Car seat safety!

For some reason I feel the need to blog this. I never really knew anything about carseat safety before i had Adrian but now after researching and learning i feel quite informed. I feel like everyone who has children or cares for them should know about the safe use of carseats!!! Too many times these days I see people driving around with infants in an infant carrier facing forward, or not buckled in right, toddlers and preschoolers either in the wrong type of carseats or not in one at all!!! It's quite scary some of the things I have seen as I am sure we all have seen. I know also that some people truly dont know that what they are doing isn't safe. That's also scary! I know when we were in Mexico, NO ONE used carseats...ugh! Adrian was in one if we were in our car but if we were in his mom's he wasn't. I was very scared everytime too. Next time I will make sure he is always in a car seat. Right now, Adrian is 38 lbs and in a carseat that will only harness to 40 lbs. So my options are
1. Put him in a booster(NO WAY he is too young)
2. Get him a higher weight harnessing carseat(YES YES YES)

I NEED to get him a higher weight harnessing carseat but right now I dont have the money for it. So i can ONLY hope that he doesn't gain those 2 pounds any time soon. I WILL NOT put him in a booster seat yet with only a seatbelt. He is only 3 years old it is NOT safe.

Current law in Missouri is "Missouri car seat safety laws require children under age four and under 40 pounds to ride in a federally approved child car seat that is appropriate for the child's age and size. Children ages 4 through 7 who weigh more than 40 pounds but less than 80 pounds or are not at least 4'9" tall must ride in an appropriate child car seat or booster seat."

Ok so to recap....it is wayyy safer to rearface as long as possible. Most carseats allow you to rearface til 30lbs or so. That would most likely be until your child is around age 2. It is also MUCH safer to keep your child harnessed for as long as possible. Different seats have different harnessing weights but there are some out there that go up to 80 lbs!!!! If i could buy a seat like that for Adrian I would.

I just ask that you think if your child's safety! Some if you may already know all of this and that is WONDERFUL but some may not and I feel it is very important for people to know!!!!

Here are some links!
http://www.kyledavidmiller.org/pages/home/index.htm (safety of extended harnessing)
http://www.car-safety.org/rearface.html (safety of staying rear facing)

Thanks for reading!