Question Trying to make progress... any advice?

[starbuck8088]

Well, I wish I could say I was looking for advice on how to get parents to rear-face PAST one year...

In the last few days I've seen at least 3 infants under a year old (about 10 months old) forward facing at the daycare I work at. Thursday night I talked to a parent, and informed her of the 1 and 20 law here, and that her son would be much safer rear-facing. She said she did not know, and they would turn his carseat back around. But today when she came in, it hadn't been done.

I've talked to my Director and Assistant Director, and they are both on board with getting these kids turned back around. They've made copies of a paper that has the car seat laws for our state to send home, and I'm going to print out the "How long should children ride facing the back of the car?" from SafetyBeltSafe to send home also.

Other than this, what else is there that we can do? Any ideas on how to get these kids rear facing to AT LEAST a year, if not more?

 

[canadiangie]

What your daycare intends to do sounds great to me, and I'm not sure much else can be done. Parents make bad decisions on behalf of their children everyday -- even with all the information right in front of them.

I'm not sure involving the law would be a good idea, though it's is a possibility as clearly some of these parents are breaking the law. Just not sure how beneficial that would be, I guess.

If your daycare has an information board you could put a poster up stating the benefits of rf'ing. You could rotate through ERF, harnessing to at least 4 and 40lbs, and the the importance of boosters.

 

[CommMom]

Could you contact your local SafeKids and see about setting up a car seat check at your daycare?

The coalition I volunteer with sometimes schedules seat check events (and sometimes booster awareness as well) for daycares in the area who request it. It's really great because the event is at the end of the day when folks are picking kids up after work. Parents don't have to go anywhere or do anything special because the techs are right there outside the daycare.

 

[aja]

when i worked at a daycare (over 10 years ago) they had a carseat check there one afternoon/evening. it was the woman that came out to teach our cpr class. i don't remember many of the details, but my brother went to the daycare with me and i remember her talking to him about his booster and he took it very very seriously (he was 4).

 

[starbuck8088]

Thank you for the advice.

I'm not sure where our "local" SafeKids would be. We are in a small-ish town, and the nearest place that has seat checks is about an hour away. Someone from Iowa might be able to help me with this. Does it cost anything to organize a check like that? Because if it does, that might not be a possibility.

This is one of those times I REALLY wish I had my certification, so I could get more involved.

 

[CommMom]

I can't speak for everybody...but my understanding is that our check events are always free to schedule and attend. In my area, we do travel to other towns, etc.