On skipping the infant bucket...

A friend of mine is due with her first baby in September and wants to skip using a baby bucket.

Part of me is, "Yay, Good for you for thinking outside the box and asking questions!" The other part is, "How do you think you're going to manage a cold Canadian winter without a bucket?" Have any of you gone through winter with a young, young baby and no bucket? What are your tips? Any good products to help (like remote starters?) (FWIW, she doesn't feel the need for the bucket because she's always had her heart set on a pram - from this I infer she's not planning on wearing the baby, which would, in my mind, ease some of the cold-weather issues.)

Also, did any of you encounter problems when leaving the hospital? I know for us they wanted to see the baby in the seat at discharge, but I doubt they would have come out to the car to do so.

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone!

I perosnally loved the bucket for the length of time i could carry it! You can take the time to get them in it, buckle them correeclty, get their little hat on and then go to the car and click it in - i would have been standing out in the cold for 10 minutes w/o the bucket on my first because I was always trying to get her in just right! Plus the snap out of base and onto car seat is great for sleeping babies especially if running errands! You can definately live w/o it but really makes life easier - if she really doesn't want one, i recommend she at least warm the car up first (which I would do with the bucket anyways) other than that they should be fine. Once she is used to the harness straps she'll be quicker.

Also, they will come out to the car and check - my friend used a "in car" seat and they checked - Even with our bucket the hospital made sure we snapped the bucket in the base and the angle looked ok.

When I delivered they told us NOT to bring the carseat out of the car. And, even though they said we had to have one no one would have known if we didn't. The person that wheeled us out was just a transporter and pretty much dropped us off at the curb and left.

It can be done, but I wouldn't want to do it if you get cold similarly to how we get cold here and I know some parts of ON get some darn good cold snaps in the winter... Finding a trim fitting fleece for a newborn is going to be difficult because clothes swim on them pretty much until they get close to outgrowing them - which could make it pretty difficult for her to find something that is going to work all winter and allow the harness to fit properly.

I'd steer her towards a True Fit or an EFTA if she has her mind set on using a convertible. And be sure to talk to her about winter coats. The smaller the baby the more that a bulky coat is going to increase the risk of ejection. I have personally seen a baby actually need to use a lower set of slots rf'ing after removing a bulky snow suit, not to mention that the harness which had been properly tightened around babe while in the snow suit all the sudden had a good 4" space in the harness. Considering that that snowsuit would've compressed in a crash, the baby would've been left with a harness that was way too loose, and that was in the wrong set of slots - big recipe for ejection. And kiddo wasn't a newborn. I think that that kiddo was never in the seat in a snowsuit again. The parents were horrified at the slack and needing to change harness height....

I know speaking for most parents around here, and I'm guessing your friend might be the same way, they can't imagine not bundling baby up when it's cold. With a newborn the issue is likely to be compounded - just considering how parents insist that bundle me bags are necessary, and it's much easier to bundle a baby in a carrier.

So I guess what I'm saying is that yes it can be done, but she needs to put some serious thought into the logistics of getting child to and from the car, removing coat in car etc and deciding if she is comfortable doing that (and add the wake up factor if they're running multiple errands,) before making a decision. Newborns are more time consuming to take a coat on and off than older babies and toddlers/preschoolers.

We use remote start in the winter and have fleece blankets in the car that we pile on once the winter coat is removed. The kids wear a lightweight sweater over top of their shirt that stays on in the truck. We had no big problems keeping them warm, but in and out with 2 of them was a huge pain this last winter. I wouldn't want to be repeating the process multiple times with a newborn... but if she's ok with it, then as long as she knows what she's getting herself in to and doesn't use heavy layers on her newborn, she's fine.

I suspect the hospital would send somebody down to the vehicle to make sure there was a seat in there. (And she'll need to make sure to pick a seat with low enough bottom slots to properly fit her baby.)

I didn't use an infant seat with Peyton who was born in Dec and never had a problem. FWIW I didn't have a coat for him either. Seriously unless your outside wandering around, which I don't know why you would do that with a baby, all you have to do is wrap a blanket around them and then pop them in the carseat and cover them back up.

I really cringe when I'm indoors in the winter and I see a baby in a carseat just completely covered in a bundle me and snowsuit and blankets. I don't think that all that's necessary for a quick little run from the parking lot to walmart and I'm sure the baby's more uncomfortable that way sweating to death then being chilly for a minute.

I don't think I would skip the bucket. For those -30 days when you have no choice but to go out, it's much easier to make sure baby stays warm. I know how much I even hate the run from the car to the store on those cold windy days. Just image a newborn baby.

unityco said:

A friend of mine is due with her first baby in September and wants to skip using a baby bucket.

Part of me is, "Yay, Good for you for thinking outside the box and asking questions!" The other part is, "How do you think you're going to manage a cold Canadian winter without a bucket?" Have any of you gone through winter with a young, young baby and no bucket? What are your tips? Any good products to help (like remote starters?) (FWIW, she doesn't feel the need for the bucket because she's always had her heart set on a pram - from this I infer she's not planning on wearing the baby, which would, in my mind, ease some of the cold-weather issues.)

Also, did any of you encounter problems when leaving the hospital? I know for us they wanted to see the baby in the seat at discharge, but I doubt they would have come out to the car to do so.

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone!

Click to expand...

my son was born in Jan. in NH and it was very snowy. we skipped the bucket b/c he fit perfectly in a MA. I popped him from the car seat to a pouch sling (hot sliing) or a Moby in teh first few months. he rarely if ever woke up, if asleep, and when he did, he fell back asleep quickly b/c i was wearing him.

im not sure how it would have worked i hadnt worn him all the time though.

we didnt birth in a hospital so i dont have any experience w/ that, but as long as the baby fits in a car seat, its legal to transport him...they cant hold you hostage (although they may tell you they can).

Thanks for all your responses, everyone!

snowbird25ca said:

It can be done, but I wouldn't want to do it if you get cold similarly to how we get cold here and I know some parts of ON get some darn good cold snaps in the winter... Finding a trim fitting fleece for a newborn is going to be difficult because clothes swim on them pretty much until they get close to outgrowing them - which could make it pretty difficult for her to find something that is going to work all winter and allow the harness to fit properly.

Click to expand...

That's exactly my line of thinking for the "are you crazy?!" side of the argument. We don't get prolonged cold spells like you do, but we can get a few days of deep freeze (-30ish) I had suggested to her the EFTA, True Fit and Radian, and she has said she likes the look of the True Fit, so I think at least she's on the right track there. She's got two sisters with kids, I wonder if either of them has an infant seat she could borrow if she finds the convertible route is too awkward. :scratcheshead:

aisraeltax said:

my son was born in Jan... I popped him from the car seat to a pouch sling (hot sliing) or a Moby in teh first few months. im not sure how it would have worked i hadnt worn him all the time though.

Click to expand...

I've been thinking this too. In my mind, going straight to the convertible would be much more manageable if she were planning on wearing the baby, but I don't think she is.

Remote start is a lifesaver! We had one installed in our SUV, which we drove from AK to AZ when we moved. It came in very handy for the opposite extreme--it was 118 for an entire week after DD1 was born, and it was nice to be able to start the car from inside the apartment. By the time we got out to the car the A/C had done its job and it was a manageable temp. If she has a remote start she should be fine skipping the bucket. Of course, after baby comes she might realize how handy a bucket would be and go pick one up