Car seat safety?

Did you hear the report that Consumer Reports published in early January (technically in the February edition of their magazine)? The report claimed that of 12 infant rear-facing car seats that they tested, 10 of them catastrophically failed when subjected to the same side-impact tests that cars must endure. Apparently car-seats must withstand 30 mph frontal crash tests. However, a car must be able to endure a 38.5 mph side-impact crash. Consumer Reports claimed that 10 of the 12 seats they tested couldn't withstand the additional 8.5 mph.

The car seat we bought Kiddo (well, it was given by Grandma, but we picked it out) was one of the ones that was tested and failed. When I read the full report on the CR website, I found out that the seat failed when it was installed with the LATCH system, but did okay when it was installed with a seatbelt. I talked with C about it and we decided that we would install the seat using both the LATCH system and the seatbelt. Since the seat performed satisfactorily with a seatbelt, this seemed to be an okay solution. (We decided to do both, because I think the seat actually stays put better with the LATCH system.)

Now Consumer Reports is recalling their report. You can read the CR press release here. The report I read on CNN.com gives more information (read it here). CNN quotes an NHTSA spokesman as saying "the organization's data show its side-impact tests were actually conducted under conditions that would represent being struck in excess of 70 mph, twice as fast as the group claimed; [...] When NHTSA tested the same child seats in conditions representing the 38.5 mph conditions claimed by Consumer Reports, the seats stayed in their bases as they should, instead of failing dramatically."

Now Consumer Reports is urging consumers "to suspend judgment on the merits of individual products until the new testing has been completed and the report re-published."

It will be interesting to see what the legal fall out will be, if any. In any case, I'm glad we didn't rush out to buy a new car seat.

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11-ish weeks and counting

Well, with delivery planned in just over 11 weeks, things feel like they are finally picking up in pace. Eleven weeks sounds like forever, but I think it is going to go by very quickly.

Now C is in the third trimester, and things are going great. There are currently no signs of any complications and our little girl seems to be doing great. She keeps C up at all hours of the night, probably helping her to get ready for weeks of sleepless nights after she arrives. I don't get any such early preparation, but I suppose that is okay. I don't mind sleeping through the nights now, even knowing that I won't get to in December. Poor C, though, doesn't get much choice.

C recently went to visit her family in another state. While she was there, her mom hosted a baby shower for friends and relatives. It took an extra suitcase, and an extra duffle bag to get all the generously-given gifts back home. And I've never seen so much pink in my whole life. There are pink outfits and pink blankets. Pink dresses and pink pants. Pink undershirts (I think they call these things onesies?) and pink bibs. Pink receiving blankets (I'm still not sure what you use a receiving blanket for yet...). It's all pretty cool. But it makes the pending arrival all that more real.

You know, it is kind of weird. For C, every moment of every day (and night, for that matter) is spent being pregnant. It is always on her mind, because she is carrying the baby with her all the time. For me, however, it isn't an ever-present kind of thing. I think about it when it comes up, but I don't spend every minute of every day anticipating the blessed event. Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying I'm not excited, because I am. It just isn't an ever-present thought. Sometimes it kind of surprises me when I remember. But all these baby clothes around the house are making it seem more real.

We made our first joint trip to Babies R Us last week. Wow. They have a lot of stuff. We looked at clothes and strollers and baby monitors, and binkies and cribs and changing tables and mattresses. Wow. wow. wow. Talk about overwhelming. How am I ever supposed to make a decision on anything when there are 40,000 options for each thing?

I think we have narrowed the stroller options down, though. We are looking at a Mclaren, but are also considering the Pliko. Babies R Us had the Mclarens in stock, and I loved that as a 6'4" dad, I won't have to bend over to push it. The Pliko got great reviews on one of the web sites I read, but I haven't found one in stock yet to try out.

Fun fun fun!

Stay tuned for my next post on planning for the 3rd trimester classes...

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