Safety First?
How do you put a price on the safety of your child? Where do you draw the line? We all know that you do everything you can to keep your child safe, but at what cost, both financial and psychological?
Our house is baby-proofed but within reason. We can’t figure out a solution for the top of our stairs because the wall and the banister are not lined up - no gate we have found can do the job without serious construction work. So we have opted to just keep Bridget away from the top of the stairs. She is never up there without us and we have to rely on that. We do keep a gate at the bottom of the stairs and use cabinet latches. But we can’t keep those corner guards on the edges of the coffee table because Bridget pulls them right off and chews on them. So we have to do our best to teach her to be careful and try to keep her from running near it. We can’t get rid of the coffee table. I guess we could but we choose not to because we don’t want to live that way. It even has glass in it! I know you think I’m a horrible mom but I refuse to get rid of it.
There you have some instances where we have made a decision about our daughter’s safety that is not of the “we’ll do anything including covering every surface of the house in bubble wrap and sleeping on air mattresses on the floor” variety.
I did check that the plastics in our house that Bridget uses are BPA free. But I confess that I don’t know the difference between a pthalate and a paraben. I shallowly use California Baby wash on Bridget because I like the smell. I keep meaning to replace her lotion with something “safer” but haven’t yet. Why? I can’t say. I guess because I just haven’t run out of lotion and needed to buy more. I don’t think the hoop-lah is made up; I believe that until we can know for sure these things are safe without a doubt, it’s just better to be safe than sorry. And yet, I have not banished these chemicals from my house. There is even a wonderful site out there to help with this endeavor. Go visit the lovely ladies at Safe Mama to get started. One of these days I will finish what I’ve started.
So I’ve shared my dirty little chemical secret. And yet, one thing has me up on my safety high horse.
Tonight, Jake and I decided that it was probably a better idea for me to drive his car, a sedan, around on my many errands during the day since it gets much better gas mileage than the SUV. Except that Jake’s car does not have a car seat in it. We just always make sure that if Bridget travels, it’s in the SUV. For her usual car seat, I spent hours researching the safety ratings and spent a significant amount of money on the seat. I never bought a second one because I didn’t want that much money tied up in two car seats, one of which would never get used. But now, it seems necessary. I surely don’t want to be lugging that thing from the car in the garage to the one in front of the house.
To that end, I set out on the quest for a second car seat, but a less expensive one. And I just couldn’t do it. I could not bring myself to buying anything other than the seat I had satisfied myself has the highest safety rating. I mean, if something were to ever happen to Bridget while riding in a car seat that I felt I cheaped out on, I could never forgive myself. I’d always wonder if I could have saved her if I’d just spent that extra money.
Why do I have a bug up my butt about the car seats, when I have just admitted to the whole internet that I am a slacker on baby gates and edge cushions and chemicals? Is it because the effect of a car seat is more immediate and undeniable, whereas the chemical thing is more abstract and someday? But how does that explain the lack of a gate at the top of the stairs? These are all important questions.
Tell me, what are your parenting or environmental hot topics and what do you blow off that other people worry about?
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We’ve now bought 3 of our expensive car seats. The one we use all the time, one we bought to leave at my parents for when we visit and we just recently bought our 3rd for the upcoming move. Like you, we’d only had one in our SUV and never bought another, but with all the switcheroo-ing going on the next few weeks, we needed to have a carseat already in our new location ready for when R & Parker land.
We never baby gated our house at all b/c we couldn’t find gates to fit out staircase at either end. It’s worked okay, obviously, but sometimes I have fears of her falling down the stairs.
I would like to be better re: the chemicals (shampoo, etc) but I’m not. I’m lazy I guess. Poor kid is going to end up with an extra eyeball or something.
Well, you know my take on BPA. It’s all here:
http://www.diaryofamodernmatriarch.com/2008/04/bpa-what-do-you-do.html
And I’m pretty good about feeding her only organic milk and limiting the sweets when I can. But if my kid is in pain, I give her motrin. If my kid is hungry and we’re out, a chicken nugget won’t kill her.
I think there is a balance and a line to walk where we keep our kids’ safety in mind but don’t try to force them to live in a bubble.
We don’t have top of line car seats, we wanted more than one, and two of the cars seats we got through our insurance company so we hope they are highly rated. I am concerned about cleaning chemicals to an extent and we don’t buy organic (thanks to my cousin the toxicologist, who you won’t expect!). I try not to get all crazy about anything and believe in moderation, but food dyes, though they are not void in our house make me a little concerned (they are in everything even toothpaste!). And baby gates: we have an old wood lattice baby gate that works great and fits in usual locations and just requires a few small screws, it is old fashion, but works.
We had baby gates on the first floor but not on the second and like you, when the kids were little they were up there with us so it never was a problem. The one thing we did do was, teach them YOUNG how to climb up AND DOWN the stairs. That helps a bit.
As for coffee tables…I remember my parents had one with a glass top and very sharp corners and my dad HATED it because he was always worried the kids would hurt themselves…I didn’t stress because otherwise, you do become overly paranoid and bubble-like as a parent and while some accidents do happen, that is just part of life. And that coffee table my dad hated so much: the kids (3 of them) never once got hurt over it!
You know, I think that part of the car seat thing is hype. A seat has to meet minimum requirements in order to even be on the market. And those minimum requirements must be pretty decent and not just like “well, maybe your kid won’t die if you get in an accident….” Of course even the pricey one can’t guarantee they won’t. It’s all psychological, praying on parents’ fears about the safety of their child. But it worked on me, apparently.
We have a gate that works on an angle from the old house but don’t have any use for it in the new house. You want it?
Whoooooooo boy. I’ve become somewhat of a toxiphobe since the Mini has been born. I haven’t replaced everything, obviously, as some of it is just expensive to do so, like organic mattresses (want one, and he’s worth it, but we need to eat)
I’m on the never ending quest to find a conditioner that works as well as my paraben, phthalate ridden Redken. I can’t seem to find something that will keep the “hay head” at bay, so I go back and forth between the hippie stuff and a paraben free, but still loaded with petrochemicals Aveda conditioner. Even working on Safe Mama, I’m not perfect. We eat almost exclusively organic, I very rarely use chemicals in the house (and in fact have started making my own cleaning products). Switched over to cloth diapers, and only give the Mini a stainless sippy. Yet, I still can’t give up my gas guzzling SUV.
P.S. Retract-a-gate.com Try that.
P.P.S. Even if you have the best of the best in car seats, it’s still probably toxic anyway. Nothing is sacred.