10 monthsSappy mom moment warning. My little girl is huge. I can't believe she will be 1 in 7 weeks. We pulled out the baby car seat so I could make a canopy cover for a friend and Ava started playing on the car seat. I thought it would be fun to put her in it again. We stopped using it in October. She is just at the point where she technically is too big for the seat. Probably be the last time we ever put her in it. Can't wait for the day we can use it again for another tiny newborn!

Big Girl Car Seat

After what feels like months of research, we finally picked out Ava's big girl car seat. I wanted a car seat that I could keep Ava rear facing in as long as possible. And since Ava is off the charts for height I went with this Radian car seat because it has the tallest rear facing capabilities and overall can be used till she is 53 inches forward facing :)

By law babies must be rear facing until they are at least 1 AND 20 pounds. Now the American Pediatrics Association wants to change this law to be till they are 2 years old at least. It always makes me sad to see kids who are front facing earlier than their first birthday. Its 5x safer for a child to be rear facing.

The first 2 things people always say to me when I bring up rear facing "but they are happier front facing" and "what about their legs"

I don't know about the happier part... hopefully if she only ever knows what its like to be rear facing she won't mind it until we turn her. And the legs thing makes me laugh. Kids sometimes stay rear facing till 4 or 5 and they just find places to fold or hang their legs. No big deal if you ask me.

Ok now that you probably think I am a crazy person (remember for a second, I was a Public Health Education major :) Here is Ava's new Radian 80 XTSL car seat!