car seats

i own more car seats than pairs of shoes ...

there are new laws coming into place in wa in april this year in relation to car restraints for children ... i found the kidsafe wa and roadwise sites useful in determining the requirement under the new law:

• children up to 6 months to be in a rear facing car restraint
• children under 4 years old to be in a restraint with a built in 5 point harness 
• children under 7 years old to be in a booster seat
• the front seat is not to be used by children under the age of 4
• the front seat may be used by children between the age of 4 and 7 as long as they are correctly restrained in a booster seat and all of the back seats in the car are taken by younger children

the fines for offenses against the new law are $500 for the initial unrestrained passenger and $100 per additional passenger unrestrained and 4 demerit points ...

what did this mean for us, parents of a 4, 3 and 1 year old: we needed to upgrade our 4 and 3 year olds car restraints and they needed to fit into the back of our 98 vt commodore sedan ...

after a frustrating online search and department store catalogue watching we ventured to baby on a budget in port kennedy just to have a look at our options ... a SALE and a helpful sales assistant later the back seat of our car now looks like this:

left: 4 year old bears safe-n-sound hi liner  (needed this one so we could fit all the seats in the back - was a little cheaper than a motor vehicle upgrade)
middle: 3 year old bears safe-n-sound maxi rider
right: our existing safe-n-sound convertable car seat (4 and a half years old now)

we are very happy with our purchase, feel a lot more comfortable about the bears safety in the car and it is a lot easier getting the bears into and out of the car ... the two bears love their new seats, altho it hasn't stopped their backseat niggling ...

sorry, but we don't have room for any extra passengers for the moment ;)