When I first read the title “convertible car seats,” I thought that they were advertising car seats for convertibles. That, in my mind, was slightly offensive, since I had absolutely no intentions in purchasing a convertible and placing my young child in a car seat with the roof down! There would be too many dangers! Boy, I don’t even remember how fast I went into the store and started asking questions about what they were offering. Much to my surprise, I apparently had absolutely no idea what I was talking about, but they were advertising turned my head more than once, and I will tell you why!
The convertible car seats they were advertising had the ability to convert between a normal baby car seat and a “backward” car seat. Meaning, it had the ability to be adjusted and turned backwards, actually increasing the level of safety for the child. Inertia is a brutal adversary for young children, especially when their parents get themselves in the middle of an accident. Most children cannot stand the severe pressure inertia develops, and, as a result, necks and heads are injured, sometimes to the point of death. Just thinking about that possibility makes me shutter, so, when I realized that one of the features of the convertible car seats this store was offering was to greatly minimize the risk of accidental injury, I started listening.
If you use the convertible car seats the way they were designed to be used, you will be able to place your child backwards, facing the rear of the car. This way, if something strikes the car and causes it to come to an immediate halt, the pressure resistant foam covering the convertible car seats themselves quickly compensate for the added pressure coming from the baby, making it all the more safe. Plus, since the convertible car seats are facing the opposite direction the car is moving, if the car comes to an immediate stop, the inertia will not be able to take the child anywhere but securing cementing it in the seat itself, another safety measure taken by these brilliant companies.
Using the safety belts already in your vehicle, convertible car seats are fully secured and cannot be moved without unleashing its restraints. This makes the assembly a much smoother process than most regular, non convertible car seats. The one thing that I did notice that should be taken into advisement is assembly process itself. If you do not understand how to secure the system properly (and believe me… it is much simpler than it may seem), then unforeseen risks could take place. Your child wont fall, but if an accident does occur, then it will be a rather difficult endeavor making sure your child remains safe. By typing “convertible car seats” into any search engine, you will be able to find step by step instructions.
Filed under Child Car Seat Articles by on Feb 25th, 2010. Comment. 
Let’s just face it: our children deserve only the very best! When it comes to toys, not a problem! When it comes to shelter and food, not a problem (my wife is an excellent cook)! When it comes to safety, my heart is to provide the most secure environment possible for my little ones, so when I started researching car seats and what they offer in way of both support and comfort, the only thing that truly caught my eye was a small little advertisement for a toddler car seat, as it had more features than I could have every dreamed of!
It had everything short of lie detector: self training buckling, extra padded lining for maximum comfort, EPS foam for heat absorption and recycling… truly, our toddler car seat is the panicle of our times!
Okay, I might be over exaggerating, but not by much. For example, I have been known to worry from time to time about how I was going to train my children on various things: using the toilet, how to finish their homework, organization, riding in the car and, eventually driving. All of these things have been known to keep me up at night, researching and speaking to other parents within my family, my wife’s family, even the hundreds of open forums currently operating on the internet. When it come to riding in the car, I knew that I needed a tool, an aide of some sort, that will assist me in training them on the importance of buckling their seat belt, watching what is happening out on the street in front of us, how my wife and I react to situations that occur almost daily when driving in a metropolitan area. The one tool that I found that has worked swimmingly is my toddler car seat.
I know that my child is a little too young to learn how to drive, but experience through observation is everything (or so I have read). The toddler car seat I purchased allowed my toddler the opportunity to learn how to buckle a safety belt before the car begins to move through its self buckling system. It is really simple, as all it really does is allows the safety belt to travel through the toddler car seat, onto their laps, giving them the chance to buckle themselves. This training technique offers hands on experience, as well as habit forming repetition, as neither my wife nor I will turn on the car unless their belts are fastened. They can reach the belts, they can buckle it themselves, and it has become a rather amusing game between both my daughters when they compete against each other to see who fastens their seat belts first. One day, we took the winner out for ice cream (don’t worry… we secretly treated the other on later).
My recommendation: purchase a toddler car seat that includes all of the aforementioned features! You won’t regret it!
Filed under Child Car Seat Articles by on Feb 25th, 2010. Comment.
If there is one certainty in the entire universe, it is this: our children will continue to grow up! If they are running, eating and breathing, they are going to get taller, run faster and begin to enjoy life just like we did back in the beginning of our youth! This is the glorious thing about being a parent… you get to watch this amazing stage of growth over the course of time. We become firsthand witnesses of a life forming, growing and maturing into what they have been designed to be! For me and my wife, it has been an incredible honor to bare witness to this transformation, but it didn’t come without us having to face a wide variety of trials. The main one – vehicles! Our babies were scared of the car and hated with a passion the transferring from the normal baby car seats to the regular, sitting all by themselves in the back seat. This is where car booster seats came in!
The car booster seats currently being offered are nothing like those we were forced to use as kids. I remember sitting on a little, yellow box, trying to figure out if I did something wrong, or whether or not this new kind of torture was some new, twisted method my mother was using to get her point across. Of course, car booster seats were not designed for that, and my parents had nothing but my safety in mind, but after a few years of sitting in that thing, I had grown to hate riding in cars, no matter what the destination was.
The more modern car booster seats have more than just a block as its base… it has cushioned lining, specifically designed to offer heat absorption from our children’s bodies for maximum comfort in cold weather! It also has an adjustable back support system, fully capable of reaching new heights when and if our children reach a growing spurt a little more quickly than we originally anticipated. These new designs offer a range of both comfort and flexibility that actually has made my children much more fond of riding in the back seat during those extra long trips!
The new car booster seats also have a small slot built right into them for the seat belt, making it accessible to our little ones, training them on how to use it and, with the help of their parents, understanding why it is a good thing to do every time they enter into a vehicle. That said, my wife and I have come to love the new car booster seats designs!
We have come a long way since we were children! Frankly, I have become jealous of all the comforts our children will have while growing up! In the words of my little Jessica, “I want it!”
Filed under Child Car Seat Articles by on Feb 23rd, 2010. Comment.
There is no doubt about it! Our children are born into this world completely ignorant of the trials and tribulations that they will face. I remember starring out of my bedroom window at age seven wondering what I will become, thinking to myself that I will be a millionaire ready to take over the world. One of my more intense visions was me becoming a famous pastor that will influence millions of people all around the world. Though these things have yet to happen (and, God willing, they just might), in foresight, all of the trials I have faced within my life thus far have shown me that, when I raise my children, I do not desire to hold back anything from them, that is, to inform them and train them so that they know what they are getting into. This may sound silly, but one of my biggest trials growing up was getting used to and not being afraid of my parents’ car.
Now that I have children of my own and have continued with my attempts to train them for the things that undoubtedly lie ahead, I have started to realize different strategies that will assist in their development. Though I do not have time to write about these different strategies, the one strategy me and my wife came up with was to train our children how to act in the car through the use of booster car seats. After they started reaching three to four years of age, we purchased booster car seats that have a solid, yet cushioned back support, so they can get used to have the car felt like. Then, we also noticed that the booster car seats we purchased have an adjustable back support, meaning that our kids, knowing that they are not yet old enough to take on the car full throttle, will be able to enjoy the continually increasing back support as they begin to grow.
This is just one of the main attractions that drew both me and my better half! The other thing was the gaining familiarity of the car’s seat belts. The booster car seats we purchased had a unique slot built into the design in order for children to learn how to buckle the seat belts whenever they get into the car. This assisted them in learning the importance of buckling their seat belts for safety reason, as my wife and I told them why this was so important every single time they buckled (this lasted a total of three years). It wasn’t long after that, that they desired to attempt taking on the riding in the back seat! Soon, they started desiring to ride in the front seat with their mommy (they liked her better early on). Then, my youngest son requested to “share the view” with their daddy… this made me feel that our mission was a success!
Filed under Child Car Seat Articles by on Feb 23rd, 2010. Comment.
Why not! I know that is a cheap answer, but think about how many people you might impact by posting your reviews of the products you know everyone will need. Whether it be a good review or a poor review, there are new parents born everyday that need the advice that you are now qualified to offer. If you have purchased a convertible car seat and found that it was the most useful product you have purchased thus far, wouldn’t be nice if you were able to read that review before you actually started purchasing similar products? So, the question isn’t why you should post convertible car seat reviews, the real question is what should you include in your convertible car seat reviews!
The first thing you should include is obvious: what does the convertible car seat offer. What kind of comfort / impact prevention does this particular car seat make available? For example, be sure to understand what your focal product delivers. Does it have EPS foam for maximum impact reduction? Does it have Luxury foam, providing a cushion that will mold to the occupants’ body shape and size? All of these things are major when it comes time to write convertible car seat reviews, especially since it is these types of questions that initiate the desire within young and inexperienced parents to read the convertible car seat reviews on the available open forums.
So, after you have come to grasp everything your car seats delivers, the time has come to test and prove that the manufacturer is either right or wrong with their statements. Does the foam actually fit to the babies’ body type, does it conduct and store heat based on the heat generated by the occupant, is the impact of either stopping the vehicle quickly to avoid an accident, or even an accident itself, stopped short of injuring the child due to the foam lining (please test this without a baby in your car seat)? A wise man once told me, “everything is a test, the test is everything,” so, once you have tested these so called “improvements” to see if they truly are what they claim, then you are ready to write all of the convertible car seat reviews your heart desires.
Now it is just a matter of finding the open forums you need to write these things, which, when everything is considered, is extremely easy, that is, if you understand how to use a basic search engine.
Simply visit the search engine of your choice (doesn’t matter which) and type “convertible car seat reviews” into the search bar provided on its homepage. The first few pages will list a plethora of open forums, all of which are free to use and already connection to millions of parents all over the world.
Filed under Child Car Seat Articles by on Feb 17th, 2010. Comment.
