Cozywoggle car seat coat

Based off of a friend’s recommendation recently, we purchased a Cozywoggle coat.  (LINK)  This is designed to be a winter coat that can be worn in a car seat.   It has zippers up the sides, passing under the armpits and down by the wrists, that allow for the coat to be flipped behind the child rather than to be worn behind (coming between the seat and the child).  The front can be flapped over the car seat straps.

I watched the video on their website before purchasing it, and the coat seemed so effortless and easy.  You just zip the child in and out, and it’s comfortable for them to sit in their seat with the blanketed coat flaps.

My hubby tried this on the Pickle first on a trip that just the two of them took, and he came home complaining that the coat was a giant pain.  I thought he was just being contrary to be contrary, so I took her in the coat on a ride to Target the next day.

Getting into her seat in our garage wasn’t a huge deal – she let me unzip the sides and get her in the seat, but she HATES the flap of the back of the coat behind her head.  Looking at it, I could see that it would be pretty uncomfortable.  You also have to totally take the sleeves off of the child, so their arms are freezing if you didn’t put a fleece or something on underneath it.  

Getting out of the car in the cold Target parking lot was a bigger ordeal.  It wasn’t particularly easy to zip up the sleeves and coat while sitting inside of the car, so Pickle had to climb out with the coat hanging off of her, and stand in the 20 degree cold while I zipped down the sides.  It was only for a few moments, but I think that would be too much to deal with as it gets even colder as the winter goes on.

I think that it’s more practical for us to just stick with wearing a fleece jacket, and taking her out of her coat and wearing it backwards when riding in the car.  The flap that goes behind her head just is a dealbreaker in our situation.  I really like the idea of the coat, and the name tickles me, but it’s just not a practical purchase for us in sub-zero temps.  Luckily it was only about $35 on sale, so it wasn’t an incredibly expensive lesson.

Star Kids Snack & Play Travel Tray

I have the sweetest four-year-old on Earth, but she is a little whirlwind of messiness.  Miniature disaster areas follow her, despite me cleaning up after her and her cleaning up after herself.  I sort of imagine her to be like a real-life Pigpen from Peanuts.

So, when we recently bought a new vehicle to accommodate our recent addition, I tried enforcing a very, very strict "No food or drink in the car" rule.  This lasted a few weeks, but life happens - we run late to school and need to eat breakfast on the go, or we have a long car trip that spans snack time.  Best laid plans get put aside... and the interior of my car becomes a crumb-filled disaster.  

And then we got a Star Kids Snack & Play Travel Tray (LINK).  

It's a cool invention - it's a small nylon table that has a strap that goes behind the child in their car seat, and sits on their lap as a table.  It has mesh pockets in the sides for sippy cups, food, toys, and so on.  It's pliable so that it can bend to fit different car seat sizes, but is firm enough that a little one can color or play on top of it.  It's the perfect size to fit a few toys or a small art set.  Since it's nylon, it wipes down easily and looks just like new.

We decided to put it through the paces with a doughnut breakfast this week, to see how it kept the seats clean.  Here's a shot of Pickle enjoying her breakfast:

She had a sippy cup of water in the mesh pocket on the side, and this easily fit across her entire lap.  The best part is that it caught every single crumb!  It saved my car from becoming a disaster area, and all I had to do was wipe it quickly with a wet washcloth, and all of the frosting and crumbs were gone.  It dried quickly, and then we used the tray to practice handwriting on the rest of the drive.  Since the tray only runs about $19.99 (LINK), it was a great price-point for such versatility!

If your child is still working on the whole "neat and tidy" thing, I really recommend the Star Kids Snack & Play Travel Tray.  

Britax Advocate vs. Diono Radian RXT

I've mentioned BEFORE that I started off pretty concerned about car seat safety, and then slowly became more knowledgeable and knew more about my options.

Our infant seat for Pickle (our nickname for A) was a Chicco Keyfit.  This was a wonderful infant seat - got a really good close fit with the straps, we purchased an extra base that we could put in the other car, and so on.  We were able to use it until she was a year, at which time she became a little annoyed with reclining in an infant seat, and it was too hard to carry her in it all of the time.

I did a lot of research, and heard nothing but great things about Britax.  The top of the line seat at the time was the Britax Advocate 70 CS (LINK):

At the time, it was about $340.  Since we had to get one for each car due to our work schedule, this was a pretty hefty purchase.  (We had purchased one ahead of time when she was about six months as her first Christmas gift, because, hey, she was 6 months, what did she care?)  

We really did like this seat - it was pretty great.  The sides are incredibly thick, and great for side impact.  The LATCH system makes it fairly easy to install, but we did have to do the pool noodle trick.  The straps get a close fit (not quite as close as the Chicco, but still close) and are easy to tighten in a smooth motion with their "Click & Safe" technology.  

The problem was once Pickle turned about 32 months or so.  Britaxes are not made for children with tall torsos.  Which is, unfortunately, how Pickle has been shaped since she was in the womb - they were worried that her legs were measuring a few weeks behind the rest of her... until they looked at J and I.  We also have long torsos, short legs.  Anyway.  In theory, the Britax should be able to accommodate a toddler rear-facing until four years old.  Unless your child is shaped like this:

(I didn't screw up her hair - it's both brown and blond right now.)

Here's a photo of her from when she was about 34 months - you'll notice that her head is almost exactly an inch below the top of the shell, which is all the taller you can be rearfacing in a Britax:

So, our options were either to forward-face her, which neither supporting statistics nor I were ready to do, or find a new seat in which she could continue to rear-face.

I did a ton more research, and found the Diono Radian RXT (LINK):

Not only is the rear-facing weight limit higher (45 lbs), but the shell moves up significantly, so it's great for tall-torsod children.  Additionally, it works better with the new LATCH regulations (I'd recommend googling these, but HERE'S a brief description) - the LATCH will work for up to a 45 lb child rear-facing, rather than being the weight of the child plus the weight of the seat.  This wasn't relevant to us, because we only have one child, but it's also super skinny, so you can fit three of them across in a mid-sized car, which we never could have done in the Britax.  

Plus to Pickle:  we could get it in purple.  Also, she's super-comfortable in it.  And, I don't know if I mentioned, we could get it in purple.  

Clearly, it is also appropriate for pirate children.  

It was also incredibly easy to install.  J had always put the Britaxes in, but I put the Radian in all by myself and got a tight, correct fit.  Unless you have a small infant unable to sit up unassisted, you will want an angle adjuster.

Anyway.  Just because we're bound to breed tall-torsod children, any of our future children will likely just start in a Radian, or will maybe start in the Britax and switch to the Radian once Pickle outgrows it.  (From what I understand, you usually can only use it up to the limits of the five-point harness forward-facing, which is 80 lbs. - most children grow too tall to use it up to the 120 lb. booster seat limit.)

I think both seats are awesome, but for children with a tall torso, I'd go with the Radian.  

Car Seat Covers

I've always thought I was really militant about car seat safety.  I researched car seats thoroughly before little A was born.  We got the Chicco Keyfit (which we LOVED) as her infant seat, and went with a Britax Advocate 70 CS (the top of the line at the time - great seat, but a different post) for her convertible when she outgrew it.

We live in the midwest, so winters get really cold.  I saw the JJ Cole BundleMe (LINK), and got one immediately:

We actually got a thinner one than this, the Lite, but the issue is the same, as a friend told me - nothing should go between a child and their carseat.  It's a hazard, and it can also make it so that you can't file an insurance claim if you're in an accident, since you're not using the seat properly.  This is a great item for strollers and the like, it's just not an approved device for a carseat.  Since this was a hazard, we stopped using it immediately - and I became even more vigilant than I already was about car seat safety!

Since A was so little and still in her infant seat, we tried another JJ Cole product.  We used the Car Seat Cover (LINK):

We loved this item, and it was entirely safe.  It is called a "shower cap" style cover because it works just like a shower cap - as shown in the photo above, you simply put it over the top of the car seat.  It's got an elastic band that squeezes around where it gets narrower.  Nothing goes between the baby and the car seat, and it unzips easily so that you can get the baby in and out without removing the cover every time.  Ours was an older model and it had a piece of velcro up by where the top of the baby's head is, and that's an additional way that it kept the wind from getting in.  It doesn't look like this newer model has that, which is too bad, as it was one of my favorite features until I got fuzz from blankets in the velcro enough that it didn't work anymore.  I am guessing that someone crafty could easily sew that in, however.  (I wish I were that person.)

At $29.99 it was a little more expensive than, say, the generic ones you can get at Wal-Mart, but this one is very durable, had the zipper and the velcro, and was a little thicker.  We would put baby A in the seat, clip her in, cover her up with a receiving blanket (or six, depending on how butt-cold it was that day), zip up the cover, and then velcro it up.  We didn't need anything else that entire winter (which is good, since coats are also not recommended in car seats).  

The next problem came the next winter, when she was in a convertible seat.  The cover didn't fit that, so we needed to look for something for her to wear directly.  We started with a Car Seat Poncho (LINK), about $39.99:

Little A was about 17 months around this time, and VERY active.  I loved the idea of the car seat poncho - you put the little in the car seat, buckle them in, and put this over the top of the car seat.  It can get them from the house to the car while staying warm enough, and you can put an additional blanket over them both on the walk and in the car.  

As I mentioned, A is active - and stubborn.  She had zero desire for this to be over her arms hampering her from whatever she wanted to be doing (oftentimes shredding paper all over the backseat).  Usually she tore it off in about three minutes.  And since she had also kicked off the blanket, she was left with not much warmth protection.  Since we keep the car plenty warm, that wasn't much of an issue inside of the car, really, but it meant sort of a struggle when getting her in and out when she didn't want to put the poncho back on.  Trying to wrap a flailing child in a poncho was not as easy as it sounds.  The theory of the poncho is absolutely great, though, it just didn't work in our particular household.

What we ended up with what an Osh Kosh B'Gosh/Carters 3-in-1 jacket.  I can't link it, as they don't seem to have them on the shelves yet for winter, but the theory is pretty simple.  You have an inner jacket that is Thinsulate on the interior with a waterproof shell outside.  Then, you also have a thicker outer coat that zips onto the inner shell for double warmth.  We would wear the thin inner jacket in the car (as it was car seat-safe), and then put on the thick outer jacket right before we took her into stores, daycare, preschool, whatever.  We've been doing this system the last two winters, and it works quite well.  Carters and Osh Kosh have huge sales pretty regularly on their website and in stores, so I could pace myself and pick it up at a cheaper price than the $60 or so at which it was regularly listed.  I'm sort of hoping that she can still wear hers from last winter again this winter, since we bought one a little big back then (I think).  I should probably pull it out and see.  

I noticed upon reviewing these blogs that it must seem like I buy a lot of junk and then it doesn't work...