motion that might pull on the connecting neck.
Another aspect of the facing-direction issue that is often overlooked is the additional benefit a child gains in a side impact. Crash testing and field experience have both shown that the head of a child facing rearward is captured by the child restraint shell in side and frontal-oblique crashes, while that of a forward-facing child is thrown forward, around, and often outside the confines of the side wings. This can make the difference between a serious or fatal head injury and not.
Turn-Around Time
There are no magical or visible signals to tell us, parents or pediatricians when the risk of facing forward in a crash is sufficiently low to warrant the change, and, when a parent drives around for months or years without a serious crash, the positive feedback that the system they have chosen "works" is very difficult to overcome. When in doubt, however, it's always better to keep the child facing rearward.
In the research and accident review(2) that I did a few years ago, the data seemed to break at about 12 months between severe consequences and more moderate consequences for the admittedly rare events of injury to young children facing forward that we were able to identify. One year old is also a nice benchmark, and the shift to that benchmark in the last few years has kept many kids in a safer environment longer and has probably saved some lives, some kids from paralysis and some parents from terrible grief.
Leg Length
As a side comment, some convertible child restraints indicate in their instructions that a child should face forward when his/her feet touch the vehicle seatback, or alternately when the legs must be bent. This prohibition is not justified by any accident experience or any laboratory evidence, and we are hoping that these instructions will soon be revised. The only physical limit on rear-facing use is when the child's head approaches the top of the restraint shell. At this point, s/he should be moved to a rear-facing convertible restraint, or, if the child is already using one, to its forward-facing configuration.
Parents and pediatricians need to know the real reasons for the current push to keep babies rear-facing to at least one year of age, in order to be able to make an informed judgment. Perhaps this will help spread the word.
Good info!!
hmmm...interesting. Thanks!!
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