Last month I was invited to attend a really fun luncheon. It was sponsored by #NissanMamas and was a chance for the NY chapter of #BlogginMamas to get together and spend the afternoon laughing, hanging out, test driving and learning about car seat safety. I don’t know about you but traveling with kids causes me all types of anxiety.
Yes you know the anxieties I’m talking about. There’s the people might think I’m a horrible mom because my child has no inside voice on the train or throwing a tantrum or acting like she’s being raised by pirates and hyenas. Then there’s the will she get car sick, plane sick, seasick or walking sick from twirling around so many times I am now dizzy thinking about it. But even more than these worries comes the ones I have on car seat safety.
Did you know that Latino children dies in crashes at rates up to 60% higher than non-Latino children??? Did you know that JustaBXgirl is Puerto Rican and Aruban making her a Latina child??? If that’s not enough to make me never want to be in a car again! The reality though is that the number of Latino children dying in car accidents is so high due to one thing…ready for it? Hispanic infants and toddlers are TEN times less likely to be restrained. Put simply that means that we are not making sure that our babies (the most precious part of our lives) are safe.
Now I get it. Sometimes you don’t plan on getting in someone’s car with your baby so you don’t have a car seat or booster available for them. I get it. I’ve been there before. But you know what? Nobody plans to get into a car accident either! A lot of us can’t wait to turn our babies forward facing but the reality is they should remain rear facing as long as possible in the proper car seat. A lot of us let our pre-teens sit in the front due to space and to let them feel like a big kid. No child under 13 should ever sit anywhere other than the backseat. And if you’re child is small for their age they really shouldn’t sit in the front.
Please don’t rush to let your little out of the car seat or booster seat. My dad asks me regularly when we will be switiching JustaBXgirl’s jumbo car seat in our car for her booster seat sitting in storage. If it was up to me I would leave her in her “princess chair” as we’ve named it FOREVER. I want to do my best to keep my baby safe always and I know you feel the same.
Yes, it can be a pain to lug a seat around with you when you don’t have a car or you are in multiple cars but your little is worth it and there are other options. Look, I grew up in a generation where we rolled around in the back of the station wagon hoping the driver would make a quick turn or hit a bump (yup, I’m dating myself) but this is a new time. Cars are a lot more fragile today and we know better so let us all do better!
Thank you Nissan for not only letting us test drive (I was a passenger) your really cool vehicles but also for caring about our littles and teaching us a few things we might not have known about car seat safety. Can’t wait to get together with the NY Bloggin Mamas again!!!
