Mommy Urban Legend or Safety Fact?

Today I am going to talk about something serious in Mommy Corner.  But before we begin you know how much I think confession is good for the soul, so first a confession.  Sometimes after my son finishes his breakfast I mix peanut butter and Nutella on a spoon together and let him eat it.  I know, I know, I will probably not be best friends with the woman who sued Nutella for false advertising.  But the way I see it no matter what he has for breakfast an extra shot of protein and a little sweetness in the morning will get him through till lunch.  So there you have it, confessions of this slacker mom.  Whew, I feel better now that I got that off my chest.  Now on to the car seat question.

On a more serious note, I was recently in a car accident.  I’m okay, but can I just take a moment to say how much I hate metered on ramps.  It makes no sense to me, to come to a stop before merging.  Isn’t the whole point of an on ramp to get up to speed so that you can merge fluently with the 60 mph traffic?  Look how sad the "Mom Mobile" license plate looks barely hanging on. Luckily for me I bought two of them in the event that anything ever happen to the first one.

The baby was in the second row of the van safely secured rear facing in his car seat.  Aside from being pretty shook up, I had minimal damage. There was no air bag deployment and I was able to drive the vehicle after the accident.  But all of this got me thinking, should I replace my child’s car seat?

Some years ago I sold one of my firstborn’s car seats on Craigslist and the woman who purchased it asked me if it had ever been in an accident.  I have since heard other moms mention this in conversation.  I immediately got to questioning is this mommy-lore, or is this something I should absolutely do? 

I began my search for answers with Cosco, the company that manufactured the seat.  I was able to find a wealth of information on product selection, proper installation and new advances but I did not see my definitive answer.

Next I Googled the question, “Should I replace a child car seat after an accident?” That’s when I came to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.  The information that I found was indeed informative.

The NHTSA directed me to safecar.com , to the information below. There was no airbag deployment and I was able to drive away from my accident, after considering all of the factors involved in my accident I decided not to replace my car seat. 

However, unlike the car seats I owned before when I am done with this one I will be sure to remove the cover and label it as unusable before I dispose of it.  It is one thing for me to make an informed decision but quite another to donate this car seat when I'm done with it.

So there you have it, my Mommy’s Corner post for today.  I am currently working on a little boy’s room and hope to have some projects to share with you soon.