You may remember the post I wrote last fall, wondering how to keep Tate’s head from flopping forward when he fell asleep in his car seat. There have been times when he’s awoken because his head keeps tossing back and forth, or is crying after a long sleep and it seems like his neck is sore. Therefore, I was really excited to hear about a new product designed to solve this problem.

Via TwitterMoms, I learned that Melrose Kids wanted some mom bloggers to review their new Head Snuggler. I jumped at the chance, and they sent me a free one to try out. 

The product is very simple: a soft cotton/spandex sheath that slides over the top of your child’s car seat. The lower edge slips over the child’s forehead, holding it in place when he falls asleep. No more floppy-head sleeping!

Here are a few things we learned in trying out the Head Snuggler, which would probably be different for every child/family. We discovered on our Chicago roadtrip that Tate had to be really asleep before pulling it over his forehead, or he would wake up - ten minutes seemed to be enough.

At Tate’s age (18 months), putting the Head Snuggler into place requires both hands- one to hold the sleeping child’s head up and one to pull the fabric down. On our road trip, I was the passenger and could reach back and pull it down. If I were driving alone with Tate, I would just put the car in park at a stop light or pull the car over.

I imagine that when Tate is older and realizes that this product helps him be more comfortable, neither of the above issues will apply. He’ll probably pull it down into place himself when he’s ready to sleep!

Finally, the fabric selection is pretty limited right now but their website says that additional options will be available soon.

I love this idea- a simple, safe way to keep my son’s head and neck properly aligned while he sleeps. The Head Snuggler is something we will continue to use and I definitely recommend it!

As soon as you find out that you’re pregnant, there are soooo many decisions to be made. Even the small things can seem huge. The well-being and happiness of you, your partner and your baby seem to hang in the balance.

Today begins a new series focusing on some of the decisions encountered in pregnancy – anything from selecting baby products to making birth plans. I’ll share why I made the decisions that I did, but more importantly I’ll raise questions to help you consider which choice is best for you and your family. Sometimes I’ll invite guest authors to share how and why they made certain decisions. Please let me know if there’s a topic that you would like to see covered!

I’m starting out with the item that was most challenging for me to purchase – our stroller. For me, part of what made this one so tough was not knowing what my life would be like at home full-time with a baby. Would I be walking around the mall, navigating icy sidewalks in the winter, or constantly in and out of the car running errands?

Further complicating my choice (in a good way!) was that my husband’s parents offered to purchase a stroller for us. I suspected that an all-terrain stroller would be the best choice for us long-term. But after talking to friends, I also really wanted a travel system for the newborn stage.

The advantage of the travel system (comprised of a base that stays latched into the car, a stroller, and a carseat that easily locks in and out of both), is that a sleeping baby doesn’t have to be unstrapped from his seat. Newborns sleep so much, and are especially likely to fall asleep with the motion of the car or stroller. With a simple click, you can transport your sleeping child into the house or wherever your destination may be. This was invaluable to me.

Just writing about those days makes me nostalgic, since Tate has now outgrown his infant seat. He’s never been one to stay sleeping if we try to transport him out of the car seat. So if he falls asleep in the car, I just sit out there with him and read. Instead of keeping my magazines on the coffee table, they’re in the car now.

So there’s my bias- I’ll do almost anything to keep my sleeping child asleep. If that’s not a big deal to you, you can save money on a convertible car seat that goes from infancy to booster-seat stage, and then get whatever stroller you want. Keep in mind that a seat will get pretty messy over 7-8 years, and having more than one might not be a bad thing.

That was mentioned on a podcast I just listened to at Pregtastic about car seat safety – did you know that washing car seat straps in the washing machine renders them useless in a crash? You can wipe them down if they get dirty, but complete submersion in water stretches the fibers too much. If you’ve washed yours, or if your car has been in a crash, you need to buy new straps and have them installed by a certified technician. The entire car seat podcast is definitely worth a listen.

But this post is about strollers, so back to my story…I compromised and bought a travel system on Craig’s List, then when Tate was a little older, our in-laws purchased the jogging/all-terrain stroller. This also allowed me to gain some knowledge about our new life with a baby. The used travel system was in great condition and less than half the price that it would have been when new. In retrospect, this may not have been the wisest choice, since I couldn’t be sure that the seat hadn’t been involved in a crash, but I trusted the mom who sold it to me.

Wow, this post is getting really long, so I’ll finish it up tomorrow – stay tuned!

Photo Courtesy:
skeddy in NYC

Everyone was quick to judge Britney Spears when she drove a car with her son on her lap, rather than in his car seat. My pre-mom self wondered, how could she be so stupid, so careless, so unconcerned for her child’s welfare?!

I’m not condoning her behavior, but I’ve sure been tempted to do the same thing over the past 10 months. It happened again last night: the three of us were out doing some Christmas shopping and it was getting past Tate’s bedtime. Despite my sitting next to him in the backseat, singing every song I could think of, and pulling out a variety of toys, he was quickly melting down. We made it to the store, got out of the car, walked up to the door and…it was closed (what kind of store closes at 6pm on the week before Christmas?!). Ugh, back into the carseat already? We were still 20 minutes from home- how tempting to just hold him on my lap while Dad drove, but no, of course we buckled him in safely. Twenty minutes never seems longer than when your baby is unhappy…

Okay, so Tate is always in his car seat when we’re driving. Does that make me a better mom than Britney? Maybe, maybe not. I must admit, though, to a quickly-growing list of things that I do let my son do, that certainly would have surprised that pre-mom me. He occasionally spent half the night (instead of the recommended one hour max) in the infant swing. After months of struggle, I let him cry himself to sleep. He eats Cheerios off the floor with my full knowledge. He’s gone days (weeks?) at a time without eating any vegetables.

I’m not beating myself up over these things, and I would hope that no one else would do so either. But motherhood seems full of rights and wrongs, defined differently for different people. Parenting is a hard job. We all worry whether we’re good enough at it, and maybe sometimes we feel that others have to be wrong in order for us to be right. Can’t we just all get along? I think encouragement and support is the better route. Sorry, Britney!

Photo Courtesy:
magerleagues

…continued from Big Boy Car Seat

Round 10: Knowing that our roadtrip to Chicago is this weekend, I reluctantly drag Tate and myself back to Babies ‘R Us to buy an (in my opinion) unattractive seat… but eureka, what’s this?! There’s a new Symphony seat from Evenflo, in “Liberty” (gray and black, but no icky fake-leather trim). Plus, it reclines more than the others in the rear-facing position and it’s good up to 100 pounds. The BRU employee is still setting up the display, it’s so new, but after she gives me a quick demo and answers a few questions, I’m sold.

The Saga Continues: The huge box for our new convertible car seat barely fits in the front seat of my Dodge Neon. I have limited rear-view vision because the mirror is all askew, but we make it home safely. I lug the massive seat out of the box. While my son sits in the stroller, parked in the grass next to the car, I struggle to install new seat into my suddenly even more painfully small backseat. Since my antique (2000) car doesn’t have the LATCH system, I have to unclip the front of the fabric cover to thread the seatbelt through, then re-clip it while it’s jammed into the back of the seat. Not easy, but finally, I’ve got it in.

On our first ride, I’m happy to see that I can still see him in the mirror positioned on the backseat. Online reviews of most other models say the seat is too tall to allow that.

Of course as we’re driving home, Tate falls asleep. Skeptical that I’ll be able to get him out while still sleeping, I compromise and sit on the deck to read the newspaper while he sleeps in the car seat with the windows rolled down. This won’t always be practical, but as Dr. Leo Marvin would say, “baby steps…baby steps”.

My next challenge is to keep his head from flopping forward when he sleeps, which always seems to happen despite the greater recline this seat has compared to others. I google “head flopping forward in carseat” and while suggesting “did you mean head flopping forward in car seat?”, it also gives me 22,800 links to possible solutions. I love the internet.

Most of the links seem to be for people with my problem, but not a good solution. The best was using a necktie to hold the baby’s head in place…sounds like the strangulation risk would be greater than head-flopping, so I guess we’ll be floppy for now. Anyone out there have a solution? Anyone out there clever enough to develop a product that roughly 22,800 people would buy?! I’ll take the first one…

All you expecting parents or those whose babies are younger-than-1-year and/or less-than-20-pounds wonder “why does it matter so much?!” Well, my friends, with the travel system, a baby that falls asleep in the car can be carried into the house or clicked into a stroller without being removed from the car seat. That means the chance that he or she will continue sleeping is much, much higher, and as Martha would say, “that’s a good thing.”

Exhibit A: Baby falls asleep; carseat and baby go into the restaurant; I get to enjoy lunch with my mom and brother.

Maybe we’ll do a flashback blog later to discuss travel system options, but let’s live in the now, for now…

Round 1: Staring at the row of convertible car seats at Babies ‘R Us, I notice another family shopping for the same. Their daughter chirps “I want the pink one!” which makes me think “I’m glad my son can’t voice his opinion- my own is enough!” and then suddenly “Other children that need the bigger car seat are old enough to speak in sentences!”

Rounds 2-9: Talking with friends, lots of browsing online, multiple visits to BRU, Target and other various baby-essential-supplying stores, in hopes of finding the magic seat that satisfies all of my needs. I know they all meet the safety regulations, so now it’s down to convenience and, I’m embarrassed to admit, color. The Evenflo Triumph Advance models had the easy-to-adjust sliding shoulder straps that I wanted, but honestly I just didn’t like the color/fabric options. Flaky, I know.

To be continued…

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