Car seats on my mind…

This is going to be another one of my long, review posts…. hang in there…

I moved Porter up to his convertible carseat today.  He’s still able to use his infant seat (he’s about 17lbs or so) but its just getting to be a burden carrying that seat around with his heavy butt in it.  We have the Graco ComfortSport, and he seems to like it a lot.  He can see in his mirror better and he made faces at himself in the mirror the entire ride to Leslies house today.  He’s too cute.

So, now we are on a hunt for a carseat for Ryan’s truck.  We could probably do with just 1 carseat, but it’ll be a pain in the butt the few times he has to pick Porter up somewhere else and we have to take out the seat and reinstall it. 

So, we are going to get another seat.  And what a confusing decision this is turning out to be. 

The ComfortSport is good for rearfacing up to 30lbs and forward facing up to 40lbs.  So, once he’s 40 lbs we’ll have to move him up to a booster.  Now, I’ve checked out another seat, the Cosco (or Eddie Bauer) Alpha Omega Elite (or Deluxe) and it goes RF to 30lbs, ForwardFacing (FF) to 40lbs and a booster seat to 100lbs (using the seat belt).  The only thing is, I’m really anal about the harness (which he’d be able to use to 40lbs).  I am nervous that he’ll be 40lbs at 3 years old and there is NO WAY I would put him in a booster using just the seat belt at just 3 years old.  No way.  (more about safety later..)

Anyway, Ry, Porter and I went to the Toy House today to see if we could put a seat on layaway.  They only sell Britax seats because they don’t believe in any other brand (says the sales lady).  The Britax Marathon can be used with the 5 point harness forward facing for up to 65lbs!!  Thats much safer than the seat belt.  Only, the Marathon comes with a hefty $270 price tag.  We decided to wait an weigh our choices. 

Sooo…. I’m still debating on the seat situation.  I also am thinking that by the time Porter is 2 or 3 we’ll have another baby, so when the new baby is out of the infant seat, he/she will take over the ComfortSport and whatever this new seat is we buy.  And Porter probably won’t be big enough for a booster (I’m assuming he’ll be 3 or 4ish, and I’d like to keep him in the harness as long as possible) so more than likely we’ll end up with two more seats that work both as a RF and FF harness buckling seat as well as a belt buckling booster after the 40lbs mark. 

I guess that just helped me make my decision… in the end we’ll be buying two more seats (unless for some reason we have our kids 4-5 years apart and Porter is just in a plain ol booster by then… but then after 6 years you should get new carseats b/c of the wear on the plastic of the seats being in the heat/cold for that long)… So I guess it doesn’t matter what seat I get him now.  After another kiddo we’ll end up with two more seats, and at that point we can decide which ones to use.

OH MY WORD.  DID YOU EVEN FOLLOW ONE WORD OF THAT?  Sorry that was so crazy. I guess I just needed to write and get it all out. 

Anyway, in all this research, I found these nauseating videos of crash tests with carseats.  I have read quite a bit about kids facing rearward, and even though the recommendation says they can turn forward facing as long as they’re 1 year old and 20lbs, it is SO much safer to keep them rear facing until they exceed the rear-facing weight limit (which is about 30-35lbs). 

Here is an ARTICLE.  I really recommend reading it. 

Now, look at this picture of the carseats in a crash test. 

The seat on the left is forward facing, the seat on the right is rear facing.

Now, this will seriously make your stomach turn.  Video of a crash test dummy in carseats both rear-facing and forward-facing.

Download forward_facing_crash_test.mpg

Download rear_facing_crash_test_2.AVI

So… after seeing that and feeling like throwing up, I don’t think I feel so excited for Porter to reach that 1 year mark and turn forward facing.  This dude is going to face rearward until he hits that weight limit.  I don’t care what anyone says about "back in the day we didn’t even ride in carseats" (I always hear that from my mom and grandma… love ya, but sheesh!)…. well, "back in the day" you probably didn’t know much about AIDS and other things that are health-hazardous, and now that you know more about those things you take more precautions, right? 

Maybe I’m just way too anal.  But the thought of that possibly being my little guy flopping foward like that, oh man.  No way. 

Anyway, thats my great advice and info for the day.  This blog is turning into a baby-research note site LOL!