28 April 2008

Car seats: Not just for road trips anymore

I may have mentioned this in my previous rant about sleeping arrangements, but current household circumstances remind me of what a wondrous invention the infant car seat is. For sleeping. This latest kid has spent far more time in his car seat in the house than in the van. To settle or resettle him, we simply swing him a bit (see also: postpartum exercise).

And for the paranoid among us (paranoia being a category which I would have invented, had it not already existed), this is perfectly safe. He's on his back. He's secure. The arrangement has been approved by our former pediatrician, our current family doc, and the local baby nurse/lactation consultant (who confessed that one of her kids slept in his till he was 6 months old--!).

This is a very good thing.

Added benefit: if I suddenly get ambitious enough to take the kids to the library or realize we're out of milk, I don't have to wake him up to pack him along: just pop the seat into place and we're good to go. (Well, after everyone's bathroom stops, coats, shoes, etc. "Good to go" is, as we all know, a bit more of a process than the simple phrase implies.)

6 comments:

Elephantschild said...

They're also foot-operable, leaving you with two hands (ok, well, 1-1/2)hands free to snatch sharp objects out of the hands of other children.

Rebekah said...

Baby Dude will fall asleep in his carrier between our house and church, ie a 45-second walk. I don't know why anyone buys cribs.

Rebekah said...

And hey, what's all this library business we keep hearing about? Your overachieving is making me feel guilty again.

Reb. Mary said...

Let me get this straight: You're over there doing things like cloth diapers, globe time, and piano lessons, and I'm the overachiever because I'm so desperate to get out of the house occasionally that I inflict my offspring upon the local libraries? I think not!

Reb. Mary said...

Good point, EC :O

Rebekah said...

Globe time is de facto: he follows me around with it asking, "What's this country? What's this country?" So no credit there. And we are desperate for a backup organist in these parts. Our best hope is a 5-year-old with one lesson left in her Primer book? Seems like the least we can do to keep at it--sigh.