Safer Child Products

Some days I feel like I live in my car.  Between running to the gym, to school, to shop, after school activities, appointments, etc.  We are always busy.  I always keep pencils in my car incase one of the kids needs to start HW in the car, or I need to make myself a note. However, one of my pet peeves is that my purse (and whatever else is on the passenger’s seat) inevitably end up on the floor.  No matter how carefully I try to drive, there are windy roads and short stops that send things flying. I need to be sure to keep my purse zipped, but this is small potatoes.

I worry about all the other stuff that is thrown into the car. When my daughter was little, she had a soft car toy, or so I thought.  It was great because it had a steering wheel, a mirror, and a shifter and horn.  However, I did not realize that the bottom was hard.  Fortunately, no one was hurt and we learned that it was still better to remove it from the car and stick to completely soft toys.  I have even noticed when I am driving alone that our booster seats slide.  I know I’ve been advised to keep them buckled so that they don’t become a projectile.  What projectiles do you have in your car?  When you go grocery shopping, do you put things on the seat next to the kids?  When you go to the library, where do you put the books?  I am lucky if I remember to bring a bag with me. 

If you keep in mind that the stuff in our cars will keep moving even after you have breaked, you will want to be sure that anything that is loose or on the seat is soft and will not hurt anyone if it goes flying.  Take the weight of the item and multiply it by the speed at which you are travelling, and that is the force at which the object will hit something. Be sure to secure packages in the trunk, or at least on the floor wells in the car.  Keep things in the front when you can, since they will not travel backwards and hit the kids that way.  It is simple enough, but not something to be taken lightly.

See the following article to see what happened to this little boy from a soft spouted sippy cup.

http://thestir.cafemom.com/baby/120581/Almost_Deadly_Sippy_Cup_Incident