Mama Knows Car Seats

24/12/2025

Milk frother 🤝 Mandrake

Am I doing this wrong?!
Why do I need noise cancelling headphones?

Sorry but this IS car seat adjacent because how else do I get all these installs done? I run on lattes and nerds gummy clusters. Let me live ☕️

16/12/2025

Something I’ve found fascinating is how (relatively) similarly car seats perform in crash tests.
The acceptable performance margin is pretty narrow! They ALL do an excellent job of protecting children. 👏

Then look at vehicles 🚗
Now, vehicles are incredibly safer today than they were many years ago. But there’s still a lot of variation across different makes and models! 🚙 🚗 🛻

There’s so many safety performance metrics to consider and I’m grateful for the IIHS who evaluates them. They are an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to reducing injuries and more.

One lesser-known safety feature that matters to those of us with kids or second row passengers is a pretensioner and force limiter. 💫

Once my children are out of car seats, I want them to be best protected in the back seat! But not all vehicles (mine included 🙋‍♀️) have this safety feature.

I look forward to the day that pretensioners and force/load limiters are standard in EVERY belted position — not just the front seats. 🚙

Does your vehicle have them in the back seat? ❓

23/11/2025

A great everyday seat that doubles as a travel seat!

It’s narrow enough to easily sit next to the car seat as an adult whether you’re on a plane or in a car.

It’s compatible with tricky head restraints - you can’t anticipate the exact rental vehicle you’ll get and this seat works with tons of the common ones (Pacifica, Yukon, Tahoe, Suburban, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Wagoneer, and tons more.)

And it’s plain easy to install! The wide-open belt path makes the inside-out trick easy for a lower anchor install when rear facing. The seat belt install is even easier forward facing with the built in lock off. That’s helpful for traveling where a car may not have a locking seat belt, too!

I used this seat every day for years and consider it the most versatile car seat 🏆

Have you traveled with the Graco SlimFit3 LX 3 in 1?

21/10/2025

Boo! 👻

Don’t be scared, schedule a free car seat safety check with a CPST today.

Don’t have a tech local to you? There’s virtual checks available at Safety-Connection.org/Caregiver or comment SPOOKY 👻 and I’ll share the details via DM

19/10/2025

17/10/2025

Type A mom when it comes to safety, Type B with just about everything else 🤪

I remember having my firstborn and hearing so many “just you wait” comments.

About how I’d let him sleep in bed with me, stop cutting grapes by the time he had a sibling, ride a bike without a helmet sometimes, and get more lax about car seat safety when I had more kids.

Here to report back nearly 7 years later — that hasn’t been the case for us.

If you’re safety-conscious I’m here to tell you that you’re not overbearing or over-protective.

It’s okay to prioritize safety and you’re not bound to fail as your child gets older or if you have more children.

✨ And if your GAF (give an eff) list looks different than my list that’s okay!! We all can make different reasonable decisions when faced with the same information 🫶🏼

These are my GAFs for my family — what are yours?