Assvice: Unwelcome and unsolicited advice given to someone. Because the things I like seem to spread throughout various circles of friends as if it’s gospel I’ve gotten a big head and think that EVERYONE cares about what works for me and what I like. It’s my blog so just nod and smile or I shall smite thee.
December was a hard month to keep any sort of schedule. We went to Hawaii (yeah I know poor me) then had a week off, then Michigan for Christmas, and then home again. We didn’t do swimming the whole month because, what is the point? We were gone half the month, and in the last week none of Sophia’s other classes were in session. So just for some diversion I took Sophia to the play area of a nearby mall. I’m not a shopper. As far as Sophia knows the mall is just a bunch of hallways with a play area at one end. Oh, and they have some pseudo Chinese food there too.
The last three or four times I went to the mall there was this odd guy. He doesn’t look odd. He acts odd. Every time I see him he’s holding balloons filled with helium and carrying on a conversation with various kiosk employees while standing five feet away and slightly bent at the waist as if he’s just about to bow.
I use the words “carrying on a conversation” rather loosely. The last couple of times I came across him he was actually giving the weather forecast while his captive audience stood uncomfortably wondering what to do. I know he sounds a little creepy but he seems harmless. I don’t mean that I’ll have him baby sit my kid, harmless, but if I were stuck sitting by him on a bus I would be ok. I wouldn’t sit in perpetual defense, on guard for inappropriate behavior of a sexual nature.
The poor kiosk employees. It’s funny to watch them react to him. I’m sure they’re all used to him on their own level. I’m sure some of them even welcome the diversion from begging stay-at-home moms to try their product.
I little tip to the kiosk employees…if a woman walks past you zone wearing a men’s sweater, clearly doesn’t wear makeup E-V-E-R, and pushes a $17 umbrella stroller she’s not a big spender. She won’t even consider your product because she knows it serves no purpose. Her house is not one filled with knick-knacks. Try approaching the woman that wears so much perfume you can still smell her ten minutes after she has passed. The one wearing all the labels that the previously described woman wouldn’t even recognize. The woman who, if she’s pushing a stroller it would be the one weighted down with bags of newly purchased items even in a down economy. If her child were a girl, she would be covered in Pepto-Bismol pink as well as all the child’s accessories including the stroller. That’s your target. Your other target might be the man that has is eyebrows plucked.
This is what I do when we have no classes to go to and it’s crappy outside. I watch other people. I’m not sure this stay-at-home stuff is for me.
Kurt’s mom came to visit back in March. Sophia, nearly eighteen months old at the time, was only tolerant of the visit. There were no hugs for Grandma. I think the closest they got to a sweet picture moment was when Grandma sat on the floor playing with Sophia’s mega blocks and Sophia got in the action by handing Grandma the next block slated for use. I wish I had captured the moment but that would mean leaving the room to grab the camera and risking a change in focus from Sophia. I think Grandma enjoyed seeing Sophia play and have fun around her even if she couldn’t hold her, but hopefully she’ll be more social at Christmas time.
We are fast approaching the time of year where activities are best done indoors. Until recently I worried about that because the majority of indoor social activities require either, a long drive, a lot of money, or both. I now have a long list of activities and services to keep us occupied through the winter. The only thing we could think to do back in March when Kurt’s mom was visiting was to go to the McDonalds play land. It was fun to watch Sophia, climb up and up and up, but then it became a problem because when she wanted out she would look down and know that was the way, but continued up.
Let me give the mother’s of newly mobile children a bit of assvice for a moment… You don’t want to send your kid up in the McDonalds gerbil trail unless you’re sure they know how to climb back down again because you’ll NEVER want to go back there EVER again if you have to go through those sewers to retrieve your darling. It’s really fuckin’ gross in there and we were at a rather new McDonalds.
The other free place to visit and play is the mall. Sophia loved playing with the shopping cart. We wanted to rent one but couldn’t figure out how much is cost or where to go to rent it. I later learned that it cost five dollars and they keep your credit card until you return the cart. I guess that’ll keep people from spending too much. 
Last year the when I viewed the environmental working group’s sunblock list their picks were based on the assumption that sun rays are worse than exposure to chemicals. (I may have been looking at their 2007 list last year since even in May their 2009 list isn’t out yet this year.) For people in sunny southern states this may be true, but for those of us in the rainy grey states, not so much. Last year there were news reports about not getting enough vitamin D, specifically breast fed babies.
In our baby swimming class some moms talked about letting their kids play in the sun for ten or fifteen minutes before applying sunblock. That sounds like a great solution except that the child then needs to avoid the sun for half an hour after the sunblock is applied so that it can be absorbed. The other shortcut that comes to mind is to just apply the sunblock and send them out before it’s absorbed, but with the highly reflective glistening oily sunscreens this can actually cause sunburn. It’s happened to me before.
My approach is to not use sunscreen if we’re going to be in and out of the sun for less than an hour and before 11am otherwise I just apply it. I’ve heard some promotions for wearing sunscreen everyday but I just don’t see it as a necessity here in grey-ville. Unless we’re out on a lake, river, or other highly reflective surface I think sunscreen on a grey day is overkill.
Last year I just grabbed a bottle of Aveeno Baby sunblock. It works as a sunscreen, however even if I don’t get any around my eyes by the end of the day they’re BURNING and it HURTS like HELL. I have super sensitive skin when it comes to cosmetics. I can’t wear makeup because I’m allergic to it. Eye shadow and many lotions burn my eyes the same way the Aveeno sunblock did.
This year I checked the environmental working group’s list again. (currently showing the 2008 lists) They’ve reworked their ratings to show which brands are effective against the sun and which have the lowest chemical hazard. They have a list of 140 recommended products and their top recommended brands. One of the top contenders is my favorite California Baby. I’ve had a chance to try it out a few times this year and it’s fabulous. It’s expensive as hell $17.99 at Target for a 2.9 ounce bottle but it works and it doesn’t burn my eyes.
Other links on sunscreen from the Environmental Working Group
I love growth spurt days. Sophia slept in until 9:30 and she ate A LOT of Muesli this morning, probably half a cup or maybe more.
Yesterday I finished the last of our blueberries. I added them to just about every breakfast and even made blueberry pancakes myself for the first time ever. Usually pancakes are a Kurt made breakfast from a box of Bisquick which contains trans fats, the latest mad made no-no food ingredient. I was going to use Bisquick for my first attempt at pancakes, but we were down to a quarter cup. Not many pancakes to be made from that, so I tossed it and looked up some recipes.
I actually use a lot less butter, more like one tablespoon but three is what the original recipe called for. Mix your dry ingredients together and in a separate bowl mix up the wet ingredients. Then mix it all together. After it’s all mixed add about a ½ cup (or a little more) blueberries or other small sliced/chopped fruit.
These turned out AWESOME, very fluffy and moist. They’re so much better than Bisquick pancakes (no offence to Kurtie) and really, just as easy to make.
Aside from noticing that an eBay search would turn up mostly Medela models and the hospital rents out that same brand, I didn’t do any research on breast pumps before purchasing one. I had a couple people caution me about the pumps that hospitals rent out but suggest I rent one first to see if what features I might like. I listened but didn’t follow the suggestion. They said that some women find the pumps to be too industrialized with suction that would pull your eyeballs out through your nipples. I went ahead and purchased a used Medela pump from eBay. I didn’t find any problems with the amount of suction or the speed at which the pump works.
Some women find it difficult to relax and not think of the electric breast pump as a medieval dairy farm device. They may have problems with the letdown reflex when a plastic funnel is suckling the bosom instead of their baby. Those people may prefer a manual pump. They’re cheaper and if there are any difficulties pumping, at least there wasn’t much money wasted. I however, didn’t have a problem and don’t care for my forearms to be supper pumped. I also like the speed at which the electric pump works vs. the manual one I also received with mine. I still had images of cows being milked in a barn every time I used it, but then again when I nursed Sophia I would often get images of the big sow pig laying her side with six or more piglets pulling one her teats at the state fair. I just hope I didn’t smell as bad.
In the classes I took at the hospital the facilitator emphasized that the best breast pumps are those made by manufacturers that don’t also make formula. Medela is one that puts all it’s focus on breastfeeding moms. Medela is also very popular and replacement parts are easily found at many stores. Both of those qualities make buying a used Medela pump a great choice for the frugal mom. All Medela parts, bottles, and breast milk storage bags are BPA free, a hidden bonus I learned after I made my purchase.
When purchasing new parts for a used machine or using a pump for the first time, it’s important to know that there are different sized breastshilds. 24mm is the average size for breastshields. The way to know which size is needed is to visit a lactation consultant or go to the hospital store to be fitted (I’m assuming all hospital stores have this service). It isn’t based on boob size it’s based on the circumference of the areola. When the pump sucks in the nipple, ¾ of the areola should fit into the funnel part of the breastshield. If we milked humans that would be the part the farmer squeezes and pulls down from. Oh, does that make you feel like you belong in a dairy farm? So sorry (not really). 
So if the circumference of the areola is about average then the average size should fit.
One thing I never thought to consider was the possible benefits of a single pump over a duel pump. I bought a duel pump because, well, I have two boobies and pumping both at the same time is faster. What I never considered is that I might want to have a free hand in order to entertain my kid when I pump in front of her or to be able to cover up if I have to pump in a multi stalled busy bathroom at work. There are bands that can be purchased in order to pump hands free, but then I don’t think even I could get over the whole dairy cow image. On the other hand, if I had bought a single pump the problem I could see aside from it taking longer would be that while one side is being pumped the other would probably leak. I know I know that’s what the nursing pads are for. It’s still something to think about especially if you’re bursting at the seams and there is any tendency to gush. I’m just sayin’. Be ready.
Though I bought the Medela pump I didn’t go with Medela brand bottles, at least not at first. Avent was the bottle brand being pushed at the hospital because of the more natural shape of the nipples. However, I tossed those aside once I learned about BPA and went for Evenflo. I’m lucky that after the daycare Sophia briefly attended discovered her bottle nipple preference it was the “classic” style because I didn’t want anything to do with plastic after knowing about BPA. Evenflo sells the classic glass bottles for the most reasonable price and can be found at many stores. No other brand that I’ve seen beats three bottles (either 4oz or 8oz) for $5.50. I’ve seen some mom’s comment on message boards about the fragility of glass and their concerns for glass breaking. Sophia throws her bottles onto the our hardwood floors all the time. I even take the bottles from the refrigerator to a bowl or boiling water. We haven’t had a problem. Just don’t take them from the freezer to the oven. They aren’t meant for either of those. Aside from being inexpensive, one cool feature of these bottles is that the can fit directly onto the end of the Medela breastshield without a converter so that breast milk can be pumped directly into the bottle.
There are a TON of bottles claiming to help prevent colic and ear infections. I call bullshit on them all. I can’t see how all the internal contraptions and bottle ergonomics, which make it impossible to easily clean, help prevent either of those conditions better than a nipple with the appropriate flow for the age of the baby and properly holding the baby with the head raised. Sophia was colicky her first few months but at the time no bottles were being used with her, and she has yet to have an ear infection. *quickly finding a piece of wood to knock on*
We returned from our holiday jaunt to the Midwest on Saturday night and for the first time in two weeks, I checked our mail today. I had no idea postal workers were so crafty at filling every fuckin’ inch of a tiny mailbox. If there were any room, I may have been inclined to leave them a gift. It’s the thought that counts, right? Now you know how silly it sounds. Maybe next time you’ll pay attention to the stop mail notice.
In the middle of our mail pile, I picked out a card nearly torn completely open from all the cramming of mail that came after it. The card was from my very pregnant friend and in it; she asked what she probably believed to be a rhetorical question. She should know by now that there is no such thing as a rhetorical question with me.
If a snowman sticks his tongue out to catch snow, does that make him a cannibal?
Only if the snowman actually ingests the snow, and the same goes for you when cheese or corn are involved you cannibal! *toothy grin* Oh the humanity!
I hope everyone had Merry Holidays and a Happy Festivus.
I received an email from Aaron of Utah Outings asking me for advice on promoting his site.
I am looking for advice to promote my site. Any and all information would be
much appreciated as I am not as geeky as you. I bow to your geekness and look
forward to your response.
I’m sorry it took a while for me to answer but I’m so flattered I thought it deserved a blog post in my ass-vice category even though it’s actually solicited advice, so here goes:
1. Attention grabbing titles and Content – Not every post needs an exciting title, but if you had a choice between “my boring day” or “George Carlin turned us into necrophiliacs” which would you choose? Whether your posts are funny, informative or a combination it’s up to you and the boundaries of your blog scope, the important thing is consistency and keeping the interest. Some people don’t want to offend so they stay away from dicey topics others love a good debate and jump in the fire with both feet. If you’re trying to sell a product or service, I’d really recommend staying away from politics and religion. Get more tips on blog writing from Blog Bloke.
2. Timing is everything – Obviously if you blog about the news the ideal would be to be right on top of it when the news breaks. What many people don’t know is that Monday and Tuesday are the best bloggy days and it’s best to get your more important posts out in time for the lunch crowd readers. If you’re on the west coast keep in mind that the east coast lunch crowd is three hours ahead. Also somethings are seasonal. I wrote a post in September about my experience with Sears Portrait Studio and the hots for that post spiked in mid November / early December. I’m guessing from people that get family Christmas pictures done.
3. Links and Comments – If you’re getting information from other bloggers link to them in your posts! Leave post-appropriate comments on various blogs whether they’re competitors or possible customers. It’s fine to add your url in the appropriate url space on the comment form and it’s even ok if the url you leave is to a specific post but don’t use the comment space to advertise your product or your blog it’s rude and tacky. Also make sure to remove “nofollow” from your blog so that you may spread link luv to your commenters. To spread even more link luv wordpress users can use the commentluv plugin.
4. Bloggy and Social networking sites – Examples of these would be Entrecard, MyBlogLog, Technorati, Twitter, and StumbleUpon.
I tried Entrecard and got a ton of hits but it was time consuming to stop by enough blogs and dropping cards to buy points in order to advertise my blog. Also, the hits I got were just drive by card droppings. No one lingered long enough to comment, or even read the first post. Sure, I may have picked up a reader or two out of the thousands that did the equivalent of a drive by shooting. I wanted a little more meaning in the relationship than pure numbers so I moved on.
Mybloglog was great until Yahoo bought it up. It was nice to see the faces and pictures of people that stopped by on the widget they provide and it was easy to select other blogs to follow, but Yahoo ruined it for me. I started getting spam on mybloglog profile page and I have an unreasonable general hatred towards Yahoo.
Technorati is another site that I quit. It’s wildly popular but anytime I wanted to make changes their site took forever to load and I kept getting error pages. It was incredible annoying and the only time I received traffic from them was when I closed my account, not terribly useful.
I now use StubleUpon and finally broke down and joined the Twitter crowd. StubleUpon can drive crazy amounts of traffic to you if you know how to use it. The important thing to know about StumbleUpon is that you must be very liberal with your thumbs up and thumbs down and that your ratings will carry much more weight if you also review the page. When reviewing a blog click on the individual post not the site itself that way if the blogger creates another review worthy post you can give them another thumbs up. You can use Stumbleupon to review your own posts too, but don’t do it to every post and make sure to review many other sites in between touting your own stuff.
Twitter isn’t a big traffic driver but I suspect that will change if I can drive up my number of followers. I’m very new to twitter. One thing that helps for WordPress users is a Twitter plugin called Twitter Tools.
5. Memes – These are a lot of fun. Most of them are weekly games, but you don’t have to play every week. Don’t make it a chore, and if you participate, try to keep the meme within the scope of your blog.
Blog Bloke gives a great overview for building blog traffic. In the middle of that post is a heading, “How TO Drive More Traffic to Your Site”. “Bloke’s Tips for a Successful Blog” Part I and Part II are also very useful and I highly recommend them.
All signs point to Sophia growing up. Yesterday along with my bra shopping pleasure, I also bought Sophia her first pair of shoes with a more protective rubber sole. Up until this point her only shoes have been her leather bottom Robeez which will now serve as indoor shoes so she doesn’t slip on our hardwood floors. I bought her a pair of Stride Rite shoes designed for early walkers with a very flexible sole. I was going to get her a regular pair of not so bendy shoes that were actually on sale but she started crying and walking around like a tiptoeing Frankenstein. Doctors say that it’s best to let kids walk around barefoot, which Robeez essentially does, until they get better balance. But it makes getting her into real shoes a multi step process. The girl versions of these early walker shoes look like a case of Pepto-Bismol exploded in the store so I bought a pair of white and blue “boy’s shoes”.
When we got home from shopping, I noticed that Sophia’s big girl Old Navy jeans were torn. I swear I didn’t tie her up and drag her behind the car. Seriously, though, how the hell does a pair of toddler’s pants get torn like this? I noticed that all the light areas of her pants are where the fabric is actually getting thinner. It sucks cause these were one of my favorite pairs of big girl pants. The really cool part about these pants were inside the waist band there is a stretchy band with button holes that when pulled with cinch up the pants thereby allowing me to skip a pant size and put my one year old in one and a half year old clothes. I guess thin fabric is there way of getting back at cheap parents. They must engineer their fabric to only last as long as it would take the average toddler to outgrow them, so don’t buy a size ahead with the eternal, “She’ll grow into them” cheap mommy logic. Clothing stores are onto us with our cinched up waistline and rolled cuffed toddlers.
The last sign of Sophia’s constant maturing is her switch to a pseudo sippy cup. I was being stubborn and only offering Sophia the AVENT sippy cups that I had already bought. I didn’t want to have to buy a thousand different sippy in order to get her to switch, but in Target I saw the Nuby No Spill 10 oz Gripper Cup with Soft Silicone Spout. The spout is shaped like a sippy cup spout but it’s soft and is made from the same silicone as a bottle nipple. It’s the happy undecided cup. It works when the baby clams down on the spout thereby opening two slits that let the fluids flow and closes again with a lack of pressure. If you shake it upside-down as if you’re mixing formula droplets will escape and if you have a mischievous toddler *glaring at Sophia* that likes to hold the cup upside-down while squeezing the spout fluids will flow. So if you still have pristine carpet or furniture that you cherish avoid adding staining juices to this cup. Other than that it’s spill proof and Sophia took to it as if there were no difference between it and her bottle. I couldn’t find it on Target’s online store but it was about $4.50 for two Gripper cups at our local store and they can also be found on Amazon.
Since I’ve reduced the number of times I breastfeed Sophia to two, my mommy jugs have shrunk and I’ve been needing new bras for about four or five months now. Yep, I hate shopping that badly. I’ve been putting up with the straps on both sides falling down to my elbows anytime I relax my shoulders which lowers the whole bra just above my belly button. It’s annoying and I’m finally tired of putting up with it. I liked the fun of gignormous naughty pillows, but thankfully, I no longer have much to support.
The last time I went bra shopping was when my milk came in to the tune of needing a 38D. Holy CRAP I was huge! That was a year and three months ago. It’s time I put the lunch lady bra with the 42 cast iron hooks away, in the trash. When I went shopping for the nursing bra I learned that no one frickin’ sells them. It doesn’t matter if department stores sell maternity clothes and bras they simply don’t sell nursing bras. I had to go to the Motherhood store to get some support in that area. I don’t remember how much I spent and it doesn’t matter. In my opinion when you go from mosquito bite booblets to Inga the wet-nurse you want the full on wide shoulder strap, triple hooked, under wire mega bra. If they came in self-washing I would have bought those too. For the first four months I wore those damn things twenty-four seven because I needed something to keep the pads in place so that I didn’t have to change the sheets on my bed every morning, and if that’s too much information, you really need to grow up.
I don’t remember if any of the nursing bras were padded, but if they are any, I wouldn’t recommend them. You’ll be adding your own pads to them, so nipple-concealing bras are not necessary at that point. If you’re pregnant for the first time and you’re going to nurse your baby don’t buy a nursing bra until AFTER your milk comes in. Unlike that one boyfriend in your past, there will be no question it is IN and it’ll make your boobs bigger. Once you’re milk is in and while trying on bras it’s a good idea to keep in mind that you’ll need a little extra room for the pad. And that is the extent of my maternity bra buying assvice, so on with the story…
I’m so glad that’s nearly over and to be back to my normal size 34 slightly swollen mosquito bite cup. During today’s shopping excursion I learned that many department stores aren’t carrying any bras or at least no worthy selection of them. I went to JC Penny, NOTHING, and it’s not that every bra was sold out. There wasn’t a bra or panty section in the store at all. In the past I always purchased my bras at Sears. I went to two different Sears’ stores today. One of them didn’t have any bras as in no bra section of the store and the other only carried granny panty type bras. Now, I’m not looking for anything special. I don’t like the lacy frilly things with stripes, polka dots, or cutesy little hearts. I just want something to hold the jiggly bits still, but I don’t want anything that reminds me of a straight jacket either. I get flashbacks of the padded room I was kept in back in Nam.
Last night I was looking for bras online and knew that Old Navy had some, so I went there. Nothing but pre-teen and few stringy ‘A’ cups, what the fuck kind of selection is that?! I asked a clerk if that was all they had. Yep, that’s it. I complained that it seems like no one sells bras anymore. She looked at me as if maybe I had just gone though a sex change. I must be so out of touch. I’m a guy without a penis, the first male to give birth.
I walked though the mall and there it was, the store that twenty years ago people used to pass by and snicker at because it was nothing but fancy panties and naughty lingerie, Victoria’s Secret. That must be where all us women folk shop these days. There was even a guy there shopping with his eight year old son for mom. I went in because the sign outside said buy one, get one 50% off. I’ve never shopped there before because I know their stuff is outrageously expensive. With their sale, I figured I would be able to spend my normal full price amount. My normal is between fifteen and thirty dollars each, and even that seems extreme for a piece of string. I’m cheap as hell. The clerk, are they still called clerks? Anyway, she asked me what I was looking for. I told her I just wanted something simple. She asked if I wanted *insert a whole list of options I can’t even remember and didn’t understand*. I cringed as I said, “I don’t know, I just want a bra without an under wire” I had no idea what category my plain bra would fall under. “Oh well we only have three of those.” She took me to a changing room and handed me the three options in my size. Of course, the most expensive one felt the best to me. It actually felt AWESOME. I don’t know if it was forty-five dollars awesome, but I bought two since the second was half price. After picking my nude color no-frills lace-less bra the lady told me that if I wanted matching underwear they were on a table across the room. Really? With the nude color bra if I bought matching panties I would look like a frickin’ Barbie doll with no anatomy at all, just a couple little mounds in the front. Ok, maybe I won’t make it as Barbie, how about Skipper?
With the kind of comfort this bra gives I can now understand why other women spend more on the boob cover garment than I have done in the past, but ladies I have to tell you, men really don’t give a shit if your polka dot panties match your polka dot bra. As a matter a fact they would rather you not wear either at all, so don’t get mad when they don’t notice your newest $85 nipple-concealer. Save it for when he’s so wrapped up in his computer games that he doesn’t even notice you’re naked.
Between an infant carrier and the multistage car seat I choose the one that would last the longest, the seat that looks gigantic with a tiny newborn. It’s the Mad Hatter seat for infants. The car seat is probably never the first purchase, but because you cannot leave the hospital without one in which your newborn fits properly, it really should be higher on the list.
The only two problems with using the big car seat is:
1) The hospital is used to everyone choosing the newborn seat which detaches from it’s base and carrying it in as to checkout of the hospital so that the nurses may ensure the infant fits inside properly. Sadly that is the only parental requirement prior to leaving with a new baby, but that’s a rant for another occasion. I have no idea what people do when they only use public transit because the nurses seemed baffled by our choosing the big seat and refusing to take it out of the car to show them how well it swallows up our newborn. Typically the only time a baby doesn’t fit is when he or she is a preemie and then the hospital rents out a special car cradle type “seat”. Even though our newborn was a giant nine pounds (as opposed to a minuscule nine pounds), it’s similar to carding people at the bar who are quite clearly over 21.
2) Our other problem was our car. We don’t drive giant SUVs. I have a small pickup truck and Kurt drives a regular size four-door car when he’s not on one of his motorcycles, which I have dubbed “the mistresses”. Because infants in this state are required to sit rear facing until they are one year AND weigh twenty pounds, and because we have a regular sized car, we must put Sophia’s seat behind the front passenger’s seat. If we have a passenger other than Sophia, they must make a choice between sitting in the back with the baby or sitting in the front seat which cannot move back enough to allow for such things as knees and feet. Only not-a-nanny fit in the front seat comfortably. She’s about five foot one, and that’s with wheeley shoes.
We don’t mind these inconveniences and as I’ve stated many times, I’d much rather take Sophia out of her car seat and carry her in her Ergo carrier against my body than lean over as I carry up to a twenty pound infant and her seat with one arm.
What we sought in a car seat, forget about Consumer Reports, once the choice is made between the two major categories of infant carrier verses a multistage car seat they’re all very similar. All car seats are tested and all of them meet certain requirements. All of them, like seat belts, fail to have a 100% life saving guarantee. As a matter a fact, Consumer Reports tested many seats and most failed their overly zealous testing. They later retracted their findings and many news outlets ended their articles with, “Both the magazine and the government continue to emphasize that no matter what, the safest place for a child in an automobile is strapped into a car seat.” for fear that people would stop buying baby seats. The fact is the best baby seat is one that fits in your car and is properly installed. With that in mind the way we narrowed down our selection was by taking the car seat off the store shelf at Babies R Us and setting it on the van bench seat they provide to get an idea of how much room a particular seat needs for a rear facing set up. Most people think that van seat is just for the pregnant people to sit on, but it’s not.
We then pulled the front seat of our car all the way forward and measured how much space was between the back of he back seat and the back of the front seat. It may be necessary to use a rolled up towel under the baby seat to ensure the base is level, and then the back of a rear facing baby seat should not touch the back of the front seat of the car. There should be about two inches between the back of the baby seat and the back of the front seat of the car so that in the event of a collision, there is a buffer between the two and the baby seat isn’t crumpled. Check with your hospital for free car seat installation inspections, if possible, prior to baby’s arrival.
We considered three other things while making our choice. I pulled the cover back on the sides of each car seat looking for Styrofoam padding on advice from a friend of mine. It made sense to me that the Styrofoam sides would provide better cushion to a baby head than hard plastic.
The baby harness adjuster should be easily accessible whether the baby seat is rearfacing or forward facing. Some of the older types of baby car seats lacked that featcher, and according to the hospital many parents apperantly left the harness at the same setting each use. That is not the proper way to secure a baby to the seat.
The third thing we looked at was the cover itself. Kurt took into account color and pattern. He didn’t want a flowery frou-frou girly girl seat in his car. He didn’t say anything to me, but apparently, I’m not to pick car seats while pregnant ever again. I really liked some girly things while I was pregnant that now turn my stomach – ah back to my normalcy. It’s probably a good thing I already had a baby name in mind before becoming pregnant. My car seat cover concern was washability and if it wasn’t dryer friendly it should at least dry quickly.
Since choosing our seat I’ve found another thing to consider, the level of toxins in the car seat, which you can fret over find out about at HealthyCar.org. The seat we chose in an Evenflo Triumph Advance DLX Sandbox, and rated at one, which is a low concern. Of course the seat they actually rated was a 2008 and ours is a 2007, details.
