Wordless Wednesday

(Summer wedding! Congrats, Erik and Amber!)

Extended Rear Facing

The minimum age that a child's car seat is supposed to be changed from rear facing to front facing is one year and twenty pounds.  However, rear facing past that point is still safer.  Just think about this for a moment...

When a child is in a forward-facing seat, [in an accident] there is tremendous stress put on the child's neck, which must hold the large head back. The mass of the head of a small child is about 25% of the body mass whereas the mass of the adult head is only 6%!  A small child's neck sustains massive amounts of force in a crash.  The body is held back by the straps while the head is thrown forward - stressing, stretching or even breaking the spinal cord.  The child's head is at greater risk in a forward-facing seat as well.  In a crash, the head is thrown outside the confines of the seat and can make dangerous contact with other occupants, vehicle structures, and even intruding objects, like trees or other vehicles.

Rear-facing seats do a phenomenal job of protecting children because there is little or no force applied to the head, neck and spine.  When a child is in a rear-facing seat, the head, neck and spine are all kept fully aligned and the child is allowed to "ride down" the crash while the back of the child restraint absorbs the bulk of the crash force. The head is contained within the restraint, and the child is much less likely to come into contact with anything that might cause head injury.-" (source)(emphasis added)

Nathan's current seat

It is safer not to turn your child's carseat forward facing until you reach the rear facing weight limit on the carseat itself, which on a convertible carseat is usually around 30 pounds.

Both of ours, The First Years True Fit and the Cosco Scenera, go to 35 pounds rear facing, so both Nathan (29 months) and Miriam (16 months) are rear facing.  There are even some carseats, such as the Graco My Ride 65 Car Seat, Safety 1st Complete Air that can rear face until 40 pounds, and the Sunshine Kids Radian80SL goes to 45 pounds rear facing.

Some people think that you have to turn them around when their feet touch the back of the seat, but that isn't true.  We've found that Nathan is quite comfortable crossing his legs. Occasionally  the objection is made that a child might be at increased risk of broken legs if rear facing.  I am ok with that, if true, because in the event of a severe accident in which my child was likely to suffer an injury of that magnitude rear facing he would be at higher risk forward facing.   There's a little saying that goes "Broken leg? Cast it.  Broken neck?  Casket." 

 Basically, the longer a child can ride rear-facing, the better protected his or her spinal cord is in the event of a collision.  - Joe Colella, Former Child Passenger Safety Training Manager for the National SAFE KIDS Campaign

"The most common misunderstanding is that a child is ready to travel facing forward when his neck muscles are strong enough to support and control his head. However, when a car hits something at 25 to 30 mph, it will come to a stop at a negative acceleration rate of from 20 to 30 G. Because of the time lag between when the vehicle stops and an occupant stops, and the fact that the head of a forward-facing adult or child is still free to move relative to the restrained torso, the head may experience as much as 60 or 70 Gs acceleration for a brief moment. Even the strong neck muscles of military volunteers cannot counteract such forces. Instead, the rigidity of the bones in the neck and strength of the connecting ligaments (not the muscles) hold the adult spine together and keep the spinal cord intact within the confines of the vertebral column.

Very young children, however, have immature vertebrae that are still partly made of cartilage. These are soft and will deform and/or separate under tension, leaving just the spinal cord as the last link between the head and the torso. According to documented research, autopsy specimens of infant spines and ligaments allow for spinal column elongation of up to two inches, but the spinal cord ruptures if stretched more than 1/4 inch. Real-world experience has shown that a young child's skull can be literally ripped from her spine by the force of a crash."- from Carseat.org, here

And just one more quote, this one from a post on the subject:

 "toddlers between the ages of 12 & 23 months who ride rear facing are 5 times safer and 75% less likely to experience serious injury or die than their forward-facing peers."

I'm not a safety expert, a car seat technician, or a crash test expert.  I'm 'just' a mama.  I know that I can't protect my children from all harm, but considering that motor vehicle injuries are the leading cause of death among children in the U.S it is definitely worth a little bit of thought and research to consider how we can best keep our children safe while traveling.  Because it doesn't matter how safe a driver you are - you cannot control other drivers and you cannot predict whether a drunk driver is going to come flying through red light at a seemingly empty intersection.  You can only take steps to keep your child as safe as you can.  Keeping your little one rear facing is an easy way to make them safer. 

We haven't found rear facing past a year to be inconvenient or a hassle at all... it's a really simple way of making our kids a little safer in the car! 

 

Are your little ones rear facing still?  

Did you know that it was still safer, even past the age of one? 

What are some good safety resources you've found?

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Update: As of April 2011 "the American Academy of Pediatrics now advises parents to keep toddlers in rear-facing car seats until age 2, or until they exceed the height or weight limit for the car seat, which can be found on the back of the seat.  Previously, the AAP advised parents to keep kids rear-facing as long as possible, up to the maximum limit of the car seat, and this has not changed.  But it also cited one year and 20 pounds as the minimum for flipping the seat, which many parents and pediatricians interpreted as conventional wisdom on the best time to make the switch.  The new policy clarifies the AAP's recommendation, making age 2 the new guideline -- a real game-changer for parents of toddlers.

A 2007 study in the journal Injury Prevention found that children under age 2 are 75 percent less likely to die or to be severely injured in a crash if they are rear-facing. Another study found riding rear-facing to be five times safer than forward-facing." -CNN, AAP: Toddlers in rear-facing seat until 2

We are still rear facing two carseats, with an almost 3 and almost 2 year old.  Nathan is getting very close to the weight limit, so he will probably need to forward face soon after 3, however.  
 

Driving Already?

Everyone tells you that your babies will be grown up in no time flat, but I did not expect Nathan and Miriam to start driving this summer, just the same.  Call it new mama naivety.  Be that as it may, though, so far they're doing very well.

Miriam- "I'm driving!"

Except for the whole rollover incident, where Miriam was unbuckled (duh, there aren't any) and miraculously survived a rollover where she went through the windshield (well, where the windshield would be, anyway) with only a little dirt on her face.  She was unfazed.  I guess that she just expected something to happen when Nathan started pushing her around the yard.  I was surprised, though, as our yard, while not exactly a putting green, isn't hilly enough that I would have expected him to hit a bump and cause the car to roll.  Oops.  Apparently the Cozy Coupe has a very high center of gravity.

Nathan- "Smile at the camera, Miriam!"

"Bye!"

They have been having an absolute blast playing with this, and I love it.  I'm not usually into plastic toys,  but isn't this practically a classic anyway?  It was on my garage sale watch list last year, with no success, and this year I haven't made it to hardly any, but a sweet, sweet friend heard I was on the hunt for one... and dropped this one off in my yard since her kids are mostly too old for it anymore.  :)

Miriam - "uhmm, Nathan, the door is over here...?"

She also dropped off a slide and a little picnic table, so our newly picket fenced yard looks just as kid friendly and fun as it is!  Now I'm daydreaming about a kiddie pool, since I know that both my kidlets would just love one, and as hot as it is, so would I.  Plus, it would give Nathan a chance to wear his new life jacket correctly for once.  (Thank you, Stearns Flotation and MOM Magazine! Cannot wait to try it!)

this is NOT how it's designed to be worn!

Of course,we have to wait for surgery to remove his tube first... but after that?  Squirt guns and sprinklers and hitting the pool! :)  I can't wait...

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 I received the Stearns Personal Flotation Device at no charge from them and from MOM magazine through my relationship with BSM Media/MomSelect.  I was not obligated to write about it and any opinions I express are solely my own.  Also, links are affiliate links.  Also, don't let your child put a life jacket strap around their necks... in the immortal words, don't try this at home, kids.  Am I done with the small print yet?  I think so...

Little Helpers

Lindsay at Passionate Homemaking has a new post on including kiddos in household work.  That is something that I really try to do with Nathan (and need to start doing more  with Miriam), so I loved reading about ways she tries to do that in their home.

I especially loved this...

"Including your children in your various household tasks may require more time and effort on your part to teach and instruct them, and there very well may be a bigger mess afterward…but what is more important? Investing in your relationship and teaching valuable skills in the process or sending them away and getting the job done quicker while losing out on this important opportunity?"

And here is my comment on her post...

My two year old "washes" dishes with me every morning.  He has also started putting things in the dryer as I unload the washer, getting specific items out of the fridge for me while I'm cooking, and throwing things away when I ask him to.  Yes, it takes longer, yes, sometimes the clean clothes end up on the floor before they make it to the dryer, and yes, we've broken a lot of glasses while washing dishes... but he is learning, he is trying to help, and we are enjoying working together!

my loves

Milestones

Someone had a birthday. 

He is now two.

There were bubbles involved.  And cake.  And a hair cut... those curls peeking out in the photo above are now no more... and my baby boy now looks like the big boy that he is!  We gave him a big set of thrifted mega blocks, too - which, by the way, I washed in the washer.  They had a distinctly funky smell, but there were SO many that I quailed a bit at washing them by hand, so I dumped them all in and I put them through a series of rinse cycles with just water, then bleach, then  just water, then vinegar.  A few of them, I've noticed, still have a bit of a musty smell, but I know for a fact that they are CLEAN, so I'm ignoring it. ;)

Some milestones he's reached recently include showing an interest in coloring (versus eating the crayons), blowing bubbles, stacking blocks well, saying thank you (instead of just signing it), saying lots of new words, including plane, train, eat, food, hurt, done, wagon, stinky, shirt ("sooot"), pants, jeans, yum, and on and on. 

And then we had Easter... you can't see much of Miss M's adorable outfit, but you can enjoy the boyish, fresh look Nathan sported. 

Speaking of Miss M, she is walking well and steadily and everywhere, saying Mama, Dadda, uh-oh, touch, and tree, waving bye-bye to people, trying to climb things, following her brother everywhere... and generally being achingly, amazingly cute...

It has been so fun watching them both have verbal explosions in the past few months!  I'm sure that they'll really be talking by the end of the summer...

Spring flower...

Our daffodils are up and blooming!  :)

Finally...

... I figured out that the cord wasn't working, and used a different cord, so these lovelies aren't trapped on my memory card anymore!

Helping... that is a child's rolling pin in his right hand, and hammer in his left.  Yup.  He's a boy.

Miriam woke up in the middle of getting the bread into pans, so she cuddled on my back in the podaegi while Nathan ate bread dough helped me.

The finished product...

Miriam has mastered pointing, and loves to point with both hands when excited... and I finally captured it!

And this handsome munchkin has a birthday this week... and a date with some scissors.  Those darling blond curls have never even had a trim, but he's getting pretty fuzzy, so that is scheduled for his birthday.  Hopefully he doesn't hate it...

We just got this loaned out mei tai back from a friend, and we're enjoying having an old favorite back to play with! :)  It is a minty, cheerful green... so perfect for spring, which seems to have actually (finally!) arrived. 

The daffodils have bloomed, the grass is greening up, and it has been warm enough for some evening walks.  I'm really looking forward to the kiddos getting to play outside more this week... it isn't any fun for anybody being cooped up!  Hope you're all having a great Monday so far...

Baby Cuddles!

Leigh at Marvelous Kiddo has a beautiful post here full of baby photos, including this one that I sent her.  Thanks for including us, Leigh!