You're in a rear-facing car seat until you're 12 months AND 20 lbs. Then you're in a forward-facing car seat with its own restraint system until you're about 30 lbs. or so, at which point you can safely go into a booster seat that uses the car's seatbelts IF there are shoulder harnesses.

In California, you stay in a booster seat until you're 6 years old or 60 lbs., and you're not allowed to use a belt-positioning clip. Some of the booster seats are just essentially foam phone books that lift the kid into the proper position so it won't be strangled by the shoulder harness.

Eventually we'll all be wearing helmets.

vote for Nader!

http://www.iihs.org/safety_facts/sta.../restrain2.htm

Veddy amuuuusing.
 

This was a funny post. I like you. This is causation, not correlation.

Now, marching on to my point:

We have a Volvo "SUV" (it's not really an SUV -- more like a beefy station wagon, but it's awesome). On our last vacation (a visit to the in-laws, so not technically a vacation), we drove my f-i-l's Mercedes SUV around town, and we far prefer the Volvo to the Mercedes (I don't remember the number or whatever -- but I think there's only the one). The Volvo handles better, the engine was smoother (sorry, I'm not real facile with car-speak), and it felt more solid.

It would fit three car seats across, although we only use two. If your third child (or, most probably, the first one) is the right size, you can put him/her in the "built in" car seat in the middle.

The way-back is pretty big (we tote a big dog crate most of the time -- usually filled with 90 lbs. of dog), but when the third row of seats is up, the way back gets rather small -- but you could still jam some suitcases or other sundries back there (but not a dog crate that can hold 90 lbs. of dog).

Having just put an infant car seat in the back center of a '99 Passat sedan, I'd think that two child seats would have to be in outboard stations, and three child seats would be damn neat impossible to get in, due to wrangling with that damn clip thing on the belt. I'd think it impossible to install two such seats in the cetner and outboard stations where the seat belt buckles are adjacent. If your car has LATCH anchors, it might be easier (and possible); and it might be possible with a boster seat in the outboard seat where the buckles meet.

For my future reference, must kids in booster seats still be in the back (NY)? If one is old enough for a booster, just stick them in front.

-epF

Few cars have the latch anchors in the center, which is completely stupid, but that's the way it is when you have to comply with federal regulations. (Manufacturers of hearses only recently got an exemption from teh requirements for Latch in the rear seat.

Generally kids have to be in the back seat for quite some time (past boosters), because airbags would smash 'em up real good in front.

Because all newer cars have passenger-side airbags, you're not supposed to put kids in the front passenger seat until they are 12 years old and five feet tall.

Also, I think you're in the minority for still having to use locking clips. Again, most newer cars have auto-locking seatbelts (pull them all the way out, and they lock as they retract; to unlock you have to let them go all the way back in), so no clips required. My car's only a year newer than yours, and it has this feature.

The three carseats I put in my mom's Infiniti (which also has the auto-locking belts) included a Britax Roundabout in the middle, and two convertible high-back booster seats on the sides. Three high-back boosters might not work as well, since they're all wide at the same point. I may get a chance to try this out in the next few days; I'll let you know (I'm sure you'll be waiting with bated breath).

tm

I have successfully crammed a rear-facing Britax Roundabout (fastened with LATCH), a rear-facing infant carrier of indeterminate brand and origin (fastened with seatbelt), and a Jupiter Komfort Kruiser Booster across the rear bench of a 2004 Passat. The booster seat took the brunt of it and frankly its occupant was crammed closer to the side curtain airbags than I would have liked. Not a long-term or everyday thing.

This is why I think three kids in carseats is where you give up on being a MILF or DILF and get yourself an Odyssey or Sienna.

Rear/Front facing
 

Is it a safety issue with going from rear facing to front facing at 12 mo/20 lbs? Or just that most kids are too big at that point to rear face b/c their feet will dangle across the back windshield? I had my Brittax Marathon installed rear-facing a while back nice and secure by the local county police department (they are awesome) and I didn't want to change this secure set-up until I had reason to (and time to sit for 2 hours in the long line of cars on the day they are open). So up until last week, my almost 3 year old (23 pounds) stayed in her rear facing. She is so impossibly short (she is finally wearing clothes for a 12 month old when she's almost 3) that her foot position was fine in the rear facing and she seemed to sleep nicely like that. Then a friend told me how awful it was that Babe wasn't facing front like all the other kids her age. So I did the police thing again and changed it to front facing. Now she knows what's going on and wants to drive the damn car. But anyhow, is there a safety disadvantage to keeping them rear facing?

Oh, and "kiddie beds": her small size means she is still in the crib, which she loves. What do I wait for to make the change? She is potty-trained except for at night. If she is in a real bed will she get up to go potty during the night? I'm hesitant to ditch the crib. I love knowing she's my little prisoner in there and not wandering around, possibly down to the basement, climbing the "bad stuff" shelf and guzzling the liquid drano. Or WORSE YET, coming over to my bedroom and waking me up.

Vietmom

Rear/Front facing
 

Probably the latter. If you hit something at 45 mph it's better to distribute the force along her entire back than have her head thrown forward and the restraints holding her in. Of course, this says nothing about what kind of shape you'll be in. I'd bet NHTSA would have us all rear-facing if they could swing this from an engineering perspective. At some point I remember reading about a push to put all airline seats rear-facing for this reason, but then they realized that there really aren't enough survivable crashes to make this worthwhile anymore. A pilot friend told me there hasn't been a "water landing" that left the fuselage intact since the dawn of the jet age. Feel free to ignore the flight attendants when they give those instructions.

The nice thing about having the kid forward-facing is that you can interact with them. Point out buses and such, and then sing context appropriate songs, like "The Wheels on the Bus." On second thought, rear-facing sounds real good.

I think you're extraordinary for having a 3yo who isn't climbing. You'll know when you need to go bed shopping.

My 4yo cries for us in the middle of the night when he needs to go potty. If, on the other hand, he wakes up and it's light out, he can get up and go by himself. This has been the case since shortly after turning 3. Once he figures out the Tivo, we'll pretty much be irrelevant to his life until 10 am or so.

a little boy with a man crush
 

L'il Ty has fallen in with the wrong crowd at pre-school, and was busted yesterday by the teachers for mocking a substitute teacher, laughing at her when she told him to stop, and then having a potty mouth. There were four of them in this little posse, but the ringleader (I think) is the object of his man-crush, a boy whom I'll call Jake. LT thinks Jake hung the moon. When he gets to pre-school, he needs to see what Jake is doing. In the evening, he tells us what Jake did and said. He caught a spider the other day and named it Jake. LT isn't the sort of kid to think of harassing a teacher, but if Jake started it, he would giggle and go along.

So how do we deal with this scary little friend? Just wait for him to graduate and go to kindergarten? Have them go rock-climbing together?

a little boy with a man crush
 

Beat up and humiliate Jake's father in front of Jake and LT. Then send them an ice cream cake.

I am the best dad on EARTH.

Rear/Front facing
 

Because I'm in the 95% of drivers who feel he's above average, I've never fully understood this. What if I get rear-ended? In that case, forward-facing is better. Now, probably most rear-enders are 5-10mph collisions, whereas head-ons are 30-50mph collisions. But given the lunacy and inattentiveness of other drivers, I figure my chances of the former are much greater than my chances of the latter.

a little boy with a man crush
 

Slowly remove each of the spider's legs and then squish it, showing what happens to bad little boys?

Heck, we're going through the same thing. I don't know if the socioecon/ethnic thing has anything to do with it, but we switched very reluctantly from a Kindercare that was way too far away from our new house - it was mostly African American, with some Latino kids and a few Asian-Am's and I loved that place dearly and cried like a baby when we left. This new one is close to home, safe and she likes it but it's mostly white and after her first day there, she came home to tell me (when I refused her something) "You're NOT my FRIEND". The culprit is "Emily" who is snotty, mean, and not just Vegetarian but "Vegan" (there are 4 other Vegetarians there!). I guess I'll have to beat up and humiliate Emily's Vegan mother too (which will be easy with all the iron in my blood). I'm eating the ice cream cake though. Good luck and keep us up to date on how the man-crush developes. Oh...um. You know what I mean.

VM

Rear/Front facing
 

FWIW, I am "famous" in my family for deciding when I was potty trained. I climbed out of my crib, took off my diaper, used the toilet and returned to my crib without waking up my parents. I don't know how old I was but my first bed came sometime after this event. (For some reason, I vividly remember picking out the bed and then it being delivered. I also remember lying in my crib for my nap, looking longingly at the new bed. My sitter wanted to wait until my parents were home for me to start sleeping in it.)

Rear/Front facing
 

I have heard this is the best solution. Put the real bed in the room, and wait for the child to want it. Let them get in it when they want. THat is, unless you've had to install 6" foam padding all around the crib already.

Rear/Front facing
 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by viet_mom


Oh, and "kiddie beds": her small size means she is still in the crib, which she loves. What do I wait for to make the change? She is potty-trained except for at night. If she is in a real bed will she get up to go potty during the night? I'm hesitant to ditch the crib. I love knowing she's my little prisoner in there and not wandering around, possibly down to the basement, climbing the "bad stuff" shelf and guzzling the liquid drano. Or WORSE YET, coming over to my bedroom and waking me up.

Vietmom
__________________________________

Most toddler beds are the same size as cribs so she would esentially be in the same bed just without the side bars. When DS moved into his tb, we kept the same mattress and moved DD into the crib. This crib is a convertible, so DD will use it as her tb, but she isn’t ready yet – we tried to convert and she started wandering. Unlike yours, my kids are amazons so she can already reach the door knob and turn it to get out of her room….. Anyway, with DS it took him about 2 weeks of getting up and being walked back to bed before he stopped getting up at night…. We are going to try again with DD this summer, when Daddy can walk her back to bed all night. But from what I hear – it usually takes kids a few weeks to get it down, you just have to keep walking them back. DON’T let her get in the bed with you or you’ll be kicking her out at 12……

ml

Rear/Front facing
 

Now why would you post information like this here, and not on the FB???

Rear/Front facing
 

There are also, as with everything, various age-appropriate books about children getting their first bed. Start these in the night-night rotation these before any new bed arrives. If your child is a member of the Cult of Elmo, I recommend "Big Enough for a Bed." Deals with the issue that everything else about bedtime remains the same as before, because the kid may be afraid that moving to a bed is a harbinger of other unwelcome changes. Elmo assures them that it is not. Elmo loves his big bed!

The non-Elmo book about getting potty trained is disturbingly frank. (I think it was written by an Israeli woman (NTTAWWT -- I say this only for identification purposes because I can't remember the name)). I can't read it without feeling faintly nauseated, and I manage to deal with the real thing without much difficulty. (Hi, paigow!)

a little boy with a man crush
 

When you see the substitute teacher, ask her how she managed to get into early childhood education being such a big pussy.

Rear/Front facing
 

Before 12 months their little necks aren't strong enough to withstand any sort of collision, so this allegedly keeps their necks from snapping. There is no disadvantage to keeping them that way. The Lexling (33+" and 31lbs) is still rear-facing because I haven't gotten around to changing it.

In our case, kid #2, but that probably won't work for you. Based on his climbing abilities elsewhere and his height, the Lexling can get out, he just doesn't know he can and why would he - he loves his cage. He is going to have to get the boot to a big boy bed between 18 and 20months (#2 arrives at 19mos and the bassinet gives us a few more months leeway). I am NOT buying another crib. We have a toddler bed - low to the ground and fits a crib mattress, but I am loathe to begin using it since he is so young. I am contemplating putting one of those little hook and eye things on the outside of his bedroom doors to keep him in (he can't use a doorknob yet, but it's only a matter of time). My mom used one for my little brother and it was perfect - and you can't lose the key. Anyway - I plan to put the crib and the made up toddler bed into his new room, devoid of anything he could pull on himself or otherwise injure himself with (bookcase, Drano, etc.) and get him used to the room for a week or two before moving him into the toddler bed.

Buy a toddler bed and set it up - if she likes it, she'll let you know. Cool new sheets or a new blankie with her favorite thing on it may speed the process. If she shows no interest, wait until she does, but since you have no time crunch, there's no need to rush it, though before HS graduation would probably be good.

Rear/Front facing
 

FWIW, our ped strongly advised against using bed rails when the kid moves to a standard size bed. He said he'd never seen a serious injury from a child rolling off a standard-height bed in the middle of the night, but the medical literature is replete with instances of kids getting trapped between the bed rails and the mattress (or the mattress and the wall, against which the bed was thoughtfully placed to prevent falling) and thereafter suffocating.

And I personally know someone whose grandson died when, at age two, he rolled between the bed and the wall.

Don't put the bed against the wall, and don't use a bed rail.

Rear/Front facing
 

I have no doubt that your driving is beyond reproach, much like mine. I have been rear-ended 3x in the last 2 years because I am just lucky like that: my 2002 vehicle is on replacement bumper #3.

I can assure you that even if rear ended, after the initial bump, one's head tends to lurch toward the front of the hit car quite quickly because it is pushed in the direction the other car was going. If you are going forward and hit something slower, one's head continues going in the direction your car was going (is this not Newton's 2nd law or something?). Anyway, this is the logic behind the rear-facing carseat as far as I can figure it. Now, if you are stopped and hit head-on from the front, the rear-facing baby is toast, but until they invent some sort of plastic-travel- bubble for babies, that's just a risk you take.

Cribs and Toddler Beds
 

I've started looking at cribs and have noticed that many are convertible into toddler beds. Since I only plan for now on having the one, I'd like to get as much use out of the crib I buy as I can. Are there safety issues with the convertible cribs? Has anybody here bought one?

Rear/Front facing
 

Eww. scary. This one has rails built in, but the mattress fits down sort of under them, so there's no place to be squashed. I will take a closer look before installing the baby in the bed, however.

Rear/Front facing
 

My mom says that my sister was the easiest of us to potty train because she wanted the pretty underwear and had to swear that she wouldn't get them dirty. Vanity has advantages.

And this may explain why she's reluctant to pee on pretty things, including her bed and the boys in her bed.

a little boy with a man crush
 

2

We're talking pre-school here, and she's upset at being "mocked" by four year olds? Let's send fringie over and show her what mocking is all about.

Cribs and Toddler Beds
 

The convertible cribs are fine, but many do require the additional purchase of rails - usually another $100. Plus, there is the added hope on the part of the maker that you will buy all the outrageously priced and poorly made pieces to go with it - drawers, convertible changing table, etc. You can buy better made "big kid furniture" pieces for about the same price if you want to get a matching set later. I'd get a cheap crib (they are all up to current safety stds.) and blow the wad later on a nice set the kid can use through their teens. Also, you do not "need" any item besides the crib - the other stuff is cute, but unnecessary. If you have a dresser or other furniture item of the appropriate height, you can add a changing pad and tada - changing table.

Cribs and Toddler Beds
 

We've got two of them. Haven't had to convert them yet, but I couldn't stomach buying these expensive cribs that only did one thing. They're actually pretty nice furniture, and hopefully we'll get 10+ years out of them. Not sure what I'm going to do with all the leftover pieces though. Damn, I never think ahead.

Cribs and Toddler Beds
 

Good advice, the prices I've seen are ridiculous. Granted, I was leafing through a PB catalog while buying a leather chair recently, and was pretty wowed by how pretty the nurseries were, but sheesh, my own bedroom furniture isn't that nice.

Luckily, I'm getting a changing table for free and will simply buy a crib to match. The crib would be free, too, but it's 10 years old, so I'm passing.

I'm more inclined to blow a wad now on a super-comfortable chair and ottoman for the nursery that I can use in the family room or guest room later.

Cribs and Toddler Beds
 

With the second kid, we bought them a matching desk, which we use as the changing table. 1st kid--Public School, 2nd kid--Stanford.

Cribs and Toddler Beds
 

You either have midget children, or plan on keeping your wife pregnant for a long time.

Cribs and Toddler Beds
 

It was our experience while shopping that anything that converted from one thing to another performed neither job very well, especially from an aesthetic standpoint. We went directly from crib to twin. Twin-sized sheets have all sorts of thematic shit that kids between 2 and 5 are interested in. Race cars and ponies and such. I don't know as much about crib-sized sheets. Caveat --- we knew we were planning to have at least two, so we were going to be living with the crib qua crib for seven or so years.

I strongly recommend Baby Bargains and Toddler Bargains for all consumer product decisions. Cuts through a lot of the bullshit about strollers, cribs, etc. Make sure you have the most recent edition --- they update annually. Based on their rec, we went with a Ragazzi crib and changing table, since it was described as heirloom quality if you can afford it, and at the time we could.

Other bit of advice --- if you haven't gotten a stroller/travel system yet, don't buy the fancy European brands if either you or your SO is over 5'10". The European strollers are built for statistically smaller people, and there's no agony like a long walk where you're stooped and kicking the rear wheels of your kid's stroller.

Cribs and Toddler Beds
 

Warning: a "super comfortable chair" isn't what babies are looking for. Gliders are ugly as fuck but there's no beating them when you've got a fussy infant at 3 a.m. Gives you the movement s/he needs with no effort on your part, miles ahead of a rocker, especially in a carpeted room. Very good for nursing. Of course, some infants insist that you stand and bounce while holding them at 3 a.m., so YMMV.

Did I mention they're as ugly as fuck?

ETA: Dutalier is the Ragazzi of gliders. Ah, shit, I'm the patentparanyc of baby furniture.

Cribs and Toddler Beds
 

Thanks for bursting my bubble. Let's talk about pooping on the delivery table next!

Rear/Front facing
 

On the FB, I would have had to tie in a reference to Dan Savage's column this week:

" [M]y boyfriend just suggested, in the kindest way, that he wants me to wear diapers for him. Diapers, Dan. Diapers. I want to be a GGG gal but realistically, how do I suck up my inner monologue that says this is absolutely ridiculous? And how can I continue to respect my statuesque boyfriend, especially without psychoanalyzing his need to baby me like this?"

Cribs and Toddler Beds
 

Our toddler bed was free or we would have done the same.
An American brand won't help - we are both over 5'10" and we trip over the stroller's back axle and have to lean down to the handles - not good for long walks, though I am not so into long walks these days anyway.

WRT strollers - I refused to deal with one fo those big fugly travel systems and got a smaller stroller that fully reclines instead. It weighs 13 or 14lb and is vastly better for shopping than a bigger system, even if you have to take the baby out of the bucket to use it. It's no good to have the SUV of strollers if you loathe hauling out of the trunk to use it.

Cribs and Toddler Beds
 

Then be sure to pay extra for the scotchguarding and get a fabric that doesn't show stains because it will have several layers of vomit (and worse) on it before the kid is 3 months old, as will pretty much everything else within 3 feet of the kid.

Cribs and Toddler Beds
 

Vinyl, baby. All the way.

Cribs and Toddler Beds
 

a few weeks ago, Fringe posted some thoughts on how to prevent this from happening.

Rear/Front facing
 

Don't know which Law it is, but the other one of them will tell you that if hit from the rear, the greatest acceleration will be upon the initial hit, and the "rebound" acceleration (likely from hitting the car in front of you) will not be as great. Conservation of energy and all that.

Fact of it is, the calculus can only be that the severity of a frontal collision is likely to pose greater problems for a front facing car seat than a rearward collision is for a rear-facing car seat, hence the recommendation. After a certain age, they figure the straps won't crush the chest, so it balances out better.

ETA: If you're hit from the front, i.e., head on, it doesn't matter, other than severity, whether you're moving or not. The rear-facing baby seat will be better than front facing for such collisions.