Check your car seats!!

I try to be safe with my kids in the car. My oldest is 5 and is still in a 5-point harness and my youngest is 19 months and still rear-facing. Yesterday was scary, though!!

I was driving down a major highway about to merge on another major highway and there’s construction. Well about 5 cars ahead of me they were not paying attention to the fact that a lane abruptly merges into our lane due to the construction. All of a sudden I see cars slamming on brakes and swerving to get out of the way. I had this instant thought as I slam on my brakes and my son’s backpack goes flying, “I’m sure glad my kids are in car seats!”  At the same time I had that thought, though, I see my daughter’s car seat fly forward! She landed with her head resting on the seat in front of her, still attached to her car seat, so the weight of the seat is pressing her into the seat in front and she’s dangling there. I quickly pulled over into the construction area to fix her seat because the next exit was another major highway. I couldn’t pull off there. I ran around to her side of the van and made sure she was ok. Got her out of her seat and reinstalled her seat. It was super scary trying to merge back on to a highway when you have no driving start to pick up speed!

After I calmed down I remember what happened to make her seat unbuckled. We stopped at a park last week to take a walk and while I was waiting for my friend to show up, my daughter unbuckled her car seat. My son told me as my friend pulled up and I told myself I’d re-buckle it when we got back in the car. I forgot. I drove around for a week with my daughter’s car seat unbuckled. I’m so glad it didn’t turn out worse than it could have!!

So keep my incident in the back of your mind and remember to check the seats from time to time to be sure they’re installed properly. You never know when little hands will touch what they aren’t supposed to!