Infant Car Seats: Summer Days, Ouch!

Remember those hot summer days when you climbed into your car after it had been sitting in the sun for hours? Remember when you wore shorts and how it felt on your bare legs sitting on leather or vinyl car seats? The pain!

Keep that in mind this summer when you put your baby into her infant car seat or when you put your toddler into his child car seat, especially when they have bare legs or are wearing very light clothing. A thin cotton diaper shirt is little protection against a infant car seat that's been soaking up the sun's heat for hours.

Temperatures in a closed car sitting in direct summer sunlight can get very hot. Like an oven, everything inside the car is also gets very hot, especially metal since it's a good conductor of heat.

Even if the safety seat hasn't been in direct sunlight it can get very hot. Some infant car seats are covered with material that is quite plastic. Feel the seat material with your hand to be sure it's not too hot.

When you put your baby into their safety seat take care that no metal parts touch their bare skin. The harness has one or more metal parts, usually the tabs that click into the buckle. These can get very hot. A baby's skin is thinner and more sensitive so these hot harness tabs can burn their legs if you plop your baby down on the tabs.

There is a safer way to use the harness system to reduce this risk as well as reduce your frustration with strapping and unstrapping your child. But that's a future topic.

Enjoy your summer.
Helping Parents Choose The Best Child Safety Seat
Infant-Car-Seats.Net

Used Child Car Seats and Used Infant Car Seats: Should You Ever Consider One?

"Here, use our old car seat. We don't need it anymore." If you are expecting and you haven't heard this by now you probably will soon. Should you use that old child safety seat?

When we were expecting our first baby a friend from work gave us their old child car seat. By this time the child safety seat mantra had firmly established itself in my head -- don't get a used child safety seat, buy new.

Why does the industry, and government for that matter, say to always get a new child safety seat? Especially since perfectly good older ones sit in the closets, garages and basements of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of homes across the country? More...

Child Car Seats: Protecting Your Rear - Seat That Is

"They were great except the rear seats looked worn out." That's what a friend was telling me this past weekend. We were trying to relax in the shade of our patio while the kids played with the sprinklers on the lawn.

He was telling me about his experience shopping for a car. He said he was looking for a nice clean used import. But, he didn't want it to look used, especially the interior. (who does right?)

Initially, he thought he had found a couple of great candidates but ended up rejecting them. How come? I asked. Because they had obviously had child car seats in the rear seat. He replied.

What do you mean I asked. Well, you could see that the rear seat had dents in it where a child car seat had been sitting for a long time. And, in one of the cars the fabric of the rear seat was worn in spots and had stains.

I had heard this before from friends and other looking for a used car. Nobody wanted a car that used to have a child car seat it. They are just too hard on the rear seat. As far as resale or trade-in value goes, these cars are worth less than cars with perfect condition rear seats.

So I made sure to protect the rear seats of our cars when it came time to install child car seats.

You should protect the rear seat of your car as well. Especially if you plan on selling your car or plan to trade it in for another. If you do not plan on getting rid of your car soon you probably would like to keep the rear seat in good condition for the time when you don't have to use a child car seat.

How can you do this?

You want to protect the rear seat from wear caused by the child car seat itself as well as from spills and messes from your child.

There are a number of ways to do this.

Simple and Free
The simplest and cheapest way is to fold a large bath towel and place it under the child car seat. Fold it so it's thicker at the back where the back posts of the child car seat rest on the rear seat. You can leave it a bit longer in the front so it drapes over the front edge of the rear seat. This will protect the rear seat from wet or muddy heels banging against the front edge of the rear seat.

Simple and Inexpensive
Still simple but not as cheap as free is to use a piece of high density closed cell foam about 1/2-3/4" thick. This is commonly used as a sleeping pad when camping. So any outdoor equipment, sports type store should have it. It comes in various colors, although blue seems common.

Get a piece wide enough for your child car seat so that none of the child car seat rests directly on the rear seat. Get enough length that you can run some of the foam a few inches up behind the child car seat and to the front edge of the rear seat. You can even fold the back edge of the foam over so it's even thicker under the back edge of the child car seat where much of the weight is concentrated. This protects the rear car seat surface and the rear seat back rest.

Simple and Not So Inexpensive
Finally, you can buy a ready made protector from a baby supply store,or from sellers of child car seats. These are more expensive. They extend up behind the child car seat a few inches to protect the rear back rest. Some come with pockets in the front flap which hangs in front of the rear car seat. But I can't see those are very useful if your child is old enough that their legs dangle over the front of the rear seat.

Save Your Rear and Save $$
If you care at all, the very least you should do is use the folded bath towel. The foam pads are cheap. The manufactured protector is most expensive and may have other desirable features.

We just use the foam pads. Sometimes we also place a folded bath towel under on top of the pads, for extra protection.

If you follow these suggestions you should find that the rear seat of your car will look almost good as new (if it was to start) when you remove your child car seat. That should be good for a few more $$ value on trade-in or when you sell it.

Finally, take your child car seats out occasionally and clean the debris off your rear seat protector. If you only have one child consider changing the position of the car seat occasionally. E.g. From the left side to middle,to the right. This gives the rear seat a chance to recover from the constant pressure of the child car seat.

Until next week, all the best,
Helping Parents Choose The Best Child Safety Seat
Infant-Car-Seats.Net