Finished my CPST course today...

... as well as my first car seat check. I'm a lot better at smiling and being polite with strangers misusing car seats than I am with my own family, I'm afraid.

My parents and nephew brought my baby to me today at lunch time to nurse. I had installed my infant seat in my mom's car and I thought I'd covered all the bases. My son (turns 16 tomorrow!!) taught my niece (15) how to use the seat and all week they've been the ones buckling the baby in with no problems except maybe the occasional slightly low chest clip.

Today, my son buckled my daughter into the seat but my parents and my nephew made a stop by their church for a while before bringing the baby over to the fire station for lunch. I went out to their car to get her out, and my mom and nephew had very carefully contorted the baby into the seat so that she was sitting ON the leg-portion of the 5-point harness. :doh: It was almost impossible to get her OUT of the seat because her legs were through the harness straps after it was unbuckled! I'm like, "SH__, Mom, What the hell did you do to my baby?" Thank God this was the last day of CPST class and I don't need to leave her with my mom anymore. She was very sorry, and just said it didn't "look right" to have the straps over her legs like that, and she and my nephew (age 12) had worked very hard to get it "just right" because they knew I'd yell at them for doing it wrong. I told her if you have to twist the baby like a pretzel to get her into the seat, you're doing it wrong. After lunch, I buckled her in and asked my mom to take her STRAIGHT home and not take her anywhere else until I got home tonight. I didn't even want to send her home with them I was so pissed off. But I didn't have any other good options, and I figured there would be no more opportunities for them to screw up the car seat.

I shouldn't be surprised that it's harder to bite my tongue with my family. Most of my career has been in tech support and I have a lot of training and experience politely explaining simple and complex concepts to people who have no idea what they're doing, but I can't seem to explain anything at all to my dad without wanting to write him off as a total lost cause.

I've seen that, over the years, more than once.

I'm glad your baby made it home safe.

And congrats on your course!

Thanks!

I expected to see misuse like this in a car seat check, but not on my own baby in my own car seat.

I thought after 4 other grandchildren, all of whom my mom has been responsible for much of the time, I thought she'd have it down. But after I thought about it a bit, I realized all her other grandkids were born in the era of 3-point harnesses so I can see how the 5-point might have looked wrong to her. The way she had it looked more like the 3-point harness she was used to.

Congratulations on finishing your class and becoming a CPST. May it bring you many years of happiness.

Congrats! My neighbor did this. I showed her, using a baby doll, how to put the baby in. I ran into them at the store and he was buckled as you described. I just straight up told her that I was fixing him. Her MIL said, "now he cant move his legs". @@.

At least I know the seat is installed properly though.

Congrats!

Congratulations on finishing your course!

You'll see in due time that'll get a bit harder to be polite to strangers too.

Congrats!

And I think I'd be a little angry at my Mom too. However, she tried. Really really hard from the sounds of things. That's a mistake that is really pretty common.

Congrats! I was a birth board when I pg w/ Ilana when I was pg and after she was born etc, talking carseats the whole time, telling people to get their seats checked, blah, blah. So one of the moms post when our babies are 9 MONTHS old that she's been buckling her in the entire time just like you posted. WTH?! It took all that was in me to not tell her how stupid she was! I just posted 'and that's why you go see a carseat tech'. I'm glad baby is home safe!

Thanks, everyone. I know she was trying.

I have a ton of practice helping strangers with problems ranging to legitimate bugs/issues/incompatibilities to honest mistakes to complete stupidity.

I just figure at least if they're coming in for help, that's better than all the people out there who don't know what they're doing but just guess around with their kids' safety. I wish my mom would have called my son for help when it didn't "look right," though (since I wasn't available by phone while in class... though I might have been able to answer a text from my nephew in an emergency).

Congrats.