I should start off by saying that I’m friends with a carseat inspector.  Here in MA, you can go to various fire and police stations and have your carseat installed for free by a certified carseat inspector.  A lot of places also offer free clinics throughout the year.

When we first switched from the bucket seat to a convertible carseat, we decided not to go with the priciest carseat even though it had a top rating because we were told that they were all equally safe.  The main difference of course was how easy it was to install them.  Seeing as I didn’t install them, we just went for one that my friend recommended.  It worked out fine.  When my son outgrew the seat, we got one of those booster seats that had a five point harness.  That worked out fine.  Then he hit the weight limit and so the harnesses came out.  Still no problem.  Or so I thought.

I couldn’t figure out why my son seemed to be the only kid his age who had a hard time buckling himself into the seat.  His teachers asked me a few times at the beginning of the year how the booster seat worked.  Seeing as the preschool has a pick up / drop off line, I thought this was bizarre.  Surely, they would have seen a booster like this before, right?  Or perhaps not.  I was tipped off at playgroup this week during a conversation about the different types of booster seats when some friends described how weird another friend’s booster was because it looked like a carseat without the harness.  Wait, a minute! That’s what mine looked like!  I use the past tense because, at the moment, images of the other types of booster seats came to mind.  That, combined with a sale at Target, prompted me to get a new booster seat.

Yes, there was nothing wrong with our other booster seat.  You know what, though?  My son was able to fasten himself in without a problem:  the clicker was no longer caught under the lip of the booster seat.  Not only that, but two of his teachers commented on how glad they were that we had switched booster seats.  Until this fall, I just had no idea.  That’s yet another reason why I’m nominating myself for mother of the year!

by Alex Elliot

Photo graciously provided by Clover_1, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved