Safe!?!?!!

[joolsplus3]

Takes time for people to unlearn bad habits... my Century seat was especially designed and marketed to clip onto the top of a cart (and I'm a typical BRU employee, imagine me talking to several generations of new moms how great it was... imagine me being every new grandma telling every new mom how great it was...see how long it's gonna take to dissipate?). Which was bad when it got stuck (in a mighty windstorm, with my baby in it...fun). Half the parents come into BRU complaining that Chiccos don't fit on the top of carts (they read it online), and maybe the other half know you shouldn't put them there anyway. Most balance them on carts and Baby Trenders clip them on, it's the most secure seat there is up there. Sigh.

 

[Baylor]

To me there is a real need for manufacturers to stop ignoring that people are going to do this and make a safe way for them to do it. It is going to happen, So why not make a cart that can safely hold the seat and leave room to shop.

 

[joolsplus3]

To me there is a real need for manufacturers to stop ignoring that people are going to do this and make a safe way for them to do it. It is going to happen, So why not make a cart that can safely hold the seat and leave room to shop.

Yeah, they really need to make a safer way to do it. I wish they'd get on it without having to be sued...


Anyway, I wish I could see a breakdown of really which children are injured in cart accidents (anyone have a good data-filled link?). I know my 20 hours a week at a baby store is only anecdotal, but I'd feel more confident telling people to take their infant seats off if they really are the kids at the highest risk. Plus, our 'don't sue us!' warning says to keep kids buckled into the seat, not let them ride in the basket itself, makes me think that toddlers in baskets are the largest injury/lawsuit risk to TRU/BRU, you know?

Not to be a devil's advocate...I DO tell parents that it's not recommended to plop seats on top, and with my last kid I never did that (no, she was balanced on various strollers and fell off of one of them once, but she was buckled and fine )

 

[Nimommyof2]

Scary I actually thought there was just a recent death in regards to this with a infant. Going to see if I can find the article, looks like it was actually January 2013 I obviously didn't see the date.

 

[Baylor]

Yeah, they really need to make a safer way to do it. I wish they'd get on it without having to be sued...


Anyway, I wish I could see a breakdown of really which children are injured in cart accidents (anyone have a good data-filled link?). I know my 20 hours a week at a baby store is only anecdotal, but I'd feel more confident telling people to take their infant seats off if they really are the kids at the highest risk. Plus, our 'don't sue us!' warning says to keep kids buckled into the seat, not let them ride in the basket itself, makes me think that toddlers in baskets are the largest injury/lawsuit risk to TRU/BRU, you know?

Not to be a devil's advocate...I DO tell parents that it's not recommended to plop seats on top, and with my last kid I never did that (no, she was balanced on various strollers and fell off of one of them once, but she was buckled and fine )

Especially in a baby store. You would think they know people are bringing babies.. lets make a better cart for Infant carriers.
I did it. I just never thought about it. I had no babies when I came here but before then I just never thought twice about it. It seems like it is supposed to go there..

 

[sarahlove]

Joolsplus3 here is just infant seats falling off cart injuries:
"If you do choose to keep your baby in his car seat, please be aware of the dangers of placing the car seat on top of a shopping cart. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, “It is more common than most people think for children to be hurt in shopping carts. These injuries can be severe or even deadly. Each year approximately 23,000 children are treated in hospital emergency departments for injuries from shopping carts. Most injuries are caused by falls from the cart or by the cart tipping over. Many injuries are to the head and neck.” From: http://m.pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/118/2/e545.full

 

[jjordan]

Joolsplus3 here is just infant seats falling off cart injuries:
"If you do choose to keep your baby in his car seat, please be aware of the dangers of placing the car seat on top of a shopping cart. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, “It is more common than most people think for children to be hurt in shopping carts. These injuries can be severe or even deadly. Each year approximately 23,000 children are treated in hospital emergency departments for injuries from shopping carts. Most injuries are caused by falls from the cart or by the cart tipping over. Many injuries are to the head and neck.” From: http://m.pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/118/2/e545.full

It looks to me like that is ALL child/cart injuries, not just babies in infant car seats falling?

 

[sarahlove]

It looks to me like that is ALL child/cart injuries, not just babies in infant car seats falling?

It is all accidents. The original text that was from was only about infant carriers so I assumed the number was infant carrier only not all incidents.

 

[YinzerMama]

It looks to me like that is ALL child/cart injuries, not just babies in infant car seats falling?

A kid hanging on the side of an empty or nearly empty cart will cause it to fall. Kids can stand up in the seat and fall. Etc. I agree there are a LOT of ways kids can be injured by shopping carts. Also a lot of parents will take their kid to the ER over any minor head bump so a huge number of those thousands of cases might not even be noteworthy. Treated does not mean something was actually wrong - it can just mean evaluated and released.

I feel like the risk of putting the bucket in the seat has been greatly hyped up and turned into a mommy war shaming point where people have lost the ability to think critically.

What are the risks?

1. The cart might tip over
2. The bucket might fall off

With regard to the cart tipping over, MOST carts in this day and age are heavy enough that putting a baby bucket centered in the seat is not going to create a tipping hazard. Can it happen? Yes. But usually it does not. Common sense should determine whether or not putting the bucket in the cart makes it top heavy - those tiny carts like at trader joes or drug stores absolutely should not have buckets placed in the seats (quite frankly I think they feel unstable even with kids sitting in the seats as intended)

With regard to the bucket falling off, I swear the old Graco buckets snapped in there like they were made to fit. I don't know if it was by design or by chance but the buckets evolved to where they no longer snap in. Were car seat makers trying to discourage the practice? Possibly. And carts have changed as well - some have really deep seats now, some have a hump that I suspect was placed there to keep you from putting the bucket there - but people still do it, and trying to make something NOT work that people are going to still do has probably led to an increase in injury rather than a decrease in use. I have seen buckets perched up high, sideways, to make it work and to me this is much more dangerous than a centered, secured bucket.

I have never seen people argue that travel systems are unsafe because they make the stroller top heavy and the stroller might tip - but it's really not that different in concept. The difference it that the two are designed to work together. There are cart and bucket combinations that do work together - it is becoming increasingly uncommon but back in the day if you stuck a basic graco bucket on your average grocery cart, I swear it felt absolutely stable. (Yep - I am a former bucket-on-cart putter onner and I never once felt my kids were unsafe, it's not because I didn't think but because I DID think. Does this particular situation feel solid and stable to me? If it did not, I didn't do it. Once I moved up to the snugride35 I did find the cart/seat combo didn't work so well. And I have done more than my share of baby wearing and stroller pushing and I still say putting the bucket in a seat is a very handy option to have)

I've never been able to get worked up about the bucket in the seat thing because I do not feel that it is inherantly unsafe, although I agree it IS unsafe in some situations. So why not design a system that is made to work in the majority of cases? Take a heavy, stable cart, and provide a properly centered dock that will securely hold the bucket. People don't put the bucket in the cart seat because they are stupid, they do it because it makes shopping with a baby a lot easier. Maybe you don't want to wake a sleeping baby, maybe your baby doesn't like to be worn, maybe you left your ergo at home, maybe you don't want the whole back of the car filled up with baby bucket so there is no room for groceries. Maybe you like the face to face contact with your baby that is far enough to really "talk" and admire each other vs. on top of each other like with baby wearing - why else are parent-facing strollers so popular? People do it every day in every store in the country and in MOST cases no harm comes of it.

Rather than offer safe "solutions" that aren't as easy for whatever reason, why not work on a way make it safer?

I think it looks like a really good idea.

 

[Keeyamah]

Except, there have been cases of the bucket falling off the cart the the baby strapped inside dying . So yeah, I never will put a bucket on top of the cart, assuming I have a third.

 

[YinzerMama]

Except, there have been cases of the bucket falling off the cart the the baby strapped inside dying . So yeah, I never will put a bucket on top of the cart, assuming I have a third.

Which is exactly why there should be a system that eliminates or nearly eliminates the risk of the bucket falling. It doesn't have to be a risky practice - but the way things are now, there isn't a cart/bucket system that is meant to work together universally.


eta - I don't think the design in the link in the original post looks like the end-all and be-all to such a creation - it looks pretty high to me - but I think it looks like a good first step. They need to make something where the bucket can sit lower in the cart but still provide room for groceries. With it up high like that you are more likely to run into something which is part of the reason I think carts tip over. It's a good idea but I think it needs work.

 

[katymyers]

Which is exactly why there should be a system that eliminates or nearly eliminates the risk of the bucket falling. It doesn't have to be a risky practice - but the way things are now, there isn't a cart/bucket system that is meant to work together universally. eta - I don't think the design in the link in the original post looks like the end-all and be-all to such a creation - it looks pretty high to me - but I think it looks like a good first step. They need to make something where the bucket can sit lower in the cart but still provide room for groceries. With it up high like that you are more likely to run into something which is part of the reason I think carts tip over. It's a good idea but I think it needs work.

I think the main problem is how can you possibly account for every single type of infant car seat on the market? You just can't, there really isn't a good way to make this safe. Believe me, I get the convenience argument. I have four kids under five, grocery trips are absolutely hellish for me. But I accomplish them without endangering the life of my children and if I can do it, anyone can.

 

[YinzerMama]

I think the main problem is how can you possibly account for every single type of infant car seat on the market? You just can't, there really isn't a good way to make this safe. Believe me, I get the convenience argument. I have four kids under five, grocery trips are absolutely hellish for me. But I accomplish them without endangering the life of my children and if I can do it, anyone can.

Well the undersides of them are pretty similar, in terms of overall shape. Something that cradles the whole thing and then secures it somehow isn't an unreasonable design. I don't think they could come up with a design that every single carrier would click into (which is part of the existing problem, many/most do NOT click into the seat of most carts) but if you had something that cradled the whole thing, it could work (like those things with the hammocks when you go out to eat)

The biggest obstacle I can see is if there is a bucket that can't be installed with a seatbelt, so that there wouldn't be anywhere for a strap to go. But even then, cradling sides and low in cart with a strap across the top would be better than what we have now.

 

[katymyers]

Well the undersides of them are pretty similar. Something that cradles the whole thing and then secures it somehow isn't an unreasonable design. I don't think they could come up with a design that every single carrier would click into (which is part of the existing problem, many/most do NOT click into the seat of most carts) but if you had something that cradled the whole thing, it could work. The biggest obstacle I can see is if there is a bucket that can't be installed with a seatbelt, so that there wouldn't be anywhere for a strap to go. But even then, cradling sides and low in cart with a strap across the top would be better than what we have now.

Well that's essentially what they've got with this Safe Dock thing, a cradle with a strap and I've already pointed out at least one seat it's incompatible with (my B Safe). I'm sure there's others.