Car Seat Updates

I'm about to buy my third car seat in a month, the 4th in 5 months and the 6th seat we've owned. Why so many? The car seat safety maven are now recommending that children stay harnessed until at least 4o lbs or until they start driver's training. And although my sister wonders if the car seat manufators are trying to create a panic to sell seats, I follow the better safe than sorry rule.

Thankfully my dear husband just smiles and nods when I bring up spending $260 on 2 new carseat for Maddy and Mallory. They're both riding in the uber cool Graco Nautilus. Maddy was riding in a TurboBooster High Back Booster and is now so much safer with a harnessed seat and will remain that way until she's 65lbs. The Nautilus then turns into a high back booster to belt positioning booster and holds them until 100lbs .. which if family history is any indication will be about age 22. Mallory was in an UltraCarGo and could have stayed there without problem BUT once she saw Maddy's new seat she wanted the same thing. And thankfully we're able to afford her whim .. honestly though the Nautilus is awesome .. the thing has fricken steel bars for supports, the belt routers have been redesigned and are easier than ever to adjust, the chest clip and buckle are also new and are harder for kids to undo but somehow easier for parents. Daddy saw the first one and automatically voted on one for Mallory too. Thanks to Amazon's Prime shipping, Mallory was set to go 2 days later.

As for the third seat .. I did mention a third new seat didn't I? Miss Molly is soon to be graduating from the SnugRide. By soon I mean in the next few months .. the strap heights are never tall enough for my long torsoed girls .. Molly's on the top strap already! Infant seats are wonderfully handy for the first few months for things like resturants and not disturbing the sleeping baby .. but I've found that we generally don't lug the thing around outside of the car once the girls are old enough to say sit in a high chair for the length of a dinner out. So .. in the hunt for a new convertible car seat I discovered this gem, highly recommended by car seat techs, The First Years True Fit (pictured above). Its a wonderful seat that will last, hopefully, until high school graduation :) What sold me is its a whole shebang of a seat, rear facing, forward facing until 65 lbs and then a high back booster and then a belt positioning booster up to 100 lbs. Plus its pretty!

What caused the new look into carseats? A new car purchase! One of the perks of military pay is that its basically untaxed and only basic pay is considered income so our reported taxable income for the year is about 1/2 of what our actual take home is. So basically we have zero tax liablity to the federal government and fall into a low tax bracket so we get massive returns (to us at least) each year. Combined with a general thriftiness we have a nice budget to get something decent and safer than the Chevy Venture. Stay tuned :)

Car Set Switch-a-Roo

Saturday was the big test for our four year old Madelynn .. the first ride in her new Graco TurboBooster! We were heading out for the day and I didn't feel like messing with switching the 2 seats from my van to the car .. so we decided to try the TurboBooster I'd bought at Target last fall knowing it would be awhile before we'd be able to use it but the price was right .. $12.48, 75% off! Maddy was excited to use her new seat and after a short discussion about not playing with the seatbelt, how it was like the straps on her old seat that aren't to be touched, it's what keeps her safe in the car, like mommy and daddy's seat belts, ect .. she did great!! It still amazes me how well kids understand and listen if you take the time to explain the reasoning behind the direction.

My plan now is that come August and new baby arrives Maddy will move to the TurboBooster, Mallory will move to Maddy's old Ultra CarGo Harnessed booster and the new baby will be riding in the ComfortSport. However, there's more testing to be done before I can be certain that we won't need to buy an Infant seat .. I need to see how the ComfortSport will fit rear-facing in the van and how Mallory fits in the CarGo. And I need to see when the ComfortSport expires .. I think it should be late in 2010, we bought it in the winter of 2004 when Maddy was a tall, or long rather, 9 month old.

Not only is the idea of spending $80 on new Snugride less than appealing I can't imagine trying to haul it around with a 5 year old and a 3 year old. When Mallory was a baby, the Snugride we had then rarely left the car when we were doing errands, she usually rode in the sling and once she was bigger and too wiggly for the sling to feel safe for her it was the backpack carrier. With Madelynn, the Snugride went everywhere and I developed a mild case of carpel tunnel from lugging her around! Of course, if the seats don't fit correctly, I'd much rather spend the $80 and have a safe baby .. or maybe I'll just have to get a new van ;)

The pics are of the girls in the current car seat configuration .. they're are from my cameraphone so excuse the lack of quality! They're also from last summer and Maddy's grown a foot since then, so I assure you she is tall enough for her new seat!